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ESPN may have finally exhausted its full allotment of Barclays Premier League television broadcasting rights – they'll relinquish that hold to the NBC Sports Group in the fall – and the broadcasting behemoth may only have one more World Cup to televise before FOX Sports takes over in 2018, but that doesn't mean the Worldwide Leader is looking to get out of the soccer business anytime soon.

ESPN announced on Tuesday morning that the network will launch a brand new, highlights-driven soccer studio show called "ESPN FC" later this year, set to hit cable boxes on August 11. The 30-minute show, which will air Sunday through Friday each week, will be shown primarily on ESPN2 six days a week, with the Sunday edition spanning an hour. ESPN FC's daily scheduling has not yet been announced, but soccer fans around the United States will be hoping for a prime, mid-morning or early evening time slot.

ESPN recently rebranded its online soccer coverage with a change from the old ESPN Soccernet to the new ESPN FC iteration, and the broadcast side will focus primarily on the English Premier League, UEFA Champions League, Spain's La Liga, the US and Mexican national teams and, of course, Major League Soccer. 

Some of the regular contributors to ESPN's digital and television soccer coverage – and potential on-air personalities for ESPN FC – include the likes of Derek Rae, Tommy Smyth, Shaka Hislop, Gabriele Marcotti and Janus Michalik. ESPN also boasts a stable of MLS-centric commentators and analysts such as Adrian Healey and former MLS-ers Alexi Lalas and Taylor Twellman. With Premier League and World Cup rights going the way of other broadcasting companies, MLS could be in a position to move closer to the forefront of ESPN's soccer coverage, both on television and digitally.

ESPN and ESPN2 have been a longtime official television broadcast partner of Major League Soccer since the league's inaugural season in 1996. The current broadcast agreement between MLS and ESPN runs until the end of 2014, with the network carrying 20 2013 regular-season games.

Stay tuned for further news regarding ESPN FC in the coming weeks and months. Who would you like to see spearhead this new venture for ESPN?

UPDATE: SI.com's Grant Wahl on a potential time slot...

Hearing ESPN's daily soccer show starting in August will not be a wee-hours broadcast and will be shown at an easy-to-view time.

— Grant Wahl (@GrantWahl) May 14, 2013

We already know the British tabloids can be over the top and insensitive when it comes to issues they don't understand, but perhaps no one in the American soccer community knows that better than US national team and Everton goalkeeper Tim Howard.

The World Cup veteran and national team fixture since 2007 has gone from being called "disabled" and "retarded" by the British press when he moved to Manchester United in 2003 to something of a club legend and cult hero for current club Everton, all in the space of a decade.

Not only has Howard learned to cope with the Tourette's syndrome that accompanied him his entire life, but he's now raising awareness among children. The message? Tourette's hasn't defined Howard, and nor should it define them.

In the April-May issue of Neurology Now, Howard spoke at length about his life with Tourette's from his childhood struggles to life in the spotlight as a Manchester United and Everton star.

Said Howard of being a little boy with TS: “From the age of 9 to 15, it was just this chaos of different tics, and they were pretty strong. I would just begin to figure out how a tic worked with my body, and, bam, six months or a year later, a new tic would come.”

“On the field I wasn't Tim who had TS or Tim who had tics. I was Tim who scored goals or scored baskets or hit home runs.”

These days, Howard keep the goals out, but you can't help but admire him for pressing on and passing his message onto others with similar challenges.

Howard isn't the only professional athlete who thrived despite the sometimes nasty disorder. Former Major League Baseball player Jim Eisenreich had a 15-year career in the big leagues, while former NBA player Chris Jackson, who Howard himself cites as a role model in his early years with TS, was a first-round draft pick in 1990 and enjoyed a 15-year career in America, Europe and Asia.

In case you haven't heard, Sporting Kansas City ended the Houston Dynamo's 36-game home unbeaten streak with a 1-0 victory at BBVA Compass Stadium on Sunday night. The 73rd-minute goal, which came courtesy of Sporting KC defender Aurélien Collin, ended the Dynamo's MLS record streak that spanned 22 months of play in all competitions.

Immediately after the game, a clever little bug in the Sporting KC communications department took to Twitter to gloat about ending the Dynamo's reign of terror in H-Town.

Sorry about your streak @houstondynamo. It was fun while it lasted.

— Sporting Kansas City (@SportingKC) May 13, 2013

The "streak" also pertains, coincidentally, to a another streak of five matchups, dating back to September 10, 2011, the last time Sporting defeated the Dynamo. That particular stretch included a 2012 regular-season loss, two draws and a pair of playoff eliminations in back-to-back years at Sporting Park. Sporting did manage to defeat the Dynamo, 1-0, in the second leg of the 2012 Eastern Conference semifinals, but were knocked out 2-1 on aggregate.

Houston, however, had the last Twitter laugh of the night, just as they did in the 2011 and 2012 playoffs.

@sportingkc Heh. #ForeverOrange twitter.com/HoustonDynamo/…

— HoustonDynamo (@HoustonDynamo) May 13, 2013

Sometimes, supporters groups' tifo displays are designed to look really cool, to recognize a player's career-long contributions to the club or even to intimidate that day's opponent with a massive pregame display that covers the entire end of a 70,000-seat stadium.

And other times, the displays transcend the sport of soccer altogether, making a statement about life in general.

On the same day a match in Italy – one that happened to involve United States national team midfielder Michael Bradley's club team, AS Roma – had to be momentarily halted because of racist chants aimed at opposing AC Milan players, the Timbers Army chose to spend their Sunday afternoon taking a stand against another sensitive social issue in the sports world: homophobia. The 5,000-person section used roughly 4,500 colored cards to create the display, according to Timbers Army 107 Independent Supporters Trust board member Abram Goldman-Armstrong in an e-mail exchange with MLSsoccer.com on Monday.

READ: Robbie Rogers' revelation opens doors, but also leaves questions

The display spanned six sections at JELD-WEN Field and featured a banner in the center reading simply "Pride, Not Prejudice." The Timbers went on to put three goals past the Chivas USA defense, picking up yet another impressive home victory to extend their unbeaten run to nine games.

The anti-homophobia tifo from @timbersarmy was brilliant. Any video capturing it from yesterday? twitpic.com/cqbztb

— Eric Beard (@BeardEric) May 13, 2013

It just so happens you can check out video of the Timbers Army tifo here and here. This is what the organization itself had to say:

"The Timbers Army has had a 'zero-tolerance for intolerance' policy since its inception in 2001,'" Goldman-Armstrong told MLSsoccer.com. "Our display in honor of the International Day Against Homophobia demonstrates our commitment to making certain all people are welcome at the beautiful game, on the pitch and off of it.

READ: Gordon will use aftermath of homophobic slur incident "for the good"

"As the language San Jose's Alan Gordon used to attack captain Will Johnson shows, homophobia is still a real issue in North American sports. As supporters, we must do our best to show that there is no room for such bigotry in our sport. Sunday's display is an indication of that sentiment."

The Timbers Army will be the first of many independent supporters groups across MLS to lend their support to the "Pride, Not Prejudice" cause this week, as many groups have agreed to unveil their own unique stands against homophobia prior to their club's home game that falls closest to the 2013 International Day Against Homophobia on May 17.