The Mane Land Presents: UpRoar

I’m very pleased to announce that The Mane Land has partnered with Orlando City fan Michael Booth, a local film and television producer to bring you UpRoar, the first in what we hope to be a series of video features. UpRoar is professionally shot on a single camera with our “studio segment” sort of loosely mimicking the style of ESPN’s Around the Horn, bringing you our takes on Orlando City SC.

We've been working on this show for about a month and a half, working around Michael's very busy schedule. Our own Austin David has spent more than 90 hours editing our raw footage, piecing together the features, adding graphics and music, and more. I really can't say enough about the job Austin has done with this in his spare time and if you enjoy this first installment of UpRoar you have Austin (and Michael Booth) to thank.

So, why should you click on the play button and watch?

Mane Land staffers Andrew Marcinko, Andrew Harrison and Austin David join me to talk about how Orlando City's preseason went and what our takeaways are entering the team's inaugural MLS season tomorrow. We feature how supporters groups The Ruckus and Iron Lion Firm are coming together at the Citrus Bowl this year to create "The Wall."

Also, Louisville City FC correspondent Jeff Milby joins us “via satellite” (i.e. Skype) to give us the 411 on Orlando’s USL affiliate, and we take a look at the great work being done by Kay Rawlins and the Orlando City Foundation. Finally, we talk a little bit about what the left side does (or should) look like and we make our predictions for tomorrow’s opener against New York City FC.

Here's how it went down:

0:00- We kick it off with a roundtable discussion of the back line, Kaká and Kevin Molino and other thoughts from preseason.

7:48- A look at how The Ruckus and Iron Lion Firm are coming together to form "The Wall."

10:54- We check in with our Louisville City FC correspondent Jeff Milby to get the latest from Kentucky.

18:40- How the Orlando City Foundation is helping the Central Florida community.

21:09- Brek Shea or Luke Boden at left back? Plus, our predictions for opening day.

To summarize, we tried to cover all aspects of the club: the players, fans, our USL affiliate and the club's work in the community.

We'd love to get your feedback on this first episode so that when we do more of these (knock on wood), we know where we can improve the show for you. You can leave that feedback in the comments section below.

Finally, as a website, we'd like to thank many who made this possible, including:

• Orlando City SC
• Kay Rawlins
• Orlando City Foundation
• Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer
• Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs
• The Ruckus
• Iron Lion Firm
• Louisville City FC
• Charleston Battery
• U.S. Soccer

We really couldn't be any happier with how this first episode turned out. Again, big thanks to Michael Booth and Austin David, and thanks to Andrew Harrison for providing our location for this first episode.

UpRoar is finally here. We hope to bring it back again soon. Enjoy.