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David Beckham
comes to America
by Tommy Mack.
Unless you've been under a rock looking for WMD's,
you've probably noticed that the world's most
popular athlete, David Beckham, is coming to
play in the US for my local team, the LA Galaxy. Now,
I'm no average soccer fan, mind you, but a proud
part of the Los Angeles Riot Squad; the baddest,
craziest, drunkest motherfucking group of soccer
supporters around.
Pleased to meet ya! So it's with these credentials
that Bart came to me for my opinion and to give
insighton what this all means for American soccer,
the media, and whether Tally and I can invite
Posh Spice for a threesome.
First off, don't get fooled by the $250m-over-five-year
price tag - it's not. His salary is only $9m
a year from the soccer team and the rest of the
loot is from endorsement packages. Let's figure how
this is different from the North American Soccer
League (NASL) in the 70's when Pele (arguably the
worlds greatest player) came over to play for
the New York Cosmos and was supposed to "change
soccer in America".
The NASL was created to bring professional soccer
to America even though we had no infrastructure for it.
For instance, most of the players were from other
countries with many being overpaid foreign superstars in the
extreme twilight of their careers. It worked
for a bit as anyone who remembers going to those games can
remember. The buzz was huge, Quincy
Jones did an episode on it, and SNL mocked Pele's "Soccer has
been berry berry good to me." Unfortunately,
once all the "superstars" retired, nobody cared and the league
folded in the early 80s.
Fast forward a few years and the world governing
body of soccer, FIFA, wanted to give the United States
the 1994 World Cup… but on one condition: we
had to start our own professional league… again.
Well, this time it would be different. This
time it would be based on developing young American players
from the ground up. And this time, it would
be frugal. How frugal? The salary cap in Major League
Soccer (MLS) for a whole team is $2.1m with the
league max salary for one player of just $250k.
This is how to keep costs down and ensure that
the league can survive. After 10 years, the league on
a whole is on it's way to profitability and things
are looking great as 7 of the 13 teams now play in their
own stadiums with revenue streams to match.
But something happened in those 10 years and more
talented foreigners started playing in MLS.
Central America, Europe, Korea… many footballers
saw MLS as an easy way to kickstart or extend
their careers. It's quite simple to become
a Big Fish in MLS's little pond. Of course, many also admit
the obvious: they want to live in America.
Which brings us to Beckham. How can he even
make $9m a year against league rules? A few years ago,
MLS started to have a problem. It would
find these talented kids, nurture them into world class athletes,
then lose them to Europe where the pay was much
greater. This kept the overall quality of soccer in
America at a lower level for the fans who could
turn on Fox Soccer Channel and see the best teams
elsewhere else in the world live. Thus
the league bent a few rules for something called "marquee"
players; one of which every team could have.
Still, even the highest paid player, LA Galaxy's
Landon Donovan, makes only $900k annually.
Enter Beckham. Most of you know nothing
about world soccer, but you've heard of David Beckham.
He's not even the best player in the world (that
would be Ronaldinho from Brazil who plays for Barcelona,
though Tally claims this honor should go to the
recently retired Headbuttmeister: Zidane), but you've heard
of David Beckham. In fact, 75% of Americans
could probably only name two soccer players in history:
Pele and Beckham. If you personally know
a few more, consider yourself enlightened. For everyone else,
it's exactly why he's coming over here.
The press is trying to come up with all sorts
of sport analogies like Michael Jordon coming to play for your
high school basketball team. Or it's Tiger
Woods, Troy Aichman, Jeff Gordon, Babe Ruth, and Lance
Armstrong all rolled into one… but married to
a Spice Girl. You see, we could bring over a better player…
we just couldn't bring over a bigger sport celebrity.
Don't get me wrong, Beckham's still lightyears ahead
of just about anyone in MLS, he's deadly sharp
on freekicks, and he would be an astronomical addition to
any team. But he's being hired by the league
because….
Over 4000 new LA season tickets sold in 48 hours
(in addition to the 14K already in place). We got more
free publicity than David Koresh. LA Galaxy
jersey sales in Asia increased 28347846%. There will be
sold out stadiums league-wide on LA's away games.
and people who would never care to see a live
soccer game, suddenly do. Nevermind the
fact that all of our ticket prices went up 20% and huge sections
of the stadium will be swallowed up by Hollywood
luminaries like Tom Cruise and Ewan Mecgregor.
How do you measure that? Easy: $9m a year.
Now, why would he stoop so low as to go to MLS?
In his own words "I am proud to have played for
two of the biggest clubs in football and I look
forward to the new challenge of growing the world's most
popular game in a country that is as passionate
about its sport as my own. Soccer in America is the
biggest played sport up to a certain age. That's
where I want to take it, soccer to another level. Soccer
is huge all around the world except in America
and that's where I want to make a difference with the kids,"
Yeah, that's all nice and all, and he does have
the Deavide Beckham Soccer Academy here in LA.
However, let's look at it this way: he really
did play for two of the biggest clubs in the world: Manchester
United and Real Madrid. Where do you go
from the top? Well, instead of going back down to a lesser
team in London or somewhere in Italy, you go
where you are not only the biggest fish in the pond, but you
reshape the pond into your image. In America,
we don't have "Beckham fatigue" like they do in England.
That means a slew of sponsors and endorsements
in this untapped marketing empire.
To extend the celebrity brand to new shores!
To truly take on an impressive new challenge!
Aww… who are we kidding? Victoria (Posh
Spice) Beckham made it clear she wants
to live in LA and pursue the glamorous Hollywood
lifestyle of swimmin' pools, movie stars!
And thus we know the reason that soccer will be
transformed in this country: because of a woman!!