Stay with me, friends, and I will lead you to cultural trends before they hit the big time. Remember all that soccer blather from last month? It ain't just me...
Yes, even mainstream news outlets such as MSNBC carried front page stories today of soccer player/marketing icon David Beckham coming to ply his trade in the United States. And if US news organizations are merely taking note, their European counterparts are keeping the story in the sweet spot of the news cycle. Even the august Guardian still has the Beckham story on the front page of its website into early Friday morning in London. Why so much commotion?
It is the same old story: soccer has never really taken off in the US, depite the millions of Americans who have played it as children over the last 30 years. The powers that be in US soccer, in the two eras when soccer had a noticable professional presence in this country, have always sought to bring in the most recognizable foreign players. It is brand recognition, plain and simple. In the 1970's, the New York Cosmos became a white-hot ticket for a brief moment in time by bringing the legendary Pele. Not only did Pele draw the curious to his games, but he drew other past-their-prime international stars to the US as well (Franz Beckenbauer being the most prominent).
The MLS is trying to pull off a similar stunt with Beckham. Critics would argue, with justification, that Beckham is hardly the greatest player in the world, at least not at this stage of his career. Beckham, now 31, rarely plays for his current team, the former powerhouse Real Madrid, and was unceremoniously dumped from the English national team following the World Cup this summer. However, Beckham has the most precious commodity for this day and age: name recognition. His Q rating, as they say, is stratospheric. The fact that a reasonably successful movie named him in its title and involved a young player’s desire to play like him (the enjoyable “Bend It Like Beckham”) certainly helped widen his already wide fame. Most Americans pressed to name a soccer player, if they can name any at all, are likely to identify Pele, perhaps Mia Hamm, and Beckham. If the MLS had its pick of the one player in the world it could bring in to generate interest in its league, Beckham is the guy, without question.
The backlash has already begun in the close-knit locker room that is the American sports fraternity. One of the local sports radio guys, a former NFL player who has never met a generalization he couldn’t embrace, dismissed Beckham as the Anna Kournikova of soccer, referring to the tennis player known equally well for her looks as for her complete lack of professional accomplishments. On this point, sports radio jocks could not be more wrong. Beckham is a pretty boy, certainly, who indulges in all of the trappings of modern fame, and yes, he is married to a former Spice Girl. However, he also earned his fame on the soccer pitch. He played for ten years for arguably the most important English professional team, Manchester United, for whom he played a vital role in six league championships, two all-England championships, and one European championship. As the movie title suggests, his ability to move the ball in the air is legendary, and is the one area of his game that remains at the pinnacle of the sport. Without him, England likely would have been shut out entirely at this summer’s World Cup.
Beckham should bring immediate interest in LA Galaxy games. A lesser halo effect should result for the league as a whole as some of the spectators new to the sport stay interested. An unknown factor is whether he will draw other world-class players (such as the Brazilian superstar Ronaldo) to the MLS as well. It is unlikely that any foreign player at the top of his game will come here, but the fact that a US league is even a topic of conversation in the worldwide soccer community is a giant leap forward.
Ironically, the best American players are making their away out of the country with greater regularity. The English Premier League team Fulham signed Clint Dempsey this week, an exceptional young player just coming into his prime. He will join 13 other players in the Premiership, including two others at Fulham. Until MLS can be seen as a true premier league in its own right, the best players will always play outside this country. The excitement and attention wrought by bringing Beckham in, however, is a first step in that process.
One more thing: Beckham signed for $250,000,000. Yes, a quarter of a billion dollars, over five years. That figure is mostly endorsement money, and reflects the company-town structure of the MLS. Yet, the MLS views this deal as a moneymaker for itself, such is the marketing power than a huge name (think Tiger, Jordan) can weild.
If the Galaxy play a game at the Rose Bowl next season, we’ll be there.
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1 comment:
That whooshing sound you hear is soccer rushing past you into the American cultural mainstream.
Of course, American professional soccer's inevitable retreat to irrelevance will be much quieter.
And for the record, its 848 words. Nice try, though. Are you one of those people who wins the "guess the number of M&M's in the jar" contests at school fundraisers"?
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