So David Beckham has decided to make the leap to American soccer after a lack lustre year with Real Madrid. Good for him.
Beckham has been adamant that he is not crossing the pond just for the money, which frankly is a relief to me. When I heard he had signed a deal that could end up paying him a quarter of a billion dollars over five years, my initial thoughts centred on "that greedy bastard". However, Becks claims he wanted to make the move now when, at age 32, he is still at the top of his game. You see, he did not want to be one of those guys who wait until they are hitting 40 and then make the move for a huge payoff.
There has been a lot of talk in the media about the move, and I have no doubts that it will sell a lot of tickets in the short run. However, I can't really see how one man will be enough to interest a country that has been the United States of Ambivalence when it comes to the game of soccer. (I mean, they can't even call it by the name the rest of the world calls it - soccer.)
Personally, I think there is something sick about a deal that pays Beckham $10 million a season when the lowest paid players earn less than $20,000, but that is our modern capitalist system for you. The fact is that Beckham will earn something like five times as much as the rest of his team combined. If everyone else in the league is happy with this disparity so be it.
Some commentators have compared Beckham's move to LA with that of Wayne Gretzky years ago. I don't think that bodes well for the fate of soccer in the US. After all, Gretzky raised hockey's profile and became an A-list celebrity, but the National Hockey League never did get a decent network broadcast deal, a fact that has continued to hurt the league. When you consider that the soccer league basically consists of Beckham at one level and everyone else at another, it is even less likely that soccer's profile will be any higher than it was when Pele played for New York.
I hope I am wrong. I hope that soccer takes off and becomes a big deal in North America. But somehow, I just don't see it happening.
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2 comments:
good year
Cricket never caught on in the U.S., either. Know why? They are both bor-r-r-r-r-ing. Maybe if you could figure a way to crrate some more scoring -- like pro basketball did with the introduction of the shot clock --you may see less snore time from U.S. viewers about what you blokes call "football."
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