A Soccer Star Heads to U.S., Heeding Lure of Hollywood

David Beckham's marketing caché sometimes overshadows his soccer talents.



Beckham will make the move from Real Madrid, the most glamorous team in Europe, and the United States’ top professional soccer league will try to cash in on his celebrity appeal — and perhaps that of his wife, Victoria, the former Posh Spice of the Spice Girls pop group.

The Los Angeles Galaxy announced the move yesterday, saying that Beckham would make $250 million over the five years of his deal, including endorsement income; the team did not release his actual salary from the club. Beckham will join the Galaxy after his contract with Real Madrid expires on June 30, coming to a league that has struggled for 11 years to gain prominence on the American sports landscape.

For Beckham, whose time as a world-class midfielder has passed, the move may be a savvy exit strategy from the intense European soccer spotlight. The British news media, ever eager to pounce on weakness, have been particularly savage about Posh and Becks, as they are called in Britain, since his meager performance as England’s captain in the World Cup last summer.

Although at 31 he is a step or more behind the world’s elite players, he still has a deft right foot that serves him especially well on free kicks and crosses. That, coupled with his celebrity, may be enough to capture the attention of sports fans in the United States — even if some of them know his name only from “Bend It Like Beckham,” a 2002 film whose title played on his pop-icon status.

“We want people around the water cooler talking about M.L.S.,” Don Garber, the league’s commissioner, said. “But David Beckham is not going to bring soccer to the next level in this country. It’s going to take a lot of things, but I hope his arrival will be an important step.”

The move had been long rumored. Beckham and his wife opened a soccer academy in 2005 at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif., which is also the Galaxy’s home stadium. The M.L.S. board of governors voted in November to relax salary restrictions and allow each team to sign one player for any amount. The rule became widely known as the Beckham Rule.

“David Beckham wouldn’t make that kind of money in Europe,” Bill Girdner, 56, a soccer fan, said yesterday at Lucky Baldwin’s English Pub in Pasadena, Calif.

“The other thing is jerseys is the way teams make a lot of money these days,” he said of the potential marketing windfall Beckham brings.

Beckham emerged as an international sports star in the 1990s during his tenure with Manchester United of England’s Premier League. As long as he kicked the ball into the net with that golden right foot, his fans could forgive his excesses: the outfits that ranged from sarongs to leather suits to store-ripped designer jeans and shirts open to the waist; the smirking ads for razorblades, sunglasses and perfume; the sulking and occasional histrionics; the fancy parties and A-list friends.

Beckham left Manchester United for Real Madrid in the summer of 2003, and he and a cast of world-class teammates have failed to win a major title. He played lackadaisically for England in last year’s World Cup, at one point throwing up on the field. Everything fell apart during a quarterfinal match against Portugal. He injured his leg, limped off the field and promptly burst into tears.

But Beckham remains an A-list celebrity with a long list of endorsements who attracts publicity simply by flashing his famous smile. He can spawn tabloid headlines by changing his hairstyle. His wife commands the same treatment, and, in Hollywood, she may see a chance to revive her singing career.

After the couple befriended Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, they caused a stir when Victoria Beckham attended the TomKat wedding alone. Real Madrid refused to let Beckham skip a game for it, then he spent that game on the bench.

Beckham said in a statement yesterday that the move stemmed in part from his desire to help raise the profile of soccer in the United States.

“There are so many great sports in America,” he said. “There are so many kids that play baseball, American football, basketball. But soccer is huge all around the world apart from America, so that’s where I want to make a difference with the kids.”

The move brought back memories of the North American Soccer League of the 1970s. The Cosmos signed Pelé, Giorgio Chinaglia and Franz Beckenbauer and jolted the sport into America’s consciousness for a few glory years. But the league went bankrupt, and the sport has failed to achieve the relevance it enjoys in so many other countries.

“The real growth of the other professional sports leagues came with the rise of its stars,” said Derek Aframe, vice president of Octagon sports who works with soccer marketing and is a former vice president of the New England Revolution of M.L.S. “Who do kids playing those sports dream of being? In basketball, it was Michael Jordan and now LeBron James. Soccer has never had that. Now, kids will have Beckham.”

Norm Samnick, then vice president of the company that owned the Cosmos, Warner Communications, said the problem was that all the stars played for one team.

“When we signed Pelé, he was the biggest name in the world,” Samnick said. “But once Pelé and the others were gone, there was nothing left. We had no other players.

“I’d like to think Beckham will be the answer now, but I just don’t see it.”

Garber said M.L.S. has learned the lessons of the N.A.S.L. He said the league spent the past several years strengthening its franchises, with an emphasis on committed owners and new stadiums. The league has added three teams, has six new owners and four new stadiums in the past two years.

“We needed a strong foundation as a sport to attract players like Beckham to play here,” Garber said.

Arsène Wenger, who as manager of Arsenal in the Premier League faced Beckham regularly when he played for Manchester United, said: “From a football standpoint, he’s not dead. He can still play at a high level, and I think he’s made a good decision.”

The merits of the decision — for Beckham and M.L.S. — will be judged by a worldwide audience, beginning this summer.

NYTimes

I'm surprised, That's a big change for him. Forwardone, how do you think the Americans will react to this?

trueblu Wrote:I'm surprised, That's a big change for him. Forwardone, how do you think the Americans will react to this?

Well, trueblu, he says he wants to try to get football, or socccer as it`s known in the US, on the map more. He isn`t the player he once was, and Real Madrid were using him in substitute roles, so I can understand him wanting to move on.

In the US he`ll be a smash hit I`m sure. He is actually quite well known over there, one of the very few footballers who is. Remember though that the club he`ll be playing for will hope to get some of their money back on such things as higher match attendances, and in particular the merchandising of Beckham.

trueblu Wrote:I'm surprised, That's a big change for him. Forwardone, how do you think the Americans will react to this?

I think it's ridiculous. He know's he likes it better on Ma. United. He's just in it for the money.