Saturday night I watched the David Beckham make his appearance on EPSN during the Galaxy vs Chelsea match. The roar of the crowd announced his entrance to the game before the announcer had made the substitution officially. Beckham is being paid $50 million a year for the next five years. That's huge. That includes endorsements but still $50 million a year. So what is the point of paying one of the best European "Football" players that much money?
The MLS is hoping that in bringing in one of Europe's best, they can profit from the ticket sales and merchandise sales. They hope to increase the popularity of the sport to the levels of Football and Baseball.
History tells us that he will simply be a blip on the radar of American sports. As big a name as Beckham is world-wide, there is none bigger than Pele. The single most recognizable name in the history of soccer came to the United States to launch professional soccer into the public consciousness in the 1970s. In 1975, a 35 year old (Beckham is 32) Pele signed with the New York Cosmos and played out the final 3 years of his majestic and unparalleled career. The league drew as many as 73,000+ fans for the 1978 Championship game and during Pele's run, the Cosmos drew more than 40,000 fans per game. By 1984 the league was defunct, largely due to many of the other teams drawing less than 5,000 fans per game.
Many people do not realize that the MLS will be competing with the NHL and their recently increased efforts to improve their ratings. I believe that the MLS will soar above the NHL for a few years and then they will fall off the Earth, leaving the NHL ever slowly gaining popularity.
Sidney Crosby = David Beckham
Two new player in professional sports are becoming the faces of their sports. I'm sure their is a lot of controversy about who represents the NHL. Gretzky used to be. Sidney has been compared to Wayne time after time. Don't forget that Sidney had the top selling jersey in the NHL last year.
Beckham Reality TV
Well that is no fair. Fly over from Britain and walk onto the set of your own TV show. Victoria Beckham. The MLS is pouring money left and right to try and promote their sport. How about the NHL launches a reality show about hockey.
Have it be about a group of players that will try out for a spot on a professional hockey team or a farm team. Each week a player is cut and will have to take the "skate of shame" to the showers. I don't know. I'll guarantee there will be something like that in the future. NBC will come out with it and a week later FOX will have a better one.
Coming to America - Beckham
Returning to Russia - Yashin
2 comments:
I think the NBA issues could open the door for what little fan base that they have, especially since the seasons are basically the same.
The media blitz for Beckham is just completely over the top. Posh Beckham was supposed to have her own reality show with numerous episodes, but apparently it was so bad they cut it down to one. I do admit that there was nothing on on Saturday night and I flipped over to see his 13 minutes of game time. Comparable to watching the Devils - boring.
And as a Caps fan, I keep hoping against hope that Ovechkin (not Sid) will be the face of the sport - although he probably should avoid cheap shots on former Sabres to get that title. He doesn't quite have the talent that Sid does either. Man the Penguins are starting to look stacked.
Keep up the good work with the blog. Should be interesting to see how the Sabres bounce back after losing Drury and Briere. I think Drury hurts more than Briere personally but we'll see.
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