Once every few generations, a star and a sport cross paths at just the right moment for the star to become an icon and a struggling league to become a power. It happened with Joe Namath and the AFL-NFL merger and with Julius Erving and the NBA; Wayne Gretsky came along just in time for the NHL. Major League Soccer can only hope history repeats itself.
A generation after Pele made the Cosmos a phenomenon, David Beckham said he’s considering joining the MetroStars whenever he leaves Real Madrid.
“Yeah, it’s a possibility,” said Beckham, who so loves New York that he named his first-born son Brooklyn. “There’s an opportunity to come to America, and I’m thinking about it, definitely. Playing in America does interest me a lot.”
It’s a case of opportunity intersecting with necessity. Beckham sees a chance to cultivate a lucrative-but-untapped market, while MLS needs a celebrity capable of elevating the profile of soccer. Beckham is probably the only soccer player on the planet who could do both.
“I truly believe it’s going to happen,” AEG President Tim Leiweke told The Post. AEG owns the Metros and L.A. Galaxy, and partnered with Beckham to open his youth academy in Carson, Calif. “He understands the magnitude of what he can do for the sport in this country. It would be even bigger than Pele, because the league is more stable.
“Pele carried the entire sport on his back,” Leiweke added. “David has pieces of the puzzle already in place. I think it’ll be the biggest impact of any player in any sport in the history of our country.”
The 30-year-old is under contract for two more years and opens extension talks this summer. But despite MLS’ past mistakes on aging, overpaid foreign stars, Beckham’s popularity transcends his play. The league has exceeded its $280,000 maximum salary before – and, even at a modest $1 million, Beckham would be poised to gain.
“We have 65 million people connected [by] soccer, but they’re not rabid yet,” MLS deputy commissioner Ivan Gazidis said this week. “Whoever is able to activate that massive fan base wins. If Beckham can help MLS do that, those are the marriages made in heaven. The impact … would be unimaginable; and not because of his playing ability, but because of what he means.”
Like Broadway Joe, Dr. J or Anna Kournikova, Beckham – No. 22 in Forbes’ Top 100 Celebrities – is more valuable as a marketer than a midfielder. Even his low points – such as his assistant, Rebecca Loos, alleging a torrid affair – make news, and he garnered more headlines than all but two people in the world last year, according to Forbes.
While Beckham has never won FIFA Player of the Year – Real teammates Zinadine Zidane, Ronaldo and Luis Figo have won seven of the last nine – his kits (packaged outfits with shirts, shorts and socks) represented more than half of the three million the club sold last year; the entire club sold just 900,000 the year before his arrival and Real’s marketing profits jumped $56.4 million in his debut season.
His $37.4 million in earnings last year topped all soccer players, according to France Football, but only $8.26 million was from salary and the rest from endorsements. Wife Victoria (Posh Spice) joined her husband last week in the States to plug her Rock&Republic jeans at Kitson in Beverly Hills, and he has a top-selling shoe line and $5.4 million deal with adidas.
“We see the U.S. as a crucial market. We’d then derive the benefit of him being here in the No. 1 market,” Simon Wright, adidas global brands manager, told the Post. The sportswear and shoe company has a $150 million deal to outfit MLS and certainly would benefit from his being here. “It’s really exciting what we’ve seen in the U.S. recently, and it’s given us an idea of what we can expect if he comes here.”
Beckham at a glance
Position: Right midfielder
Age: 30
Family: Wife, the former Victoria Adams (Posh Spice); sons Brooklyn, 6; Romeo, 2; and Cruz, 3 months.
For club: Played 13 years for Manchester United, winning six Premier League titles and one Champions League title, before being sold to Real Madrid for $41 million in July, 2003.
For country: Captain of English national team, played in 1998 and 2002 World Cups.
Where he partied in New York: Bungalow 8.
