good for Beckham, but not for sport?

[Dick Knights Mumm]

I heard on the radio that LA Galaxy had sold 1000 extra season tickets yesterday:

well that will probably pay a day or two.

 

[NS Herald]

I However ................

........... the emperor is not wearing any clothes .........

Pretty close to the mark really. History should remember him as NOT as a great footballer but someone with GREAT PR and marketing.

IMO I've lost respect as he's bottled it now after a failed 4 years at Real when he should have been at his peak and now he's opted for the soft (albeit incredibly wealthy) option of a US twilight.

Good luck but I won't miss him

 

[Nemesis]

Pretty close to the mark really. History should remember him as NOT as a great footballer but someone with GREAT PR and marketing.

IMO I've lost respect as he's bottled it now after a failed 4 years at Real when he should have been at his peak and now he's opted for the soft (albeit incredibly wealthy) option of a US twilight.

I'm sure the $50,000,000 a year will take the edge of his disappointment at being a failure at Real Madrid and your loss of respect

 

[Billy the Fish]

IMO I've lost respect as he's bottled it now after a failed 4 years at Real when he should have been at his peak and now he's opted for the soft (albeit incredibly wealthy) option of a US twilight

Yet another person who doesn't watch spanish football. He has been one of the better players in a poor Real side.

 

[Simster]

Pretty close to the mark really. History should remember him as NOT as a great footballer but someone with GREAT PR and marketing.

I think you're re-writing history there. He was outstanding for a long, long time - he carried England time and time again. He was pivotal in a team that won the treble - something that even the all-conquering Liverpool of the 70s and 80s couldn't manage. I'll never forget David Beckham v Greece, or the CHARACTER he showed to dispell his Argentina demons with an awesome performance against them in 2002 culminating in him drilling home the winning penalty. Or the countless free kicks he has scored. Or the fact that some highly repected managers are still saying he is the best deliverer of a dead ball in the world.

Beckham at his best would have walked into any side in the world - including Brazil (if he had been Brazilian).

He will leave Real and they still won't win anything for another couple of years. It's not his fault that the team he joined was a team of aging egos.

He was a great player. He's still a very good player.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Pretty close to the mark really. History should remember him as NOT as a great footballer but someone with GREAT PR and marketing.

IMO I've lost respect as he's bottled it now after a failed 4 years at Real when he should have been at his peak and now he's opted for the soft (albeit incredibly wealthy) option of a US twilight.

Good luck but I won't miss him

Why can history not remember him AS a great footballer who was also great at PR, etc.?

Why does taking the best deal avaiable to him, and the best option for him and his family, constitute 'bottling it'. Its common sense, and he'd be an idiot to do anything else frankly.

Why should he choose anything other than the best option? To please you? To please Britain's tabloid editors? Bollocks.

 

[Gritt23]

Not only am I absolutely astonished by the weekly wage - as has already been said, I wonder how far ahead that was of his next best offer? Must be quadruple, I'd say - but for it to be a 5 year deal is absolutely non-sensicle.

I could just about understand it if he was going there now, for 18 months. the interest he will generate will be huge. Face on every billboard, the advertisers will all be clamouring for him, the shirt sales, the tv rights to the games etc .... but I can see that being sustainable in years 3,4 and 5 of that contract.

Week in, week out the interest over here in him waned when he went to Spain, and it was re-ignited whenever Madrid played an English side in the Champions League or an England game was coming up. Neither of those will exist now, so after the initial burst of interest from us, I can't see there being much marketability of LA Galaxy a couple of years down the line.

Europe and the Far East, yep, he's massive throughout both, but surely that's largely because he was one of the best footballers around, and was playing for one of the most glamourous clubs in a league that is in the top 3 as far as high profile, Worldwide coverage goes - and that all applies to Madrid as much as Man Utd. Again, all of that has gone. Short-term interest yep, but I can see it lasting.

The first few games, I'll tune it if it's on Sky, but it won't be any more than a vaguely interesting side show. As far as I can see he will only be a news story in America once the initial burst of publicity is over, and do they have the interest in soccer, and a soccer player who ONLY plays in their league, for this to last? I can't see it.

America adore their top sportsmen, but only really when they can bill them as the "BEST in the World". That's why the interest is in sports that they clearly dominate. The exception being Ice Hockey, and that does generally come a poor 4th to NBA, NFL and MLB for that very reason.

I just can't see how the numbers will stack up over 5 years!

 

[Juan Albion]

Some of you seem to be under the impression that he is being paid all that to play. He is not - as someone said earlier, most of this covers image rights etc. which he is already collecting from sponsors. I think they said that about $100mil of it (still obscene) is actually for playing football but don't quote me on that.

 

[Simster]

Some of you seem to be under the impression that he is being paid all that to play. He is not - as someone said earlier, most of this covers image rights etc. which he is already collecting from sponsors. I think they said that about $100mil of it (still obscene) is actually for playing football but don't quote me on that.

Spot on. Rough calculations seem to suggest that MLS have handed him about 80% of the image rights. But lets face it, how many LA Galaxy shirts were expected to be sold in China before yesterday? 100% of bugger all is bugger all. 20% of profits of 500,000 LA Galaxy shirts is considerably more. It's good business sense for all concerned.

 

[Gritt23]

Some of you seem to be under the impression that he is being paid all that to play. He is not - as someone said earlier, most of this covers image rights etc. which he is already collecting from sponsors. I think they said that about $100mil of it (still obscene) is actually for playing football but don't quote me on that.

I think most of us realise that, but just how lucrative are these contracts going to be a couple of years down the line, when he hasn't been playing top class football for club or country. As the big fish in the big pool at Madrid and ManUre, while being England capt, yes of course his image rights are a fortune, but as the big fish in a small pool, that drops off massively.

The rest of the World will move on and leave him behind. A new media darling will come forward. Good looking, talented, exciting to watch, and at a big name club .... and suddenly Beckham is old news, and the advertisers will leave him quicker than you can say overvalued contract.

To bank on that NOT happening over the course of FIVE YEARS just seems a phenomenal risk, and one I simply cannot see paying off for LA Galaxy or the MLS.

 

[Gritt23]

Spot on. Rough calculations seem to suggest that MLS have handed him about 80% of the image rights. But lets face it, how many LA Galaxy shirts were expected to be sold in China before yesterday? 100% of bugger all is bugger all. 20% of profits of 500,000 LA Galaxy shirts is considerably more. It's good business sense for all concerned.

But they would have sold that many if it had been an 18 month contract. As I say, I could almost understand it if it was a short-term deal, but the interest will simply not be sustainable.

I'll bounce this thread in 3 years time, when he has played no part in 3 lots of Champions Leagues, 3 lots of top class seasons in Europe, a European Championship, and a World Cup. So many players would have come through everyone's awareness that he will be miles down the list for the advertisers, and that's if he hasn't just thrown it all in and quit the game by then.

Short-term it makes some sense, 5 years is MADNESS!!!

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

You may be right Simster - but let's look two years in - he will be 34, he may still be playing in front of half-empty stadiums and with media attention elsewhere it may all look very different from signing day.

And wait till the sponsors realise that he is not actually a striker.

 

[Juan Albion]

I think most of us realise that, but just how lucrative are these contracts going to be a couple of years down the line, when he hasn't been playing top class football for club or country. As the big fish in the big pool at Madrid and ManUre, while being England capt, yes of course his image rights are a fortune, but as the big fish in a small pool, that drops off massively.

I think you completely underestimate the LA scene. It isn't about how well you play football, it is about being a recognisable face.

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

I think you completely underestimate the LA scene. It isn't about how well you play football, it is about being a recognisable face.

is that like a made-up man ?

 

[Simster]

You may be right Simster - but let's look two years in - he will be 34, he may still be playing in front of half-empty stadiums and with media attention elsewhere it may all look very different from signing day.

And wait till the sponsors realise that he is not actually a striker.

Well I think we might agree on the fact that this is the point of no return for MLS. But its worth noting that Freddy Adu put 2,000 on the average gate wherever he played for 2 years running. He's the young kid Man Utd have recently rejected at a trial.

I think there will need to be others following him, to sustain interest; and then you've got shot in the arm that is the World Cup (if the USA qualify). To be honest, if they're going to take the risk, I think the Beckham signing couldn't have been more perfectly timed.

 

[Meade's Ball]

I can certainly say that he played some good football in the Man U team i despised for all those years, and works hard constantly in training and repeating his soulless monologues to news cameras and Just17 journalists. But i can not remember a single word he has ever had the mouth to say, nor a run of games he has dominated. Yes, he is a very good player, and has hired some extremely professional profiteering advisers to lead him to a world of mighty wealth and personal betterment for the sake of his mostly inoffensive face.
It's quite possible, and likely, that i am a very bitter man, but his pockets and his regular somersaulting dives are the things that will stay with me, alongside the fact he sold the most precious, personal day of his life to Heat/Hello/Goodbye/Divorce.
Publicly, he, for me, is one of the dumbest robots i have had the displeasure of seeing moments of, or spotting on the front of unhygenic tabloids since Lady Di McDie Jan Dildo died.

That's something i think.

 

[Titanic]

That's something, i think.

You are absolutely right - that IS something! I'm not particularly proud of it, but I hold a pretty similar view on our celebrity culture

 

[blue'n'white]

You can't blame him for taking all the money he can get.
Anybody would do that
However "soccer" is still not the sport of choice for most Yanks and I doubt it ever will be.
If Pele couldn't do it Backham's got zero chance

 

[Meade's Ball]

You are absolutely right - that IS something! I'm not particularly proud of it, but I hold a pretty similar view on our celebrity culture

I of course feel similarly about Tom Cruise, and only feel happy when his projects fail and beautiful women think he's a holy cultish cocker, and think of a me-alike instead.

 

[NS Herald]

Who would most people prefer in their team (on footballing grounds) Beckham or Ronaldo?

Of course Beckham is a 'good' footballer but he's never been great. A LOT of what he's done is media hyped and therin 'lies' his success.

Great work if you can get it.....