Beckham: Me Parsing the Deal...and some strong counter-arguments

I spent the past day condensing all my thoughts on the Beckham trade into one article. The good people at Write On Sports justed posted that a bit ago.

I titled it the David Beckham: $250 Million Lure mainly because I'm not totally sold on the "Beckham-as-ambassador" side of this deal; put another way, I count myself a firm believer in American's collective resistance to soccer as a spectator sport. And, again, I'm dying to be proved wrong.

A second concern I raise in there is how current MLS players - especially the ones on a low side of the five-digit pay range - will take to a guy earning between $8 and $10 million for playing alone.

ESPN's Jen Chang, who seems to own this story, touched on this last point toward the very, very bottom of a very, very helpful article that explains the financial side of Beckham's deal. Here's that particular passage:

"'The league will continue to operate on a sensible stage,' said Jon Oram of Proskauer Rose, one of the two lawyers who worked on the Beckham contract. Mention the possibility of player unrest and any potential labor dispute as a result of Beckham's salary, and it's something the league has already taken into account."

"'Our labor lawyers have consulted with MLS, and [Beckham's contract] has been thoroughly vetted in that respect,' said Brad Ruskin, who also worked on the deal."


I certainly hope that's true; Beckham's knees, ankles, and, therefore, his marketability and general usefulness to MLS, hinge on this. From where I sit, MLS looks like a hell of a tough league; moreover, it is, um, "loosely" officiated at times - which is to say not usefully officiated at all. I'm not guaranteeing Beckham is going to go against a defender who stuffs one foot up his ass and commences kicking the rest of his ass with the other foot, but I wouldn't be shocked if it happened. Disappointed and concerned? Yep. But not shocked.

But Chang's opus of this media spasm comes with a big wrap piece he compiled for ESPN titled Beckham singing a no-brainer. This one is kind of a grab-all, but the one passage I'd like to highlight looks at a way those betting up to $250 million on Beckham can recoup their investment:

"In Asia, most soccer fans follow individual players, not teams, and Beckham remains the most revered, deservedly or not. You're talking about a player who is literally worshipped in countries such as Japan and Thailand...You're now likely to see Galaxy shirts worn throughout Asia and even the potential of selling broadcast rights to MLS games featuring Beckham to countries such as China and Japan."


Ah....the Asian market...I'll just admit Chang's thinking about this on a far deeper level and leave it there.

One last point, in what I hope will be my final post on Beckham-mania for a while: for the record, dubious as I am on what Beckham will bring as a player and how much he'll help the sport in the States, I've certainly got nothing against Beckham as a player - at least not beyond thinking he's somewhat limited, anyway. More to the point, I do think he's making this move for the reasons he claims; sure there's the money, but I think he's also sincerely wanting "a new challenge."

No one has expressed this part of the equation as well as Marc Connolly, who touched on the "human side" in his column for MLSnet.com. I think this excerpt nails it:

"But he doesn't have a starting role on Real Madrid and he doesn't have a place in the England national team. By coming to MLS, he assures himself a chance to play the game he loves, knowing full well that one or two other internationals won't be brought in specifically to beat him out for his position the way it has been at Real Madrid as of late. He also won't be the whipping boy when things go wrong, as was the case in England for a long time."


Well, I find everything in there plausible except the "whipping boy" bit; I suspect die-hard fans will rip him something painful if he flops. But, for the rest, this gets the guy playing the game again - something, Connolly correctly points out, he hasn't been able to do so much lately.

OK, I'm done. Now let's never speak of this again....

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