Becham to LA for $250 mil

[ChristianTroy]

actually i think it could be great for the the MLS.

I dont think he has ever lost his glory, only in England were people are rubbish with their heroes. He was still the most effective player at the WC. The girl loves him, the media gives him the attention he seems to need and after all he is an absolutely fine and fair sportsman who is always polite and analytical correct in his interviews even when his team has lost!

 

I like Becks for many reasons, mostly because nobody can cross a ball so precise than him!

[Mekong]

I wish I had written this ....

 

 

 

 

...I've seen the future.

 

I can see his debut now. A packed Home Improvement (or whatever) stadium full of big foam hands, banners and those caps that hold two cans of Bud that are naff (but everyone secretly wishes they had one), a fly past from a squadron of F-18's from the Top Gun Aviation school in California and the Rolling Stones wheeled out for a 15 minute gig with Mick wearing a Galaxy shirt with Beckham on the back shouting he loves LA and changing some lyrics to include Becks.

 

Then the teams appear, except that Galaxy have only got 10 men. Becks is missing. People gasp, the crowd goes silent. Then that annoying music that they play during basketball games starts playing and there's a speck in the sky. Is it a bird?, is it a plane? No, it's Dave Beckham on a mobile jetpack flying in like the guy at the 84 Olympics opening ceremony. He does a couple of loop the loops and lands to the intro of Springsteen's "Born in the USA". The crowd go wild.

 

Then his new best mate Tom Cruise walks on with a pair of gold football boots that Adidas have created specially for this occasion and presents them to Dave. The Cruiser will then retake his seat next to Posh, P Diddy, Brad and Angelina, Robbie Williams, Rod Stewart and Gary Neville.

 

Dave will then take a ceremonial free kick from 30 yards over a wall that is the Jackson 5 (Michael in the middle) and the ball will magically curl up and over the Jackson 5 and into the top corner. Then the goal will split in half like in the opening ceremony for USA 94. Then James Brown's "Living in America" will boom over the loudspeaker.

 

When everyone and everything has left the pitch, it's game time. Dave will take an early heavy touch resulting in a Columbus Crew midfield hardman two footing him and forcing him to be stretchered off on a hover board. Boos ring out, the crowd leaves.

 

Soccer in America is over.

 

Source

[JannikOJ]

 

Beckham has his own fragrance and brings a stylist to work on him at halftime. Him moving to Hollywood is classic. Ill bet he´s Scientology within a year. Look out for his sorry ass in Pirates of the Caribbean 4. What the whole world needs right now is another gay pirate!

 

[OCgringo]

I think they will need to enlarge the Limo parking area

 

But I really doubt its going to make "Futbal" a sport that Gringos and Blacks follow ,

 

It will be intereting to see what box office power he has in year 3-4 after the glow is gone !

 

OC

[chuckwoww]

Vend it like Beckham.

[Steve]

I've had this 'state of soccer in america' discussion more than a few times with guys at the pub here after watching a game.

 

Becks to US is a good thing for him and the MLS. Edgar Davids is on his way here as well. The MLS avoided the now defunct NASL model of bringing in famous..but aging stars to bolster the league. Now they are incorporating that as well. Its a good thing.

 

The problem of soccer in america is this. In the rest of the world its the sport of the masses. The sport of the poor and working classes. However, in America its the sport of middle class suburban kids, mostly white and mostly by girls. It has no respect with the nation as a whole. The top 3 sports in America (football, basketball and baseball) are played by the masses, the working and poor classes. It also has the most money so the best athletes go there. Until soccer takes a toe hold with the athletes that are playing the top 3 sports it will languish. America potentially has a pool of athletes that I feel could easily be perennially a top 3 rated country if it were to become even the 4th most popular sport (ahead of ice hockey). If it got a toe hold in the inner city (code word for blacks) it would do wonders for the sport.

 

I've always suggested that AYSO, the youth organization that runs most of the leagues for youth soccer here, fund a league in the inner city of the largest 3 to 5 largest cities. NY, LA, Chicago, Houston and Miami (although Miami isn't the largest but its diversity would do wonders) and in a few years we could produce a handful of 13, 14 and 15 year olds that would be top class.

 

MLS needs to change. It has a league structure set up to resemble the other sports when it should look like the other soccer leagues. It has a play off, wild card, etc. like its american football. The long term plan should be to have the other smaller soccer league, United Soccer league be the lower division and use the promotion/relegation model that the rest of the world uses. Right now its impractical. Corporations and wealthy individuals who are buying franchises in the MLS don't want their millions of dollar investment be risked in having them go down to a lower division. My idea is to get the number of clubs to a certain number. Say 20 and then give every one 3 -5 years and then after that time there will be relegation. Every club, even the newer ones, will have time to buy good players and stave off relegation. This would be new and dyanmic to most americans. When I first discovered promotion/relegation as part of the sport I loved it. You wouldn't have teams like the LA Clippers living off the NBA money and not improving.

 

Also, MLS MUST include itself in copa sudamerica, the south american version of the Champions League. First, it would do them wonders to lose 6 or 7 nil to a Boca Juniors or Sao Paulo...also it would generate large crowds and coverage to have a Boca Juniors, River Plate or Corinthians come to LA, Dallas, NY, etc.

[OCgringo]

Wow a guy from LA that knows "Futbal"

 

Do you go to the games over in Carson ?

I would think that Stadium is pretty small for big league games , when the Rose bowl and Colusium hold 80-100,000.

 

I think you are correct , it needs the poor kids to take it up ,like baskerball , but it needs money at the end of the rainbow which does not look like its there now ,

how many scholarships at USA or UCLA for mens soccer compared to baskerball or American football ?

 

Time will tell, but I would not be buying stock in thr Galaxy and expecting to make any money for years

 

OC

[was_usvirgin]

If soccer ever has a chance to catch on here (and I don't think it will anytime soon), your approach sounds like the only possible way. MLB has also been suffering from a lack of 'inner city' kids who have been replaced in recent years mostly by kids from Latin American countries. I clipped this from the AP.

 

[color:blue]February 28, 2006

 

COMPTON, Calif. --Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig cut the ceremonial ribbon Tuesday on the league's first Urban Youth Academy, aimed at increasing interest in the sport among inner-city children.

 

California Angels player Darrell Miller will serve as director of the 10-acre, $10-million facility set on the campus of Compton Community College.

 

Expected to accommodate approximately 200 area children daily, the academy will provide free baseball and softball instruction as well as tutoring and homework help. The facility includes four playing fields and a 12,000-square-foot clubhouse with boys' and girls' locker rooms.

 

"This is an important and very historic development for Major League Baseball," Selig said at a news conference held on the diamond of one of the playing fields. "Baseball has always served as a bridge that links generations. We created this academy to shore up that bridge in the urban community."

 

The facility opens amid a decreasing involvement in the sport among African-American youths. Black players accounted for about nine percent of big league rosters last year, down from about 27 percent in 1985. The Houston Astros also became the first World Series team since the 1953 New York Yankees to not have a single black player on their roster.

 

The Astros, along with the Los Angeles Angels and Los Angeles Dodgers, are three primary sponsors of the facility.

 

Hall of Famer Joe Morgan, a vocal critic in recent years of the lack of African-Americans both managing and playing at the big league level, had noted that a meeting on the issue with Selig several years ago "was not a love-fest."

 

Morgan said Tuesday, however, that Selig's legacy now was cemented by his commitment to bringing inner-city youths back to the game.

 

"Make no mistake about it we lost a generation of inner-city players along the way," Morgan said. "I think that starting today, with the opening of this field, we will stop the erosion of inner-city players."

 

Selig said: "We had tough conversations years ago. There is a time when, as a commissioner of a sport or an owner of a club, you know you've got to do more. So Joe Morgan's comments meant a lot to me today, but there's work to be done yet."

 

Selig said baseball will make every effort in years to come to build similar facilities in other cities.

 

Other notable attendees at the ceremony included former stars Dave Winfield and Enos Cabell, who grew up in Compton about 10 minutes from the new academy, baseball executives Bob Watson and Jimmie Lee Solomon, Angels owner Arte Moreno and Dodgers owner Frank McCourt.

 

"The first step is to get these kids interested in baseball, and the next step is getting them to college," said Moreno, who pledged $500,000 in scholarship money over the next five years to academy participants.

 

"Baseball realizes it's not the only game in town," Winfield said in reference to basketball and football, the two sports drawing more and more young African-Americans. "You have to do these kinds of things to introduce people to baseball."

 

Echoed Cabell: "We're not going to lose our players anymore. We always talk about the best catchers in the big leagues are playing linebacker in the NFL, or the best shortstops are defensive backs. We're trying to change that system."

[sayjann]

Beckham is and always was a TWAT.........

 

celebrated when RM paid over the odds for him (£25 Million) and gloated at his downfall in Madrid.

 

you Yanks are welcome to the stupid cunt.

i expect CS will be spending his hard earned cash to buy a shirt with 'Becks' dispalyed on the back and buying a season ticket for his local Team....

 

But Beckham is not the answer to trying to make the game bigger in the US.

he is nearing the end of his career as a top footballer and the US Leagues need to look for younger blood.

 

in the 70's/80's in an attempt to market the game Players like Pele,Beckenbauer and Best went to America and it was a failure.

they may have been big names but also aging Players who were past it.

[Roger_Baby]

Some thoughts...

 

The only one making out well in this deal is Beckham himself.

 

This reminds me when Pele was brought in by the NY Cosmos in the late 70's for the North American Soccer League. It brought them (NASL) down eventually by creating price wars.

 

After hearing Beckham speak it is apparent he should never do commercials or movies that require his voice. He'll need a vocal coach. Maybe he has a deviated septum.

 

In the US there are just too many popular sports that have overlapping schedules and geting new fans in the seats will not happen soon.

 

Whites and Blacks won't attend sporting events where the Mexicans (and other hispanics) boo our national anthem (and they do in LA).

 

White families won't attend matches if they feel unsafe (and they will because it is). The LA Coliseum is in a rotten neighborhood with little secured parking.

 

I read today that Tom Cruise and Beckham are buddies. Is Beckham a Scientologist? That won't bode well with the public.

 

He was cut from the team (Real Madrid). Many would argue that translates as being washed up.

 

But...he is good looking so you never know.

 

Anyway, surf up!