David Beckham plays his last game for LA Galaxy today in the final of the MLS Cup (though I do remember writing another article in this vein last year when he was supposed to retire, so who really knows?). Since he arrived in arrived 2007 attendance has grown from 3 million to 6 million, making it the ninth most popular league in the world, just after Argentina but ahead of the Netherlands. Traditionally the US has had four major team sports- American football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey: MLS average attendance is now higher than the National Hockey League’s. When it started the title “major league” was a bit of a joke- now it is becoming a reality. Business schools will debate for many years to come the “Beckham effect”- was he the catalyst that changed the game? Here are some pros and cons:
Cons:
1. Attendance did not rise that much at LA Galaxy itself- compared to the previous six seasons attendance was up only 25%
2. The big boost in attendance has come from the expansion franchises- of the 19 franchises 6 have been added since 2007- and probably would have been even without Becks. The Seattle Sounders average 43,000 per game after only 4 seasons in the league (higher than Chelsea’s average gate this season).
3. Football (soccer) is on the rise in the US generally- The EPL just sold their rights to NBC for $250 million, trebling the value of the previous contract. NBC is promising to make every game available either on TV, internet or mobile.
Pros:
1. Beckham’s celebrity has enabled MLS to achieve recognition even among non-sports fans. His Burger King commercial over here this year was huge. MLS would have struggled to achieve this kind of exposure without him.
2. Beckham may have helped to persuade other big stars to finish their careers here- Thierry Henry and Robbie Keane spring to mind. Beckham will remain involved in MLS since he has the right to buy a new franchise. Thus he is likely to play an ambassadorial role for years to come.
3. For MLS to be truly major it must have aspire to a quality of play that is respected internationally. Americans of all people do not take easily to supporting the second rate. MLS may have higher gates than the Dutch league but the quality of the football is not yet as good. Hiring Beckham was a statement of intent- to become a league where international stars can play. Even if more needs to be done, bringing him here gave MLS some credibility with American audiences.
Somehow this is not the last we are going to hear about David Beckham and Major League Soccer.
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This comment comes from Soccernomics fan Michael Shandrick, writing from Canada:
From the perspective of a small Canadian city with an MLS club (the Vancouver Whitecaps) David Beckham of five years ago was certainly a draw, mainly to the some 250,000 new immigrants from soccer playing nations. They knew who he was in the fledgling league played on a small pitch. For the most part Vancouver is a soccer backwater, yet this past season the Whitecaps became the first Canadian-based team to qualify for the MLS playoffs.
The Whitecap fans got to see Beckham dismantle their defense in the closing minutes of a playoff game and go on to win the championship. In terms of the MLS in general, the growth of the MLS has been surprising in niche markets like Salt Lake City Utah, Portland Oregon, Denver Colorado, Seattle Washington and Vancouver, BC — places that have packed their stadiums without the draw of Beckham to spur their growth.
What fans got to see was that Beckham, five years after joining the league, still plays at a level well above most players in the league. It was nice to see that in his farewell tour of the league he continued to raise the bar on bringing quality play to the pitch. What is disappointing is that he could not have drawn someone else from Europe of his stature to follow in his footsteps to North America. Meanwhile, the Vancouver Whitecaps have a new stadium and new fan base who eagerly await next season. Like many fans in cities where David Beckham has played, he left leaving the MLS a better league.
Michael Shandrick
With the expansion in the number of franchises in MLS, will FIFA, at some stage in the future, pressure USFF to form second division under MLS to enable promotion and relegation as normally required by FIFA?