Well first off Beckham isn't making $250mil, he's making $10million a year plus a reported share of the clubs profits. The rest of the money is coming in from his old sponsors and of course the countless numbers of new ones he's about to receive.
The gimmick will die down immensely.......even if he earned more $$ than the avg NFL star, they wont talk about it, cause soccer over there is like rugby League in the UK...or even worse
Pele wasnt the talk of the town when he arrived....in fact not many people know Pele even played there - thats an indication of the USA approach to soccer.[/b]
What are you on about? Pele brought rediculous amounts of fans to the game. The New York Cosmos or whatever they were called averaged well over 40,000 a game sometimes packing in over 70,000 people on any given night. Not only that they were the toast of New York city. They owned the night clubs notably those like studio 54 which Joe Namath still frequented and if you know anything about American pop culture you'd realize his signifcance, without Broadway Joe there wouldn't be the Beckham-esque superstar(only Joe was actually the coolest guy on the planet). This wasn't only in New York this was right across the board places like Vancouver also brought over 30,000 a game. The problem was that they opened the flood gates with the Pele signing. Once he signed everyone else started saying "well he got a big signing, where's ours?" and it just spiraled out of control. They couldn't afford the contracts so the league decided to expand which brought in big expansion money. This was all well and good but the league was starting to tank because they just outspent their resources. Which brings us to today.
This is the beginning of the end of the MLS. Don't be mistaken this isn't just a one guy gig, there will be more. At $10million a pop they aren't going to come cheap and there goes your profits. On top of that there isn't another name out there like Beckham. Like it or not he transends the sport and is known by virtually every single American. Should Ronaldo come over, he'd walk down the street and nobody would know who he was, hence a less significant impact and a waste of money. Also must be noted that Beckham isn't a scorer and if you know anything about American sports fans they're all highlight-whores. They just want that big dunk or the top shelf goal. They don't care about cross field kicks, they only care about goals and considering Beckham only scores once every 8 or so games played the novelty will run off quickly.
The new BMO field which will be the home of Toronto FC is a prime example of this.[/b]
This is without a doubt one of the most illogically built stadiums I've ever seen.
In Ice Hockey players have gotten bigger, no longer can you be a small man and hope to make it anywhere playing the sport. Everyone playing has to be a 6'4 230lb brusier to be of any significance.[/b]
Well that's changing and changing very quickly. The NHL has changed it's rules so that dinosaurs can no longer play and those small quick buggers are coming back into the league. Just watch the CHL and you'll see that the game is getting smaller and faster.
I personally believe that in the next 20 years you are all going to see major changes to the soccer scene in North America. It is growing very fast and rapidly and with the amount of money that is thrown around in North American sport I think you will see stronger more competitive teams emerging from this side of the ocean and the awakening of the giant.[/b]
This is a very naive thought. Soccer will never be a major sport, it just will never happen. Americans don't take to a game like this, simple as that. Furthermore, the number of soccer players rivals or surpases all the other major sports in the US and has for quite some time. So why do they still get crap ratings for the WC and other major events? Why do the US still effectively suck in world competition? It's because Americans don't care and will never care.
Sure you'll see the Galaxy playing every single Saturday night on ESPN 7 but they aren't going to be watching for the game, they will be watching for the spectacle. Don't get those two confused because they are drastically different.
This is a very similar situation to that when Wayne Gretzky went to the LA Kings. He was also someone who transcended their game, they made the hockey games the place to be. They were more popular than Lakers. What did this do for hockey in the USA? 0.
