• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

“Bend it like Beckham.”

Somebody needs to, because David Beckham, the 250-million-dollar man, is not going to be bending it like the “Beckham” on whom the multi-million-dollar-grossing flick was based.

For those of you who were sleeping under a rock for the past week, David Beckham, one of the most well-known footballers in the world, is moving to Los Angeles. Moreover, he is joining Major League Soccer to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy.

His move across the Atlantic has made more noise than Columbus’ visit to the other shore of the ocean.

Why, you ask?

Because David Beckham is going to make Americans like – or, more accurately, love – soccer, the most popular game in most countries outside the United States.

Every organization related to sports is in favor of making soccer big in the U.S., because it would create another marketable product in a world where marketing and hype often have a far greater impact on the public than actual skill and/or knowledge of the subject.

The subject in this case is David Beckham, the one-time soccer god of England. Beckham is a has-been in Europe, where soccer, known outside the U.S. as football, is what most people live and breath for. However, on the other side of the Atlantic everything is a bit different.

Here David Beckham is not a footballer, he is a marketing tool. He has the body of Michelangelo’s David and a wife who could compete against Helen of Troy as far as beauty goes. He is a perfect candidate for the next Calvin Klein underwear model. All these attributes qualify him for a good part in a movie, but do they qualify him to be the next Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods?

It seems as though the public has bought into the idea that Beckham is going to advance soccer in the U.S.; the public has bought more Galaxy tickets in the past week than in the past few years.

However, is the American public that clueless? Are Americans going to buy into the idea of David Beckham making soccer a top sport in America? Has this society lost its mind completely? Everywhere you look, you notice sports agencies and club owners raving about how Beckham is exactly like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. He is, in fact, going to make soccer matter.

One thing people don’t seem to realize is that Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods made their sports matter to Americans while they were in their primes. If Jordan began his basketball career at the Washington Wizards, he would not have had the same impact on American athletics. And, ladies and gentlemen, the Los Angeles Galaxy is David Beckham’s Wizards.

Beckham has passed his prime. He is not wanted in Europe because he is not the footballer he was when he played for England’s Manchester United. Today he is a European benchwarmer with incredibly great image consultants and contractors. He has sold himself to Americans at an incredibly pleasurable price – 250 million dollars for five years.

Disregarding the fact that this amount of money is enough of a budget for a small country in Africa, football fans are becoming more curious about U.S. society’s worship of the marketing system. Are people going to fall for a publicity plot? Are football fans going to buy season tickets just to see a once-decent athlete run?

It’s doubtful.

In this society, there is a demand for athletic perfection that goes beyond the United States. There is respect for athletes who perform well at home and are invincible abroad. David Beckham is not that kind of athlete any longer.

Of course, he’s a footballer, not a soccerer, but let’s not even go there.

E-mail Martirosyan at smartirosyan@media.ucla.edu.