With Beckham retiring from MLS, does the league have what it takes to become mainstream?
SCOTT JACOBS
Back in 2010, Grant Wahl published The Beckham Experiment, an in depth look at the bizzaro world of the world’s most polarizing soccer star. I had a chance to review the book and just a chapter or two in, I stopped reading.
It’s nothing against Wahl, or Beckham for that matter, it’s simply that like most Olympic sports, I don’t care a lick about soccer until the World Cup. It’s weird too: I grew up playing soccer, loved the game — wasn’t very good at it, but that’s another story — so you would think that I would have some kind of attachment to caring about the game on bigger stages.
For whatever reason, it just does not hold my attention.
And if anyone should hold the attention of a sports crazed country, it’s the tatted up Beckham, whose popularity transcends multiple countries. Sometimes it’s as if he had his finger all over the globe. Beginning with world’s most famous club, Manchester United, Beckham evolved from a futboler to a flat out superstar. Not to mention the fact that he won. Everywhere. That tends to get you a legacy.
When Beckham came to the states on the heels of a massive multi-year deal with the Los Angeles Galaxy, the idea was to change the (perception) game, that soccer had in America. And while the media buzz was palpable early on, especially before and during Beckham’s first game in 2007, the excitement on a national scale (under the label of big-time sports story), soon began to fade. (more…)
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