SportsOpinion: Over-The-Hill "Savior" Worth Every Cent

Meet David Beckham. The most famous athlete in the world. Not America. THE WORLD. He is also, at age 31, a has-been. Now don't get me wrong. Playing in the soccer equivalent to US minor league baseball, known as the MLS (catchy acronym for the product branded as "Major League Soccer", get it?), Beckham will probably be as successful as Barry Bonds batting clean-up in a beer league softball game.

Now relax. This article is NOT about sports. Or about "Becks and Posh" for that matter. That would be a story for "Gossip" or "Night Life" or Page 6 of the N.Y. Post. And it's definitely not about him playing for a team (the Los Angeles Galaxy) that isn't even the most popular team playing in it's own stadium (that would be Chivas USA but, mercifully, that's a story I'm never going to write).

And no, it's not even about one man getting paid over a quarter-of-a billion dollars to play in a league where most of the players don't make in a season what Beckham will make in a his first hour (that's right, one hour) in uniform.

So, if David Beckham isn't here to make American soccer better, or to champion for higher pay for pro athletes who earn less per year than a line cook at TGI Friday's, or to return a team to it's former glory (give me a break, this is minor league soccer, remember?), then what is he here for? The love of the game? To elevate soccer in the US to the place it already holds with the rest of the world? Probably not.

As they say, just follow the money.

According to the league's own website, investment in the MLS increased by over $1 billion in the last 18 months. This includes extensions of television contracts with ESPN and Fox Soccer Channel through 2014, as well as new contracts with NBA billionaire Mark Cuban's HD Net and Spanish language broadcasting giant Univision.

Last year Anschutz Entertainment Group, owner of the Galaxy (and at one time as many as 5 MLS franchises simultaneously), sold it's New York franchise to the Red Bull group for $100 million, and on January 8th of this year(three days before the signing of Beckham), sold off it's DC United franchise for $33 million, dropping it's current franchise ownership number to 3. Overall, the league's 13 teams are now owned by 9 investment groups with a net worth in excess of $10 billion between them.

And that was BEFORE the signing of The Savior.

So what is the reason?

Pure, short-term profit.

Of the $50 to $55 million annual income Beckham will receive, only around $10 million will be salary. The other forty-plus million will come in the form of already-existing sponsorship ($25 million from Motorola, Pepsi, Gillette, Volkswagen, etc.), shirt sales ($10 million), and revenue sharing (another $10 million from the profits of the Galaxy). Given that AEG has unloaded $133 million in dead weight in the last year, the signing David Beckham hasn't cost them a penny.

That's great! So now, on to the future.

In five years, when David Beckham is no more or two years after that, when the TV contracts expire, what then? Given that league attendance averages less than 15,000 per game (and many observers claim it's much less than that), where will the profit come from?

I have no idea.

Maybe by then there will be a whole new generation of billionaires with big piles of discretionary dollars cluttering numbered accounts in countries where soccer is still called football. Maybe they will invest whatever it takes to get the sport's next great has-been to come to America to introduce "The Beautiful Game" to a whole new generation of potential fans. Why not? History repeats itself all the time.

Yeah, and maybe next you'll tell me there will be another NFL franchise in this town before history repeats itself again, and again, and...

Never mind.

Copyright © 2007 Bill Friday

Those Who Can't Do...

"THOSE WHO CAN'T DO, TEACH."

Ever hear that one? Well add another line to the time-honored.

"THOSE WHO CAN'T TEACH, BLOG." I'm really new at this internet thing. I had no idea all people had opinions on everything till I got DSL. Before that, the closest I ever came to seeing that people can think, and clearly express those thoughts, was talk radio.

Or books.

After all, what were my options? Depending on the time of day - or night - I could hear a dialogue (diatribe?) on whether, "Dubya is a NeoCon puppet." or, "Obama is the Anti-Christ." or, "The Lakers suck." All valid opinions I guess, but none could be confirmed at the time of this writing. But now? Five free minutes at work? Read a blog. Ten minutes left at the end of lunch? Read another blog. Boss left the office for the rest of the day? Write a blog! Blog unto others as you would have them blog unto you! And many in a way that would make my College english professor, Betty Dillon, renounce her tenure (Don't do it, Betty!).

For years people said, "Conversation is a lost art." Well, I don't know if I believe that. Conversation, like art (if you count tagging), is everywhere. After all, you're reading this. The true lost art is listening. The thing you do when the appliances are turned off and the only sound you hear is the turning of a page. All this has been summed up for us in the words of the philosopher turned super villain "The Human Ton" (or was it "Handy"?) who said,

"READ A BOOK!"

What? You think great thoughts can't be animated?

Yeah, like Ben Edlund blogs.

Copyright © 2007 Bill Friday

My Popularity Is 0

This just in: My popularity is 0.

Zeeerohh! As if I needed proof (see tiny picture, at left). Thanks for the update. A clean slate by any other name, etc.

Oh well.

Guess it's better than entropy. Not "Entropy", the movie that almost killed the career of Phil Joanou, but "entropy", from which we get the nursery rhyme (for the sad children of rocket scientists), "We cannot win, we cannot tie, and in the end we're all gonna die".

(Warning! This is not a movie review, a SciTech article or a children's story. It's safe to keep reading - Ed.)

I know, this intro is probably going to keep my popularity at zeeerohh for the remaining years of my writing life which in this town is more like less than zero. Not "Less Than Zero", the movie that should have killed the career of Brad Pitt (really, Google it), but...

(Warning! Bill Friday has never been popular and therefore has never known when to shut up - Ed.)

The good news in all of this is that, if I've done the math right, I can never receive a rating that isn't at least a zeeerohh. A lot like the song, "Saved By Zero" by The Fixx that really did kill the careers of...

(Warning! Bill Friday will never write on the topics of physics, poetry, movies or music ever again - Ed.)

Copyright © 2007 Bill Friday