Futbol vs Football: Beck-mania in United States

After helping Real Madrid win the Spanish League title for the first time in four seasons with the club, Beckham joins Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles Galaxy next month, a major injection of star power for a league whose talent has steadily been rising but has lacked a marquee mainstay.

The 32-year-old midfielder, who has had as many hairstyles as goals, is to join up with the Galaxy next month and be a halftime guest on the telecast of the MLS All-Star game in Denver on July 19, perhaps making a cameo appearance in the match.

His first game in the Galaxy’s redesigned uniform could be a July 21 friendly against England’s Chelsea at Carson, California — where Beckham already has a youth soccer academy.

After that, his likely MLS debut would be on August 5 in Toronto. All that will be accompanied with a lot of advertising. “It will be a coordinated blitz, if you will,” Galaxy president Alexi Lalas said. “We want to make sure that we’re not duplicating efforts. So there will be obviously stuff from Adidas, the Galaxy, ESPN and a bunch of other ones.”

Sponsors are counting on Beckham to reach out beyond the soccer field in a way the United States hasn’t seen since Pele was with the Cosmos from 1975-77.

“It’s almost the same,” Pele said. “There are a lot of similarities.” Ahead of last year’s World Cup, Nike erected a 21 m high billboard near New York’s Madison Square Garden. To mark Beckham’s arrival, Adidas re-taped its “Impossible is Nothing” commercial with him to make his soccer past understandable to an American audience.

“Soccer’s appeal is still behind some of the major US sports in this country. We’re excited about the growth opportunity that we have there,” Pierpoint said.

“Within the soccer community, everybody is very well aware of and really looks up to some of those MLS players, national team players, as icons. As we spread outside the soccer community, those names become lesser known. And David’s name we feel really travels further, and that’s an opportunity for us to draw more people into the sport of soccer, draw whole families into the sport of soccer.”

But, perhaps more importantly for sponsors, he is married to Victoria Adams, the former Posh Spice, and is friends with Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Galaxy games could be a big celeb ticket, much like the NBA’s Lakers. European web sites track his hairstyles and Paparazzi tail Becks and Posh.

Until now, Adidas’ biggest sales of licensed soccer merchandise in the United States have involved Mexico’s national team and Real Madrid. With Beckham, selling MLS has taken a new twist. “Now, for the first time, we see global demand for the LA Galaxy jersey,” Pierpoint said.