The Future of the U.S. Soccer?

David Beckham, probably the most famous athlete in the world, will be coming to the United States. Rumored for months, the Los Angeles Galaxy made it official Thursday, signing Beckham to a 5 year, $250 million contract. That’s right – 5 years, $250 million. That means $50 million per year, $960,000 a week, $137,000 each day, and $95.40 PER SECOND. The deal is rumored (to no one’s surprise) to be the largest agreement in sports history, and for that money, they’ll expect results.

Soccer, to state the obvious, is not very popular in the US. Back in 1970, Pele (arguably the greatest soccer player ever) came to play for a club in the now-defunct North American Soccer League, and failed to make much of an impact. The Galaxy (and Beckham) is hoping to avoid a repeat of that episode, and will look to Beckham to improve the image of the sport in the US.

I’ll say this much – I’m a part of the problem. I don’t care much for the MLS, and the only soccer I watch is the World Cup. There’s a simple reason for this – passion. At the World Cup, each player is truly on the world’s stage, with the dreams of a nation on their shoulders. There, 100,000 people watch a game live, while millions watch on TV, all of them contributing their small part to make up the intense drama, glory, and fervor that is the World Cup.

There is none of that in the MLS. Through all of the attempts by soccer fans and teams over the years, soccer has never caught on in the US. No matter what major attraction there has been – from Pele in the ‘70’s to Freddy Adu, a teenage soccer superstar, just a couple years ago – soccer stadiums have remained unfilled. For me, the biggest draw of soccer has always been that raw passion, the idea that a game can mean so much to hundreds of thousands of people. Yes, sports (like college football) bring that passion, but not on the global scale of soccer.

So – the $1 million question – will David Beckham draw soccer fans like me? It’s sad to say that I don’t think so. At best, the MLS will become like the NHL – a curiosity among Americans. A sport that gets on SportSCenter; a sport where we’ll know who won the championship, but not pay attention to each game. Soccer today is hardly on the radar in America, and I don’t think one superstar can bring the intensity of soccer to the US. To make soccer as popular here as it is in the rest of the world is impossible, but to make it a minor sport, it’ll take an invasion of soccer superstars, and that probably won’t happen.

So the future is still bleak for soccer in America. Who knows – maybe it’ll catch on, maybe soccer here will be like soccer in Europe, and maybe the MLS will become the Premiership. I hope it does, because soccer really is a “beautiful game.” The grace and simplicity of it makes it one of the best sports to watch, and the passion and emotion of international soccer makes for quite possibly the best sports atmosphere anywhere.

I certainly hope that Beckham and the LA Galaxy prove me wrong, and I really want soccer to catch on and become something people care about here. Otherwise, we’ll look back on this deal as a waste of money, time, and talent.