Beckham Scores Again For Milan

I agree with you 110% JD. It's silly.

Beckham in America might not have been a total failure, but it certainly wasn't much of a success. <br />
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Anytime you pay someone $200 million and they only fulfill half of their duties you're not exactly getting an awesome deal. <br />
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He brought an interest to the game, he filled stadiums, and he sold TV time. You can't argue that. <br />
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But the lasting effect has yet to be proven, and when the guy skips out of the country in the middle of his contract and never looks back it doesn't look very good on your league. <br />
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MLS was not his top priority and it never was. He fooled them into thinking he had any sort of commitment to moving the sport forward in this country and he took their money and ran with it. <br />
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The average sports fan in America looks at the Beckham/MLS experiment as a joke. And in the end, that's the worst possible outcome.

I understand your point Nick but I have to disagree. If MLS wasn't a top priority for David, he would've sat out in 2007 instead of trying to play through injuries. On top of that, he still showed up at games in support of his team even when he wasn't well enough to participate. As for the average sports fan in America, most of them didn't even know about MLS until 'the coming of Becks'. His interest and investment in youth in soccer isn't exactly hurting the future of the league either. Don't get me wrong, I love my Quakes, but I'd be a hypocrite to not give credit where credit's due. As for the $200 mil, only about 5% of that's salary. The rest comes from profit sharing and endorsements. That's our country—free enterprise baby!

I understand your point Nick but I have to disagree. If MLS wasn’t a top priority for David, he would’ve sat out in 2007 instead of trying to play through injuries. On top of that, he still showed up at games in support of his team even when he wasn’t well enough to participate. As for the average sports fan in America, most of them didn’t even know about MLS until ‘the coming of Becks’. His interest and investment in youth in soccer isn’t exactly hurting the future of the league either. Don’t get me wrong, I love my Quakes, but I’d be a hypocrite to not give credit where credit’s due. As for the $200 mil, only about 5% of that’s salary. The rest comes from profit sharing and endorsements. That’s our country—free enterprise baby!

Look…he’s a businessman. And the opportunity to play back in Europe where he is used to playing is too good for him to pass up.

He has done a lot for the game here, and yes, I think it’s lame of him to leave in the middle of the night, so to speak.

But, let’s move on. Let’s try to create superstars here in our own country. Nothing wrong with celebrity effect…let’s just try and make it happen at home, with people who are commited to MLS.

In 2007 he sat out for two reasons in addition to the : He was out of shape because he had lost favor in the last few months with Real Madrid and wasn’t playing much, and he wasn’t an active player for the English squad, so he didn’t have a reason to get fit.

You can say he showed up for his teammates, but he didn’t come to America to be a good sport to Landon. He supposedly came to help grow the league, and not showing up to the MLS cup in your home stadium so you can go to the Lakers game isn’t a great help.

Neither is staying for a friendly with the English team while you miss regular season games with the Galaxy.

I don’t know what he’s done to invest in youth soccer, I haven’t seen anything at all except for some commercials and some MLS run programs (which would be there anyway without him). Admittedly MLS is terrible about Youth promotion, so it’s not entirely his fault if they didn’t use him properly.

As for his salary, “profit sharing” still comes out of the league’s pocket. It’s not free money.

I don’t have a problem with him leaving, and I don’t really have a problem with his priorities.

I have no reason not to believe him when he growing the game in this country was a priority when he came, but it definately hasn’t been since his new opportunity with England happened.

His price keeps going up. David Beckham just tallied two more assists this weekend against Lazio.