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Brand Beckham kicks off soccer's American appeal
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Business English: Brand Beckham kicks off soccer's American appeal
The former England captain needs to win over a new army of US fans to secure LA Galaxy's financial success.From deodorant to double-glazing, many brands turn to celebrities to raise their profile and increase sales. But few have made a bigger splash than Major League Soccer, the US's leading association football league.
When it emerged in January that David Beckham, the former England captain, was to join the MLS club Los Angeles Galaxy in summer, the announcement immediately boosted the club's profile around the globe.
The deal is one of the most lucrative in professional sport and it is thought it could pave the way for the 31-year-old to earn as much as $250m (£130m) over five years.
As the new US season prepares to kick off at the start of next month - with Beckham scheduled to arrive mid-season - the marketing and sponsorship world is trying to assess whether the benefit of the club's strategy can outweigh its potential pitfalls.
MLS has in the past consciously avoided spending money on outsized player contracts. Moreover, ageing superstars such as the Brazilian Pelé failed to popularise the sport sustainably in the world's richest market in the 1970s.
"Whilst Beckham's presence may raise the profile of the game (and LA Galaxy itself), it is doubtful whether it will create a new army of truly committed fans," says Philip Patterson, account director at Karen Earl Sponsorship, a consultancy.
Others, though, believe that since the Beckham brand represents more than sporting prowess, his arrival should help football reach beyond America's die-hard sports fans, as well as expanding the US League's international appeal.
"It takes their ability to market football to a whole new level," says Nigel Currie, director of Brand Rapport, a sports marketing specialist. "They can use him to get to not just a football market, but an entertainment/fashion market, whereas if you are, say, Wayne Rooney, you are just a footballer. That's Beckham's big appeal."
Don Garber, the MLS commissioner, has no doubt the investment will pay off. "We are working very closely with 19 Entertainment [Beckham's personal management agency] to make sure that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts," he says.
Beckham's presence is likely to make Galaxy's Home Depot Center, at least fleetingly, one of the places to be seen for Hollywood's beautiful people. But though the Englishman should invest this underexploited outpost of planet football with a greater sense of style and align it more with the sport's European mainstream, the league's gamble will really pay off only if his impact outlasts this initial buzz among first-time spectators.
Existing trends bode well. For Mr Garber, Beckham's imminent arrival - made possible by an easing of the league's strict salary cap - is an important sign of MLS's growing maturity as it gets ready for the start of its 12th season on April 7.
"We are entering the second phase of our growth," he says, listing a string of reasons for optimism about soccer's future in the land of baseball and gridiron. These range from encouraging US viewing figures for last year's World Cup final between France and Italy to the increasing number of MLS teams playing in soccer-specific stadiums. And, he adds, it is still one of the cheapest forms of entertainment in LA.
"All those things working together give us a sense that it is time for us to . . . begin to take a bit more risk and accelerate the growth of the league," he says. "America is rapidly becoming a soccer nation."
In that context, raising product quality by importing stars such as Beckham looks a good strategic call. As LA Galaxy now appreciates, however, top talent does not come cheap, with salaries in the biggest European markets underpinned by fabulously rich television deals.
While MLS has some way to go before its TV rights prove as lucrative as those for top European leagues, it is another sign of MLS's progress that its latest round of rights deals will see it receive fees for the first time. "Over the term of those agreements, which are eight years, the television rights total several hundred million dollars," Mr Garber says. "It is minuscule compared with the other major leagues in America, but it is certainly a good start from where we were."
The club has found other sources of revenue to justify the fancy price tag on its latest star acquisition. Reported details of the structure of Beckham's deal suggest that LA Galaxy's management has sought - sensibly - to link the player's earnings to the financial results of the club.
Although part of the $50m a year headline figure is thought to relate to sponsorship deals independent of the club, he is also expected to earn a share of revenue increases from sales of items such as replica shirts, for which he is deemed partly responsible.
"There is a method to any perceived madness," says Mr Lalas. "If and when the Galaxy does well, David Beckham will do well. We would expect a huge increase [in replica shirt sales] and obviously a huge interest in a David Beckham Galaxy jersey. But that wasn't the reason that this deal was done. That is the cherry."
So are US sports fans now ready to embrace the world's most popular sport as enthusiastically and obsessively as their counterparts abroad? An appetite for high-quality football clearly exists but part of Mr Garber's problem is channelling it towards MLS, rather than non-US competitions.
Yet it is easy to be sceptical about Mr Garber's assertion that "our goal is not to be anything more than one of the great soccer leagues around the world" - particularly when US investors are pumping money into the English Premiership.
Beckham or no Beckham, such high ambitions for US soccer will take a long time to realise.
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FTD.de, 09.04.2007
© 2007 Financial Times Deutschland,
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