Beckham and Miami a perfect fit

News filtered through this week that David Beckham has selected Miami as his venue of choice for a new MLS franchise. The as-yet-unnamed team seems set to become the third visible expansion team after the Manchester City and New York Yankees’ joint venture, New York City FC and the record-setting Iron Lions of Orlando.

Really, selecting Miami was a no-brainer. The appeal of the city to athletes is notorious, and although one MLS franchise has already failed in South Florida, the times have changed in MLS such that Beckham and his co-investors are making this decision based on expected strong crowd support. While this hasn’t always been the case in South Florida – especially during particularly unsuccessful sporting summers – the city is a major market with a passionate soccer fan base.

(c) Author's own collection

Scanning the list of major US and Canadian cities without MLS franchises, Miami is the most populated unrepresented city and has been targeted by the league as a possible location for some time. Other options it was believed Beckham was looking at were San Diego, Orlando and … wait for it … Montreal.  

Commissioner Don Garber is on record plugging the merits of a twenty-four team league with a presence in Florida, Atlanta (please let this potential franchise keep their NASL nickname, The Silverbacks) and another SoCal team. That he has now leveraged three global brands into associations with MLS means smaller, more … optimistic parties should begin doubting their immediate chances.

As the business plans for each nascent franchise gain clarity, so does the picture of MLS’s mid-term future. Fittingly, David Beckham is front and center for this new era.

Farewell, David Beckham, and thanks

David Beckham has retired from professional football at the age of 38.  The former England captain and fashion icon leaves the game a ten-time league champion in twenty seasons – winning six titles with Manchester United, two with Los Angeles Galaxy and one each with Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain.

He will be remembered for a great many things – scoring from midfield to announce his arrival, romancing a Spice Girl and transcending his sport more than any other footballer.  In some ways it’s a pity that his global fame has overshadowed his formidable footballing ability, for he was a truly outstanding midfielder for Man U.  He was absolutely brilliant with his dead-ball delivery and could deliver a Hollywood assist better than anyone of his generation outside retirement companion Paul Scholes. 

A cross from David Beckham?  On time, every time.

He will go down as the defining player of his generation, a name for the ages carrying greater widespread appeal than those who accomplished more on the field like former teammates Ryan Giggs, Raul and Andrea Pirlo.  The names forever linked with football from the late 90s and early 2000s will begin with David Beckham.

(c) Balanced Sports - from author's own collection

While his mystique was awe-inspiring, he was hardly an overpowering or dominant player.  Aside from those elegant, glorious set pieces, David Beckham rarely inspired fear in the manner of Ronaldo, nor did he befuddle like a Ronaldinho or Messi.  Indeed, it might be his greatest achievement that he leaves the game as his generation’s defining (and most marketable) player without actually being amongst the very best of the era.

Beckham’s singular talent wasn’t for football or a particular skill within it, but an immense charisma that saw everyone seek his approval (aside from one or two particular managers).  So powerful was the impression left by his simple and dignified affect that he belongs in the Athletic Charisma Hall of Fame alongside the likes of Michael Jordan and founder member Muhammad Ali.  While these two boasted a more primal and combative magnetism, Beckham’s appeal is based around a graceful and understated – almost minimalist – style.

The other skill that David Beckham perfected was an ability to make money.  This is inextricably linked to his other singular asset: his bearing created a demand that expanded his pocketbook exponentially.  It’s hard to rationalize an athlete making the lucrative money he has, and even harder to justify.  However, considering the amount of rabid publicity he and his family endured, he deserved every penny.  Even in his last season, he earned £30 million – including a rich contract for a dozen appearance from PSG’s bench that only further heightened his public appeal. 

He leaves the game with as much class as he entered it.  When a young David Beckham sent a 45-yard ball floating past Wimbledon ‘keeper Neil Sullivan, the football world opened up to him and anything seemed possible.  Now, as he now walks into a much larger world, the same could be said again. 

Anything is possible.

Beckham's PSG move about more than money

David Beckham has earned a lot of publicity both for his free-agency and, more recently, for his nascent move to French gazillionaire-club Paris Saint-Germain.  The fact is that even at age 37, he is easily the single-most recognizable footballer in the world and still earns his coin on the pitch with deadeye dead ball delivery and smart, if limited, movement.

Beckham’s move also earned notoriety because he became the first football figure to donate the entirety of his wages to a local children’s charity.  As usual with a public – and polarizing – figure, this has earned him both acclaim and skepticism.

It is true that Beckham has more money than, well, nearly everyone.  He’s an exceedingly wealthy man.  However donating his salary to a change agency is the first such move I can remember and he should be congratulated for his willingness to help those less fortunate than himself.  It’s a wonderful gesture.

The decision perhaps wasn’t a hard one to make.  The Beckhams will have donated a portion of money to not-for-profits and France’s controversial high-earner’s tax means that he likely would have only taken home 25% of his gross wage.  By donating that money straight to that charity, it would seem the beneficiary organization would receive a greater portion of those monies than Beckham would himself.

(c) Balanced Sports (author's own collection)

Whether it says that David Beckham doesn’t play football for the money is still up for debate.  The fact is that his salary earnings are far outstripped by his incredible endorsement potential (in this chart, Beckham is the fifth-highest endorsement earner of any athlete, behind Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, Phil Mickelson and Kobe Bryant).  That he is still in the limelight and playing in a chic location suggests an undiminished ability to generate off-field income far more lucrative than the relative pittance he’s able to command for delivering balls to Zlatan.

David Beckham has also always been conscious of legacy.  He helped solidify soccer’s popularity in the US and recently announced he wouldn’t sign for a Premier League club because it would pit him against Manchester United.  He might be the athlete most aware of the way he is or will be perceived historically and offering weekly cheques with four or five zeroes in them is a publicity boon – for him, and his Qatari employers, whose public perception has suffered since controversially winning the rights to stage the 2022 World Cup.

It’s a genius move.  It’s also really worthwhile both financially and philosophically.  It’s likely there are more reasons at play than simply altruism, but when the results are so beneficent it just doesn’t matter – (most) everyone wins.

Football's crisis-magnets

How well do we think of our footballers? Inspired by the wonderful webcomic XKCD, I decided to find out which players are represented most negatively on the internet.

The table below shows how frequently a polarising football figure's name arises in an internet article which also features one of these "negative" words: crisis, saga, scandal, row, gaffe, controversy.  For example, nearly 41% of all articles about Wayne Rooney mentioned the word crisis (an astonishing 11,100,000 - approximately).

Player	Total hits	Crisis	Saga	Scandal	Row	Gaffe	Controversy
Wayne Rooney	27200000	40.81%	24.67%	5.48%	53.31%	2.69%	25.40%
Carlos Tevez	14700000	64.69%	38.85%	24.76%	40.41%	3.48%	21.50%
Sepp Blatter	7690000	41.48%	13.52%	35.37%	67.23%	2.51%	27.44%
John Terry	14600000	44.52%	23.29%	4.51%	41.85%	3.47%	24.45%
Zlatan Ibrahimovic	15000000	26.33%	14.33%	17.93%	22.00%	2.55%	12.67%
Jose Mourinho	25800000	39.53%	19.07%	20.23%	32.40%	2.09%	17.02%
David Beckham	60100000	43.93%	40.93%	5.96%	64.73%	2.11%	27.12%
Ronaldo	214000000	31.64%	27.94%	15.05%	17.66%	0.93%	5.00%

The individual words were then googled (along with the player names) to evaluate which words were most associated with which public figure.

Obviously this is hardly definitive, considering the negative word doesn't have to specifically refer to the player, just be featured in the same article. Further complicating matters was that the word "row" has two meanings. Ronaldo was intended to mean "El Fenomeno", the Brazilian legend, but invariably captures much content referring to Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo.