Ninety dollars for every second he spends on the football pitch. That is what David Robert Joseph Beckham will receive from the L.A. Galaxy team, as per recent reports, when he dons the Galaxy Jersey later this year. The English football wizard will play for the American soccer team from July after his existing contract with Real Madrid in Spain ends.Not only did David Beckham ensure he will draw at least some fifty million dollars a year in pay, options and profit-sharing, he has also revived an old trend of gently retiring footballers moving across the Atlantic to wind down their careers in the lucrative U.S. football league. Along with Japan and the oil-fuelled teams of the Middle East, the Major League of Soccer in the U.S. has now put itself back on the list of destinations where footballers, arguably past their prime, can look to squeeze every last possible dollar/yen/rial/dirham possible in their aging knees and jaded name-brands.
While for the players it means a last gasp of fiscal life, for the eager buyers it can mean a desperate attempt to sign on talent, even a fading one, to prop up their team performances and popularity. For whatever opinion one might have about ‘Spiceboy’ Becks’ footballing prowess, he continues to be one of the most popular sportsmen in the world with a brand recall akin to those of multi-national brands like Coca-Cola or McDonalds. Whether his brand holds enough magnetism to popularize the sport in North America, however, remains to be seen. But history suggests that the L.A. Galaxy may have written out a cheque they may have trouble justifying in the months to come.
A history of weak imports
In 1968 two professional soccer leagues in the U.S. came together to form the North American Soccer League. Propped by the popularity of the game after England’s triumph in the 1966 FIFA World Cup, the NASL, with adequate support from FIFA, hoped to generate enough enthusiasm to popularize the game in the sports-mad United States.
It was a disaster. While flagship teams like the New York Cosmos managed to often fill stadium, by and large attendance was poor. Average match attendance never topped 15,000 in any one season and most of the teams averaged less than 5000.
This was in spite of several moves by the NASL to make the sport more friendly to American audiences. They turned the clock upside down with match timings counting down to zero. Off-sides were flagged only in the last 35-yards and they even brought in penalty shootouts to decide every drawn match. This, they hoped, would make the game more exciting and decisive and help soccer holds its own vis-à-vis baseball and American football.
Finally by the mid-seventies the NASL decided that the only way to increase popularity was to bring in some of the biggest names in world football.
One of the biggest, and a moderately successful import at that, was Brazilian footballing great Pele. Pele had retired from his Brazilian club side, Santos, in 1972. Two years later he joined the New York Cosmos attracted by an extremely lucrative salary package. (Much like Beckham’s move to the Galaxy.)
Pele was outstanding for the Cosmos and was instrumental in making both the Cosmos and the NASL a success in the years he played. Pele was not alone. There was, in fact, an exodus of stellar footballing talent across the Atlantic following the Brazilian’s excursion.
Beckenbauer, George Best, Johan Cruyff, Gerd Muller and Bobby Moore were just some of the two hundred or so foreign players who flooded the NASL in the late seventies. Now this ideally should have given a new life to the struggling NASL. After all some of these players were popular the world over and had won the World Cup themselves.
Things did not go according to plan.
A slow death
First of all the Americans had just not heard of a vast majority of these players. While Pele and some of his contemporaries were good draws, the others were unable too attract redeeming crowds.
Additionally salaries for the overseas players began to eat into team funding and most of the American players had to settle for lower pay to make room for the stars. And with local players warming the bench and watching foreigners take over their position on the pitch, development of the game and local talent suffered.
By the end of the 1984 season most of the teams were struggling and team owners having tried everything possible to push ratings finally gave up. The final nail in the coffin was when FIFA awarded the 1986 World Cup to Mexico after Columbia backed out. Hosting the tournament would have given a fillip to the NASL. But their hopes were dashed. The NASL suspended operations in 1985. The Chicago Sting, led by German free kick exponent Karl-Heinx Granitza won the last league championship in 1984.
Some two hundred foreign players went back to their home countries having cashed in into the NASL opportunity.
Will David Beckham’s tour of duty to the US be any different? Only time will tell. In the meantime it may be prudent to tape all your favourite MLS matches. If history is any indicator things could get very interesting with the Beautiful Game in the U.S.