Beckham comes to America
(AP)Updated: 2007-07-11 09:29
Soccer moms will swoon, and gather the kids around the TV. They'll have plenty of angles to look at since ESPN is using 19 cameras for the friendly against Chelsea, including one that will be trained on the master himself for the entire game.
If all goes well, someone might score a goal. If things really go well, Beckham will score a goal.
Everyone will race out to buy season tickets, and set their TiVo for a season pass of Major League Soccer.
Or not.
Sure, sports and celebrity may seem like a great mix. But soccer and Americans just aren't.
We've seen it before, albeit on a smaller scale, when Pele came to the United States in the 1970s to make soccer as popular as the Ford Pinto. It didn't work then, and it didn't work in 1999 when Brandi Chastain and the U.S. women's team were hailed as saviors of the game only to see their attempt at a professional league flop miserably.
Speaking of which, has anyone seen the millions of little girls who were supposed to be converted into soccer fans by that Women's World Cup win recently? They're mostly grown women by now, so they shouldn't be hard to miss.
And how about the tens of millions of boys and girls who played soccer growing up? If they're like most kids I know, they gave it up just as quickly as they could for other sports once their parents gave them a choice.
Beckham isn't going to change that, no matter how much ESPN, Adidas and Motorola try. Americans may be fascinated by beautiful people, but for the most part they're bored by a game where one goal is cause for celebration and is often played so defensively that even open shots are a rarity.
People will tune in at first because they're curious, and because Beckham will be marketed as much as the iPhone. They might even buy a few tickets to get a glimpse of his hair or to see if he can really bend it like they say.
But will they be on hand to watch the Colorado Rapids draw 0-0 with the Columbus Crew?
Maybe, but don't bet on it.
Because, in the end, they're still likely to find soccer about as enticing as the newest Spice Girls album.
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