Bored By Beckham

At least Bill Plaschke is not buying the hype:

Bored by Beckham.

If Los Angeles' newest sports star makes an impact beyond reality television shows and surreal gossip columns, I will stop using lame movie metaphors to describe him, OK?

But, for now, nothing else comes to mind.

David Beckham shows up to join the Galaxy soccer team and meet the Los Angeles media today, and I have but one thought.

Dude, where have you been?

Your final game for your Real Madrid team was nearly a month ago. Since then, the Galaxy has played four games, and won one. It will play another game before you actually take the field next weekend.

Dude, for $32.5 million, couldn't you have caught an earlier flight?

Baffled by Beckham.

One of the most publicized sports stars in the world shows up today more than six months after he agreed to the contract, and excuse me if I can't find the chills.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/columnists/la-sp-plaschke13jul13,1,5283476.column?page=1&ctrack=1&cset=true&coll=la-headlines-sports-columnists

 

One problem Bill. His contract with Real didn't expire until June 30. It was only then that he was allowed to join his new club.

He then goes on to say:

"And goodness, the media have tried to push that agenda, with everything from national magazine covers to stories on the front of our sports section that shoved good baseball stories inside.

But it turns out, we're the only folks talking loudly about this stuff."

So the 5,000 fans that showed up to see him presented, or the 250,000 pre-orders of new Galaxy shirts were a mirage in L.A.? Never happened?

How about the fact that Galaxy season tickets are at an all-time high, and that Beckham is going to be playing to a sold-out Home Depot Center for the rest of the season. How about the impact he's having on away games, for which tickets have long been sold out.

It's sad, because Plaschke is better than Mariotti in that he usually looks outside his window once in a while. It's a shame he didn't choose to look today.

 

Roga Clemens, Shaquille O'Neal(although he was actually injured). Nothing new.

P.S. Dont mean to threadjack, but I still dont understand why a great sport like soccer isnt a popular sport here in the states.

 

Plaschke is not drinking the Beckham Kool-Aid, either, huh? I seem to find more skeptics than anything regarding Mr. Posh Spice and his potential impact upon soccer as a spectator sport in America.

On a side note, one thing I always respect about Plaschke is that he doesn't just opine, he reports as well. Good insight from a wide range of folks - a soccer guy, a celeb blogger and a reporter - in this column.

And that, C~T, is a good question. Anyone care to elaborate why soccer is on the lower rungs of the American spectator sport food chain?

 

"We won't know Beckham's true impact, obviously, until he starts playing games. But at this rate, he is going to have to bend the ball from Carson to Rancho Cucamonga to affect our landscape beyond making Galaxy season-ticket holders smile."

 

Easy Chuck. Since soccer died off in the U.S. after WWII, the other sports had a heck of a headstart in the popularity race.

Did you know the U.S. was one of the 13 teams at the first Soccer World Cup in 1930? Or that they then played in the second tournament four years later?

 

He has some merit in there, but his lack of research into the way that sports work in a global market is sad. It is something that soccer fans have seemed to accepted since soccer, and to some extent hockey, is the only real global sport that even tries to branch into the United States.

 

Or that the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup is the oldest continually awarded trophy in American sports history?

 

My theory CG: Soccer, like hockey, takes too much attention for the average American sports fan. Football and basketball take less attention with all the timeouts, etc.

 

It was a column- not a feature story.

 

Here's another question - why don't soccer's participatory numbers in the U.S. translate to success at the spectator level? America loves Monday Night Football and baseball is on however many stations however many times a week but millions of U.S. viewers don't seem to tune in on a weekly basis to watch broadcast soccer.

 

Has he looked at the MLS standings lately?

Los Angeles may be in fifth in the West right now, but they have six games in hand on clubs like Dallas right now, and five on Houston and Colorado. That's 15 possible points, with the Galaxy currently four out off a playoff berth behind Colorado.

With a team as talented as they are, now Donovan's back from international duty and others recently brought into the squad, there's no way the Galazy don't make the playoffs.