Re: 5 years $250million- THEY WERE KIDDING RIGHT?!!!!! as for soccer on tv in the states, Most people I know saw the World Cup as a nuisance. They talk bad about soccer on ESPN although they show MLS games and showed the world cup. At the end of the day, Americans don't watch soccer. Thinking that in a few years we will be bombarded with soccer commercials and soccer billboards is possible if you're watching a game on t.v or right by the stadium. The only way the league is going to grow is with TALENT. Keep the young players, bring in foreign imports. Not let the young best players leave and bring in old Euros. That's just plain dumb.
Re: 5 years $250million- THEY WERE KIDDING RIGHT?!!!!! That league was structured much differently. If you dont know that by now I am not going to waste my energy explaining it to you. But just to enlighten the dense area in your brain..a little bit.. Think stadiums and TV contract
Re: 5 years $250million- THEY WERE KIDDING RIGHT?!!!!! How'd you do it then? I wasn't even pointing that at you, jackass. I was pointing it at the other jackasses who intimated that "just like the Pele signing," this would bankrupt the league. The problem wasn't the Cosmos signing anybody. It wasn't the Rowdies signing everybody. It was the Memphis Rogues and other undercapitalized outfits signing people. A analogous situation can't happen in MLS. There aren't any Memphis Rogue-like organizations. Those who choose not to spend the money (cough cough Hunt Sports Group cough cough) won't. And the checks and balances and player limits will ensure it won't happen in MLS. Connect those dots, retard.
Re: 5 years $250million- THEY WERE KIDDING RIGHT?!!!!! We can do that too and sign David Beckham. The fallacy in your thinking is that you can't do both. It's just one player. It's like signing pele, which was great for NASL, not like signing Pele, beckenbauer, chinaglia et al, which was bad.
Re: 5 years $250million- THEY WERE KIDDING RIGHT?!!!!! That's like 20% more than he earned at RM. That 2-3 million more in additional salary would have bought less than the first hour of media coverage after the sigining was announced today. That is fact. Whether the advertisement works is a different issue.
Re: 5 years $250million- THEY WERE KIDDING RIGHT?!!!!! I don't believe that detail ever came out. The only thing that the articles did say was that players would get an increase in Licensing Revenue. Here's a nice little blurb from Kenn's site on what they were after: a more perfect union? And here's what they got per Soccertimes: CBA agreement.
Re: The 'let's financially justify 4 yr/36m for Beckham' thread Among MLS' biggest sponsors: Adidas Pepsi Gillette Among Beckham's biggest endorsements: Adidas Pepsi Gillette
Re: 5 years $250million- THEY WERE KIDDING RIGHT?!!!!! Well, whatever. The point is that I'm not running around, waving my hands in the air, screaming "the sky is falling, the sky is falling" over one fat contract paid to one player. Frankly, this contract is a lot more dangerous to health of Alexi Lalas' career as an MLS team executive than it is to the health of the league. If Becks comes over and is a flop for whatever reason, Lalas is going to have a lot of questions to answer.
Re: 5 years $250million- THEY WERE KIDDING RIGHT?!!!!! Hey, clueless, why do you think undercapitalized outfits were signing players. Here's a hint, selling tickets for a club that has no hope of winning isn't easy. Will it happen in MLS? Maybe, maybe not. But it certainly happened in NASL. So your little swipe, regardless of its target, is wrong. If you don't believe me, ask England66 who knows a thing or two about NASL.
Re: 5 years $250million- THEY WERE KIDDING RIGHT?!!!!! $3M is nothing. $5M would have been nothing too. Beckham will pay for himself. And if Adidas wanst to issue an "Air Beckham" shoe, shirt and baseball glove and plaster his face all over billboards, this will help MLS even more ... provided they do something about the product on the field also. Heck, MLS has gotten the front page of Drudge, AOL and Yahoo already. That's worth the price of admission right there.
Re: 5 years $250million- THEY WERE KIDDING RIGHT?!!!!! thanks for the info. i just don't see how a LAG "7 Beckham" replica jersey is a David Beckham image. he won't get more of the money from the sale of that jersey than any other player would get from the "collective" pot of the CBA. this all assumes that Becks will join the MLSPU. is that a requirment for all players? Becks can probably make more money as a non-union member and more of a free-lance contractor. Beckham's money will come from his ads in all forms of media, and from his Acadamies and other businesses. I'm sure Spice Girls record sales are already on the rebound.
Re: 5 years $250million- THEY WERE KIDDING RIGHT?!!!!! Which is....set up differently than MLS. Which has owners with a bit more coin than most of the NASL teams. Which has rules in place that make it unlikely that the other 12 teams will run right out and spend $50 million each that they don't have on players. As a player. I respect England66. But I know more about the business of this than you do.
Re: 5 years $250million- THEY WERE KIDDING RIGHT?!!!!! Exactly. I see the odds as very slim that HSG will shell out that sort of money on any one player in Dallas or Columbus. Which is not bad thing, in and of itself, BTW. Soccer is still played with 11 men, and so often success is not determined by the virtuosos, but by the men who do the dirty work.
Re: 5 years $250million- THEY WERE KIDDING RIGHT?!!!!! the contract isn't that fat. it's not much more (from the league's stand point) than what they paid Palencia, Hernandez, Lothar, or even EJ or LD. Lalas will answer those questions by pointing to how full the HDC is, and how much he can charge for season tickets, and how well the Galaxy draw on the road. he's building a brad there, but I don't think Alexi real was much a part of or deserves any credit/blame for this deal.
Re: 5 years $250million- THEY WERE KIDDING RIGHT?!!!!! Haven't read through the entire thread but ... 1) Has anybody said that Jamie Trecker is a badass? 2) Has anybody apologized to Jamie? I'd say that both are in order, folks.
Re: 5 years $250million- THEY WERE KIDDING RIGHT?!!!!! He was a manager, coincidentally the year the Tornado's went bankrupt.
Re: 5 years $250million- THEY WERE KIDDING RIGHT?!!!!! Fine. Then he should be well aware that it was keeping up with the Cosmos that killed the NASL (in part). It simply can't happen the same way here and now, unless they change the way the league is set up and let everybody fend for themselves.
Re: 5 years $250million- THEY WERE KIDDING RIGHT?!!!!! But how full do you think that the HDC will remain if the 2007 Galaxy with Beckham produce the same results on the field as the 2006 Galaxy? At the end of the day, the results have to be there. And I'm pretty sure that Lalas' bosses won't give two shits if Pizza Hut Park is full when the Gals come to town. HSG will appreciate AEG's monetary outlay, though.
Re: 5 years $250million- THEY WERE KIDDING RIGHT?!!!!! BY OVERPAYING THEM. AND THANK YOU FOR MAKING MY POINT. And as for the NASL statements. Let me help you all. The NASL was never designed to be a world class league. It wasn't designed to compete with the NFL, or NBA, etc. It was just a soccer league that existed. When the Cosmos got a new owner with deep pockets and he upped the money and signed PELE. At this time they were playing on dirt patch in Queens. He then signed Beckenbauer, etc. The problem. No other team had this type of money and it basically set up the Cosmos to win every year. THE REAL PROBLEM. Outside of NY no one cared about the league, and what happened when Pele and Beckenbauer retired. Without the names or ever bringing in true young talent, the league was gone. That league wasn't about soccer. It was about making the N.Y Cosmos money. Although the economics are different, the mindset of Americans is the same. Without bringing in young talent, and turning the existing talent into superstars this will never work. Bringing in old talent, and letting your young talent leave seems ass backwards and ludacris.
Re: 5 years $250million- THEY WERE KIDDING RIGHT?!!!!! The "non-fan" won't be watching full matches anyway at first. But they will be watching SportsCenter and what will they see? Highlights of Beckham bending a 25-yard free kick into the top corner just because he's Beckham. De Rosario or Twellman might be able to do the same thing, but they would never warrant the coverage because they're not global celebrities like Beckham is. That's what really behind all of this from a league perspective. And it doesn't mean NASL-like overspending since the cap is still intact. Galaxy with Beckham may still not make the playoffs this season, but MLS will get more coverage.