http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/frank_deford/01/17/beckham/index.html I found it interesting. More for who was saying it than what was said.
Good column. I find it interesting that possibly his knowledge of and dealings with Lieweke and Checketts in other areas may temper his criticism of MLS. Although I was once charged with pitching an idea to Mr. Deford. He very nicely and politely informed me that he didn't need any help coming up with his column ideas. So it's not like MLS is getting a bug in his ear to take it easy.
He's right that the lasting value to the everyday man may be limited, but I'd argue that MLS's biggest hurdle is convincing existing soccer fans that their product is worth paying for. Beckham will help them overcome that hurdle. If he can do that, MLS will take a big step forward.
That's like those "it took the NBA x years to get to where we are in attendance" canards that Val Ackerman used to love to talk about. Different times then. I don't know what that means now, exactly. If you have to wait 30 years to be accepted now, you're unlikely to make it. Except that the ABA got a merger, with four teams coming into the NBA. The USFL got many of its players into the NFL, but none of its teams. To say the ABA went the way of the USFL is stretching it a bit. God, I'm sick of hearing this every day for the last week. Again - Pele retired in 1977. 1978 to 1980 are basically the glory years of the NASL. It wasn't "a ghost in short pants" until after the 1980 season when teams started dropping like flies. And while some like to draw a straight line of causation between Pele's signing and bankruptcy and his retirement and the league folding, it's not quite that simple. A man as educated and erudite as Frank DeFord should know that, and shouldn't have to resort to dumbing things down quite that much to make a point.
From MacBeth "...Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing..." Pointless article from a non-watcher of soccer, who has no real point of view on the Beckham signing. Go back to openly hating the sport, Frank!
I always get a kick reading some of Deford's comments or when he's on NPR. I think it's great that MLS has lasted twice as long as his biggest failure "the National", where they burned through 5 years of financing in 3 years. He's hardly a good judge of how to run a business.
I listened to the media teleconference last week right as Beckham signed where Lalas, Leiweke, and Garber answered questions. One reporter asked Garber to rank the importance of Beckham's signing to soccer in America, clearly wanting to get a sensationalist quote as the one above. Instead, all Garber said is that Beckha'sm signing is an important and historical step, but one of many and should not be singled out. Specifically he talked how stadiums and youth teams are those other steps and are just as important. I wonder where Deford got this quote, because it doesn't sound like the usually reserved and careful Garber.
Everyone's going to leave out the "might be viewed by some" bit. These are the same people who claimed MLS said Freddy was going to be the "savior" when they were really just making it up.
Deford watches soccer, he's admitted it publicly, he just doesn't buy every line that MLS feeds him. That's a big difference from being a "hater".
Right. Every four years he waxes poetic about watching the (??) World Cup from some cafe in Morrocco. He regularly states that he enjoys the international game, but that he just doesn't think soccer will every make it big in the United States. Frankly, how many of us have been neg-repped by scaryice for "hurting the cause"?
my issue is that so much of the press the MLS gets, results in more analysis of who is delivering/writing the story, than the actual story itself. Deford writes a somewhat reasonable piece here, placing the Beckham signing in a bit of a US sports historical context. but of course that context is presented with Deford's preferences, opinions and faulty memory. but that's the story of every opinion piece.
And if you're not wid us, you're agin us? Is that it? I've been involved in sport my entire life, and I really haven't found any other spectator sport that is surrounded by the "one true religion types" that follow soccer. I'm not a "lover" of American football, but I'll still watch the SuperBowl, or even appreciate the odd college game that I'm assigned to shoot. My American football "loving" friends don't denigrate me for my lack of earnestness. They don't consider me a traitor. Too many soccer fans seem to think that anyone that shows any positive opinion towards any other sport is somehow denigrating soccer. And that the worst breed of all are folks who say that they "like" or "appreciate" soccer, but really prefer some other sport, like say horseracing, or (gasp)baseball(/gasp)
For Deford, this is a glowingly positive article about MLS. He's right, there is a lot of 'over hype' about Beckham coming to MLS. OTOH, that is exactly the point - Beckham creates that kind of attention. He didn't attack the level of play in the MLS nor say this was a stupid move. Pretty even handed, which for him is a bit of sea change from what I've read in the past. I guess, the numbers that MLS is paying Beckham finally got his respect (as it did for so many other sports reporters in the US.) "You mean, there is this much money in soccer and supporting soccer in the US?, Who would have thought?" These types of 'opinion' columns (like Saraceno's in the USA Today the other day) are meant more to entertain than to inform in my mind and we need to keep that in mind. They are not meant for analysis and detail, they are meant to take a stance that attracts attention - kind of like those short essays they have now in standardized tests. Just take a position and defend it well and interestingl; the actual postion itself and whether it is ultimately correct is actually irrelevant. The way you write and defend your position is what matters - that is where Deford is now. He has also gotten to a place where people care what he thinks (less and less I believe, but we must acknowledge that.)
I'm just not sure what the position here is - is the move for Beckham in his opinion good or bad for the sport and MLS? He is right in the middle it seems to me.