LA averaged 24,252 for the year. They could conceivable average 27,000 with a healthy Beckham all year. Attendance should be positively affected if the team can actually find it in themselves to win a few more games than in the last couple of years. Even if they don't sell out every game, there is room there to increase.
Nonsense, there's 45 listed in the US alone: http://www.infospace.com/info.xcite...e&QV=&SR=&NM=beckham,+david&LO=&search=Search
I have to say that I really like ESPN's Thursday night slot after this season. I've gotten used to my big Thursday game in HD, and look forward to it every week, moreso than the FSC or Telefutura games (no HDNet on Comcast ). My only complaint is that start times need to be bumped as much as conceivably possible; 8:30pm for east-coast games is better than 7:30pm, for example, simply because traffic is so damned awful on weeknights, at least here in NE. Hopefully a few years down the line the fans at large will be used to the timeslot as well, and will have no qualms about fighting the traffic to get out to those games.
Do you think Henry and Ronnie sell an equivalent amount of jerseys at Barca as Becks did for Real Madrid? Even if they're clearly superior players, I doubt that they'd bring in Beckham numbers and they don't have remotely equivalent Q ratings. With Becks and Blanco, I think we've seen that the key to drawing well with DPs is not just getting a good player, but getting a player with broader cultural resonance. There aren't too many out there like them, even among the best players out there.
Reyna's contract is guaranteed for next year, so to get him to leave would require a payout of some kind---if he agreed to it. Denilson's contract was only guaranteed for this year, with the option to continue if things worked out....[unless a Miracle occurs, say four spectacular Denilson goals against the Dynamo] it doesn't look like things worked out
Pavon had four great goals in the Gold Cup, then we signed him and that turned out to be a fluke. So as an MLS fan I say Dallas should not retain Denilson no matter what. As a Galaxy fan and FCD hater, I say give him another chance.
While I supported this stance 100% earlier in the year, I no longer think it is true. The Becks affect was hoped to be felt on two fronts, attendance and TV ratings. We know the positive affect on attendance but I have heard precious little if any real info about TV ratings. And the way MLS works is that if the ratings were at all good, they would have been shouting them from the roof tops. So seeing that Becks may have had just a small affect on ratings, we really need to concentrate on his affect on attendance when comparing other DP's. I could make a very strong argument that Ronaldihno could have as big an affect on attendance as Becks did. He won't get on as many covers, be in as many articles or be known by the general population anywhere near as much as Becks was. But all those things did not add up to ratings for Becks, so the lack of those for Ro won't be felt as badly. If anything, Ro would "speak" much louder to the soccer audience in the country than Becks would and possibly be a longer lasting affect. Of course it would likely come at a higher expense than Becks did, especially if before WC2010 (which as others have pointed out is very unlikely)
MLS was really unlucky with scheduling this year, and obviously Beckham's injury issues. It seems like the Galaxy games they chose for ESPN never really worked out. The season finale would've been a great ESPN matchup, Beckham v Blanco, loser goes home, but instead it was stuck on a sunday afternoon timeslot on a spanish channel. Certainly the Spanish language ratings have been solid this year, but we rarely see those numbers.
That's the first reasonable argument I've heard that Ronnie could do just as well for MLS as Beckham. But I'm still not entirely convinced. With the TV ratings, I guess the response for now has to be "We just don't know". We know the ratings for the first game were great, by MLS standards, but we know little about how the Becks effect would work over an entire season with a healthy Beckham. That said, I have a hunch that you're right-- that ratings still won't go up in a big way next year. But we're not just left with attendance. Would Ronaldinho jerseys really sell at the rate that Beckham jerseys did? Would he really spark investor interest in the same way? Or sponsor interest? With respect to the first question, I'm pretty sure the answer is no. With the latter two, I'm not sure, but I'd incline again towards a "no". All that said, I totally agree with your inclination to ignore the conventional wisdom and actually look for tangible evidence of the Becks effect. I have a tough time believing that all of the extra things that Becks caused could be replicated by other players, but, as of now, I don't have much to back that thought up.
no i don't think they are identical draws, but i do think they are in the handful of names that will have an effect on ticket sales, jersey sales, quality on the pitch, and overall buzz, that will mitigate the effect of becks leaving.
That's a good point-- a player doesn't need to be the precise equivalent of Beckham to have a positive effect. I guess my only question is in terms of risk-reward: I'm not sure Henry or Ronaldinho would come any cheaper than Beckham. Would it still make financial sense to bring them in? Certainly some of the Beckham-style effect would be around, but would it be enough to justify the same salary? My gut feeling is that, in today's MLS, no, it wouldn't, but it's worth as much of a shot as anything else.
Lets ignore Henry for a second because IMO while a fantastic player, he would not move the needle all by himself. He would be at the level of a Van Nisterlooy or a Schevchencko; Brilliant players but not the type that are going to draw crowds. Ronaldihno is a whole different ball of wax. We already have hard evidence that he can draw fans in multiple cities from his summer tours. His game in Giants stadium, IMO, caused a bigger buzz than when Becks played there. Watching and hearing the crowd "ohh and ahh" at his every touch was something Becks can not create. In terms of risk vs reward, Ro is a much tougher nut to chew than Becks for two reasons. 1) A transfer fee for him would be astronomical 2) And even if they get him on a free, it would take a salary/package significantly bigger than Becks because of the WC2010 possible implications (he might look at MLS as jeopardizing his chance to lead Brazil one more time). On a side note, someone like Cristiano Ronaldo would be a bigger draw than an Henry IMO. The affects he would have on both NE and NY would be enormous, but I am not sure he could draw everywhere like Becks and Ronaldihno could.
I've heard that a lot of companies are interested in Henry's classy look and are planning to use him in their advertisements. He is already in a Gillette commercial. If he continues to build his profile in the US through advertising, he could be a big draw in 3.5 years when he comes over.
I agree. I saw him in that Gillette commercial as well. If he can raise his exposure quite a bit and then couple it with a nice performance in the World Cup, then he could have a solid affect (not Becks like, but more in the Blanco range).
just as an aside, my wife and sister-in-law, think henry is just adorable. as for ronaldinho, i don't know the economics of bringing him over, but his contract is up in 2010 i believe, not sure if it's up after the cup, but maybe the stars will align. personally, of all the "potential" big names out there, his is on the top of my wish list. maybe NE or NY would put up the money for his salary, and nike and someone else could put together a beckham level advertising revenue deal. i think he'd be a fantastic candidate, to show new fans, the beauty in the beautiful game.
Well, as of right now, that what his people want to do with him. Kinda ironic that he's building his image through commercials (I mean, isn't it usually that they want you because you have an image?) I don't think there is another Beckham-- a crossover figure that gets the general public so excited. But I can certainly imagine, as you guys have said, that a special player might excite the core soccer fanbase even more than Beckham-- and those are the folks most likely to actually attend a game or watch on tv. I still don't know if it's worth it, financially, but now that MLS has some room to experiment, who wouldn't want them to try to bring over Ronaldinho is a few years?
Becks won't be repeated, although there are far better players, no one has his fame. Not even Zidane... which is really sad. But whatever, we have Becks and love him or hate him, he draws attention. It is up to the league and the fans to keep that attention after the novelty wears off. With everyone watching: show why football is the beautiful game. As for DP's in general, they are a great way to maintain the salary cap while bringing some more talent to the league. I love watching Angel play. The best way to get the league to grow is go out and make a football fan of someone.
What "we soccer fans" (i.e. those who attended MLS matches before Beckham arrived) know, is that Beckham isn't the only player of 22 on the field, and he doesn't affect every play or score every goal. I think it is good to make a large part of the marketing over the next year (or four) "Come See Beckham" because that probably will work, in the sense of getting tourists to their first game or several games. But once they are in the stadium, they will start to see what "we soccer fans" see in attending matches, and hopefully some of them will join us as soccer fans and continue to attend, Beckham or no Beckham. So I'm not too concerned with "how can we survive without Beckham," because over the next four years that he's here, we'll build enough critical mass of MLS support that he will leave the sport in better shape than he found it, and we'll move on.
As reported on the Quakes boards, San Jose will be upgrading Buck Shaw to play in for '08 and '09 with an option for '10. It will hold around 12,000. I would hope that they'd sell out regularly. It's certainly better than the 10k that some were thinking we might end up with. With some big games in another stadium, they might not actually pull down the league average very much. But they'll certainly pull the median down.
For anyone who is interested i took the same previous figures, subtracted the beckham games and then compared them to the previous year attendance average. Team Total Beckham game Non-beckham average Old Average Change y/y NER... 251812... 35402... 15458... 11786... 31% COL... 221229... Not reported on website CHI... 247356... 21374... 16142... 14111... 14% DCU... 314506... 46686... 19130... 18215... 5% COL... 228451... 18086... 15026... 13294... 13% NYR... 247948... 66237... 12979... 14570... -11% KCW... 173784... 32867... 10066... 11083... -9% FCD... 227182... N/A Super Liga only RSL... 239395... 24633... 15340... 16366... -6% HOU... 238240... 30588... 14832... 18935... -22% CHV... 214578... 23328... 13661... 19840... -31% Sorry for the ugly formating. I was assuming that the numbers were regular season attendance, not sure if that's correct or not.
The LA GALAXY has the highest AWAY ATENDANCE as well Becks is not only selling tickets in LA, as well in all other places
This is obviously a bit late and out of the current stream, but I thought I'd give an anecdotal reply to to Kenn's query here. DC had begun to experience an uptick in attendance even before the Beckham game. The last five home matches before the BG saw reported crowds of 20,952, 14,982, 20,161, 180,061, and 18,078; and that low mark was a Thursday game against Colorado in late July (and so very unlikely to have been a big draw). Having attended all those games, I can attest that those number accurately reflect actual attendance (though some of it must have been comps and giveaways). It's impossible to know exactly how much of the post-BG attendance was attributable to forced sales in connection with Beckham. It's very clear, though, from paraphernalia and other signs, that the post-BG crowd consists very largely of strong DCU supporters who would probably have been there anyway. In ten years as a DCU season ticket holder, I've seen attendance fluctuate wildly (remember Ray Hudson). Over the course of this Summer, we began to see a noticeable change in attendance: more people on a regular basis and (if jerseys and whatnot are any indication) more passionate commitment among those present. The Beckham game came amidst that, and may have augmented it somewhat. But recurring attendance was already going up. perc
Love him or hate him...Beckham has done a great thing for the sport...the most important thing is to get those people who came to any of the MLS games he played around the country, to become a fan and come back again regardless if he's playing or not.