Almost makes me think that trips to NJ will be worth it :)
Or perhaps a nice way to use up frequent flyer miles. Although I am sure that ticket prices will be higher with Beckham than they were before.
“He cannot kick with his left foot, he cannot head a ball, he cannot tackle and he doesn’t score many goals. Apart from that he’s alright.” —George Best on Beckham
Posh is inked for a TV show out of L.A. Beckham’s game is now old enough to no longer be considered valid in Europe [which well, if you saw him play in the World Cup (except for free kicks) this is old news]. John comment is indeed hilarious, and George Best’s new weight loss is right on schedule.
You’re absolutely right about the capitalism angle, Michele. The article refers to his pay package being made up of salary and existing endoresements. Now take a quick look at the gear for sale on LA Galaxy’s website and you’ll see what’s happening: Adidas is making a play against Nike for big-time celebrity sponsorship in the US.
Nike’s central sports marketing strategy is to align itself with sports stars, and they have Freddy Adu here in the States. Beckham is a brand and not a phenomenal soccer player—and a bigger brand than Adu. The hope is that he will raise the awareness of Adidas, professional soccer, and the LA Galaxy all at once.
So, perhaps there will be more than a couple thousand people at the next Red Bull game? That’s all I’m saying. I want to feel excited about soccer again, almost as excited as I felt when the World Cup was going on.
Tobyjoe and I watch the premier league on Fox Soccer chan every Saturday. I really enjoy that time of the week. We both have a lot of fun.
I do hope that eventually the US teams can feel as exciting. I want bigger crowds and is it totally unreasonable for a little boy to dream about becoming a professional US soccer player one day? Just saying. :]
However, the Achilles Heel of “american soccer” remains the inherent lack of stoppage time on a regular basis in order to insert commercials. Ya think an American network will actually respect “the game” enough to forgo this…umm…in our lifetime? Cyber-painting the center of the field artificially during the play only makes the urge to sell sell sell all the more hideous……..though one can only hope.
Americans just can’t see beyond the damn fieldgoal. I’ve been thinking, (uhoh) a football game goes on for about 4 hours, right? A soccer game is 90 minutes long plus 15 minutes of half. So, that’s 1 hour and 30 minutes of game time with 15 minutes of ad time total.
If a football game is 4 hours long, first of all, i’d be curious to see how many minutes are generally used for ad time during a football game. Plus, it takes up 4 hours (plus post and pre game bullshit) of normal TV station time. That’s a shitload of time devoted to one very specific group of people. How many cars are there out there to sell, people?
(I’m not sure where I’m going with this but I feel the need to finish.) Given those games are so long and TV stations are alienating a group of people for that amount of time, does advertising really pay off all that much during a football game?
Am I making ANY sense at all?
I’d much rather give 1.30 hours a week away of my station’s on air time rather than an entire 4 hours, unless, of course, it’s the superbowl.
Funny, when I think about the ads run during football games (not including the 1 day a year for the Superbowl) I can remember car ads, fast food ads (like McDonalds and Pizza Hut) and, shit, I can’t think of anything else. Maybe Geico? Oh, right, car insurance adverts.
Well, football games really take about 3 hours to broadcast, with some running over (which is why games are 1pm and 4pm on Sundays). There is also a 15 minute halftime in footbal. However, during those 15 minutes, you have a half-time show that covers games from around the league. People will need to care about the whole soccer league, or you’ll have to offer some other valuable programming to keep viewers for those 15 minutes … (The superbowl, for example, because there are no other games to recap/highlight, has its own show, and the commercials themselves become part of the programming—but that’s a special case).
Regular-season football games also have a lot of local advertising on them (here in Buffalo we’re inundated with personal injury lawyers) as well as promotions for network programming, the local news show (Doppler Radar!), Dish Network, Time Warner Cable, etc.
The problem isn’t so much the availability of commercial time, but the target market. If you don’t get those male demographics (ages 18-50), then you’re not going to get the TV time.
In my opinion, golf, NASCAR, and poker offer far less action and entertainment than soccer, but they all receive considerably more TV time. I read somewhere that the next thing to hit TV like poker is going to be dominos! I have a hard time believing that.
Oh god, golf. Wow. I can’t imagine watching a golf match. (Is that what it’s called? A match? I am way bored by golf. Just like other folks are way bored by soccer I supposed.
American Soccer doesn’t have any household names. Every other sport does.
The avergage american can’t name a US soccer player. But everyone knows Beckham.
I think more people now that there’s even an LA team and an actual US league now than did 2 weeks ago – so i think the Beckham deal is doing exactly what they want – soccer hasn’t been able to make an household icon in the US yet, so they’re just buying one to build off it. perfect sense.
……(most people are bored by golf on tv and i completely understand and i would not try and change anyone’s mind, and here comes the big but……to help a nonplayer understand why anyone would even consider watching golf other than grass growing, i give you this…..
being as i come from a scottish family (mom’s side) who owned a golfcourse, i have been raised around golf, everyone in my family golfs….we even have a family golf/reunion every year…yada yada! so i’ve been forced to watch golf since i was a child. i’ve hated the game and loved it and hated to watch and loved it. and here is my feeling about golf that makes it magical to watch (from a player’s point of view).
golf is personal, it’s a skill where one shows up or doesn’t. there is noone to blame but one’s self when you bone a drive or miss a one foot putt. there is no team to lean on when you just aren’t feeling it. and on a good day, an average guy can plop one right next to the pin closer than a pro might. pro’s plop ‘em in the drink frequently too. so on that rare and special occation an average joe can accomplish something a pro cannot. an average joe will never sit behind the wheel of a Nascar monster and feel it’s power on the winning lap, nor will he/she kick a winning field goal or will he/she head a ball past a goalie in the world cup. we can only admire the raw determination and skill of those at that level but never experience it. so what do we do, we build a world that we can experience around that sport. be it the soap opera around nascar, the fantasy around football etc… golf is zen-like in it’s ability to get the person involved at their level and show them glimpses of what it means to be really good and the shove their noses in the fact that they aren’t. what they do see on those rare occations are the pros being shown what happens to the average joe all the time, humility. as a watcher of golf, i can both enjoy the skill of the pros and understand what they are feeling when they screw up. i will never skow what it’s like to hit the wall at 200 or be drilled into the ground by a 250 pound linebacker but i can shank one in the woods with the best of them!)
so what does soccer need to survive here in the states? it needs the name recognition, but lots of it. mia hamm got a bunch of teenage guys to accept soccer because she was pretty. hopefully Beckham can influence the guys beause he’s cool…but it’s gonna take more than one guy to do it. where’s the next mia hamm? hopefully soccer will take note of what bringing Beckham here is trying to do and they will do the same. soccer needs the grudge match. our team vs their team. our beckham vs their XXXXXX! that is where the common viewers can begin to live in what the sport has created. i hope it works!!!! god i’m full wind!
Greg, I think playing golf would be an absolute blast. Like more fun than most sports, but watching it is tough. I won’t deny. But does it count a little bit that one of my favorite movies ever is Happy Gilmore? Does it count a little bit?
I think that we have the mia hamms and the beckhams here in the states but I think they make a habit out of going elsewhere because soccer isn’t taken as seriously here as it is overseas. (McBride, for example.) Perhaps this is the step that might keep more of our best players here during the regular season? I dunno. Only time will tell.
but the idea excites me. And I am certain that when the red bulls play LA, we’ll see a lot more fans at the game.
as for golf it sucks! well if a pro is 98% perfection and 2% screw up, then i’d have to say i play perfectly 2 % of the time! : )
i hope this works for soccer….i really feel they need a little more of the grudge match mentality. soccer i fear is a little “sensitive” when it comes to that grunt grunt kind of male expression and without it, it’s fighting an uphill battle against the established grunty sports like football and hockey. pittsburgh is on the verge of losing it’s hockey team but soccer could step it up here and fill a partial void yet the time of the year is all out of whack.
funny, I know what you mean about being sensitive and all, because of the dives, right? But the funny thing for me is that most folks can’t run 45 minutes straight while kicking a ball around, all the while dodging players, etc. :] So, yeah, they don’t lose teeth or fall beneath a pile up of a bunch of big men, but man, are they ever in shape! those soccer people! :]
not exactly, “sensitive” in bigger picture of things. in my experience, soccer players are as rough and tough and cheap as the next sport, but on the surface, they are more sensitive than say a bunch of sweaty football-playing jocks who threaten to beat kids up after school……it’s this grunty stuff that viewers attach themselves to, my team can kick the shit out of your team mentality. soccer’s sensitive shell puts them in an awkward place when compared with the other sports regardless of how badass those guys are. it’s a perception thing than can be broken hopefully with some names and a little “grunt” if they can stoop to that.
Almost makes me think that trips to NJ will be worth it :)
Or perhaps a nice way to use up frequent flyer miles. Although I am sure that ticket prices will be higher with Beckham than they were before.
Frankly, both he and Posh pick my ass. But it could just be me. HE HAS A FRAGRANCE for gods sake. blah.
haha!
I know. I hear ya. But I’m hoping that he brings us ad money and then the players will follow.
Because, in the states, screw the awesome game, it’s all about capitalism!
“He cannot kick with his left foot, he cannot head a ball, he cannot tackle and he doesn’t score many goals. Apart from that he’s alright.” —George Best on Beckham
Do you seriously think he’s going to LA just for the football? I smell a movie deal.
Or maybe at least a reality TV show.
John: very funny. I hadn’t heard/read that before.
I think his lady really likes the LA scene. I’m not sure why I say that, I know nothing about her, but she just screams LA to me.
Movie deal? I hadn’t even thought of that. Please tell me not another reality tv show.
No chance they’d come to NYC with a kid named Brooklyn and all.
Posh is inked for a TV show out of L.A. Beckham’s game is now old enough to no longer be considered valid in Europe [which well, if you saw him play in the World Cup (except for free kicks) this is old news]. John comment is indeed hilarious, and George Best’s new weight loss is right on schedule.
errrp….weight loss plan
You’re absolutely right about the capitalism angle, Michele. The article refers to his pay package being made up of salary and existing endoresements. Now take a quick look at the gear for sale on LA Galaxy’s website and you’ll see what’s happening: Adidas is making a play against Nike for big-time celebrity sponsorship in the US.
Nike’s central sports marketing strategy is to align itself with sports stars, and they have Freddy Adu here in the States. Beckham is a brand and not a phenomenal soccer player—and a bigger brand than Adu. The hope is that he will raise the awareness of Adidas, professional soccer, and the LA Galaxy all at once.
So, perhaps there will be more than a couple thousand people at the next Red Bull game? That’s all I’m saying. I want to feel excited about soccer again, almost as excited as I felt when the World Cup was going on.
Tobyjoe and I watch the premier league on Fox Soccer chan every Saturday. I really enjoy that time of the week. We both have a lot of fun.
I do hope that eventually the US teams can feel as exciting. I want bigger crowds and is it totally unreasonable for a little boy to dream about becoming a professional US soccer player one day? Just saying. :]
Well…..a million a week is certainly impressive……
However, the Achilles Heel of “american soccer” remains the inherent lack of stoppage time on a regular basis in order to insert commercials. Ya think an American network will actually respect “the game” enough to forgo this…umm…in our lifetime? Cyber-painting the center of the field artificially during the play only makes the urge to sell sell sell all the more hideous……..though one can only hope.
Well, the last I checked, there wasn’t regular stoppage time in stock car racing, either, but NASCAR is huge.
Imagine that? Stoppage time in NASCAR?
Yowsa.
Americans just can’t see beyond the damn fieldgoal. I’ve been thinking, (uhoh) a football game goes on for about 4 hours, right? A soccer game is 90 minutes long plus 15 minutes of half. So, that’s 1 hour and 30 minutes of game time with 15 minutes of ad time total.
If a football game is 4 hours long, first of all, i’d be curious to see how many minutes are generally used for ad time during a football game. Plus, it takes up 4 hours (plus post and pre game bullshit) of normal TV station time. That’s a shitload of time devoted to one very specific group of people. How many cars are there out there to sell, people?
(I’m not sure where I’m going with this but I feel the need to finish.) Given those games are so long and TV stations are alienating a group of people for that amount of time, does advertising really pay off all that much during a football game?
Am I making ANY sense at all?
I’d much rather give 1.30 hours a week away of my station’s on air time rather than an entire 4 hours, unless, of course, it’s the superbowl.
Funny, when I think about the ads run during football games (not including the 1 day a year for the Superbowl) I can remember car ads, fast food ads (like McDonalds and Pizza Hut) and, shit, I can’t think of anything else. Maybe Geico? Oh, right, car insurance adverts.
Oh! Crap, beer, too.
Nevermind, Tobyjoe just explained to me why this doesn’t work. Timeouts don’t lose people. 15 minutes does.
Well, football games really take about 3 hours to broadcast, with some running over (which is why games are 1pm and 4pm on Sundays). There is also a 15 minute halftime in footbal. However, during those 15 minutes, you have a half-time show that covers games from around the league. People will need to care about the whole soccer league, or you’ll have to offer some other valuable programming to keep viewers for those 15 minutes … (The superbowl, for example, because there are no other games to recap/highlight, has its own show, and the commercials themselves become part of the programming—but that’s a special case).
Regular-season football games also have a lot of local advertising on them (here in Buffalo we’re inundated with personal injury lawyers) as well as promotions for network programming, the local news show (Doppler Radar!), Dish Network, Time Warner Cable, etc.
The problem isn’t so much the availability of commercial time, but the target market. If you don’t get those male demographics (ages 18-50), then you’re not going to get the TV time.
In my opinion, golf, NASCAR, and poker offer far less action and entertainment than soccer, but they all receive considerably more TV time. I read somewhere that the next thing to hit TV like poker is going to be dominos! I have a hard time believing that.
Oh god, golf. Wow. I can’t imagine watching a golf match. (Is that what it’s called? A match? I am way bored by golf. Just like other folks are way bored by soccer I supposed.
American Soccer doesn’t have any household names. Every other sport does.
The avergage american can’t name a US soccer player. But everyone knows Beckham.
I think more people now that there’s even an LA team and an actual US league now than did 2 weeks ago
– so i think the Beckham deal is doing exactly what they want –soccer hasn’t been able to make an household icon in the US yet, so they’re just buying one to build off it. perfect sense.sounds like a good thing for soccer!
……(most people are bored by golf on tv and i completely understand and i would not try and change anyone’s mind, and here comes the big but……to help a nonplayer understand why anyone would even consider watching golf other than grass growing, i give you this…..
being as i come from a scottish family (mom’s side) who owned a golfcourse, i have been raised around golf, everyone in my family golfs….we even have a family golf/reunion every year…yada yada! so i’ve been forced to watch golf since i was a child. i’ve hated the game and loved it and hated to watch and loved it. and here is my feeling about golf that makes it magical to watch (from a player’s point of view).
golf is personal, it’s a skill where one shows up or doesn’t. there is noone to blame but one’s self when you bone a drive or miss a one foot putt. there is no team to lean on when you just aren’t feeling it. and on a good day, an average guy can plop one right next to the pin closer than a pro might. pro’s plop ‘em in the drink frequently too. so on that rare and special occation an average joe can accomplish something a pro cannot. an average joe will never sit behind the wheel of a Nascar monster and feel it’s power on the winning lap, nor will he/she kick a winning field goal or will he/she head a ball past a goalie in the world cup. we can only admire the raw determination and skill of those at that level but never experience it. so what do we do, we build a world that we can experience around that sport. be it the soap opera around nascar, the fantasy around football etc… golf is zen-like in it’s ability to get the person involved at their level and show them glimpses of what it means to be really good and the shove their noses in the fact that they aren’t. what they do see on those rare occations are the pros being shown what happens to the average joe all the time, humility. as a watcher of golf, i can both enjoy the skill of the pros and understand what they are feeling when they screw up. i will never skow what it’s like to hit the wall at 200 or be drilled into the ground by a 250 pound linebacker but i can shank one in the woods with the best of them!)
so what does soccer need to survive here in the states? it needs the name recognition, but lots of it. mia hamm got a bunch of teenage guys to accept soccer because she was pretty. hopefully Beckham can influence the guys beause he’s cool…but it’s gonna take more than one guy to do it. where’s the next mia hamm? hopefully soccer will take note of what bringing Beckham here is trying to do and they will do the same. soccer needs the grudge match. our team vs their team. our beckham vs their XXXXXX! that is where the common viewers can begin to live in what the sport has created. i hope it works!!!! god i’m full wind!
Greg, I think playing golf would be an absolute blast. Like more fun than most sports, but watching it is tough. I won’t deny. But does it count a little bit that one of my favorite movies ever is Happy Gilmore? Does it count a little bit?
I think that we have the mia hamms and the beckhams here in the states but I think they make a habit out of going elsewhere because soccer isn’t taken as seriously here as it is overseas. (McBride, for example.) Perhaps this is the step that might keep more of our best players here during the regular season? I dunno. Only time will tell.
but the idea excites me. And I am certain that when the red bulls play LA, we’ll see a lot more fans at the game.
Also, if it ain’t Scottish, it’s shit.
as for golf it sucks! well if a pro is 98% perfection and 2% screw up, then i’d have to say i play perfectly 2 % of the time! : )
i hope this works for soccer….i really feel they need a little more of the grudge match mentality. soccer i fear is a little “sensitive” when it comes to that grunt grunt kind of male expression and without it, it’s fighting an uphill battle against the established grunty sports like football and hockey. pittsburgh is on the verge of losing it’s hockey team but soccer could step it up here and fill a partial void yet the time of the year is all out of whack.
funny, I know what you mean about being sensitive and all, because of the dives, right? But the funny thing for me is that most folks can’t run 45 minutes straight while kicking a ball around, all the while dodging players, etc. :] So, yeah, they don’t lose teeth or fall beneath a pile up of a bunch of big men, but man, are they ever in shape! those soccer people! :]
They just fall down too easily.
But look at those legs. Oh, those legs….
not exactly, “sensitive” in bigger picture of things. in my experience, soccer players are as rough and tough and cheap as the next sport, but on the surface, they are more sensitive than say a bunch of sweaty football-playing jocks who threaten to beat kids up after school……it’s this grunty stuff that viewers attach themselves to, my team can kick the shit out of your team mentality. soccer’s sensitive shell puts them in an awkward place when compared with the other sports regardless of how badass those guys are. it’s a perception thing than can be broken hopefully with some names and a little “grunt” if they can stoop to that.
More headbutts, less longhairs!
hehehehe