Everyone is Moving to Los Angeles

Even David and Victoria Beckham. Who? What? David Beckham – international soccer superstar, former England captain, tabloid fodder and (whether they like it or not) symbol and representative of the British Empire and his wife are moving to Los Angeles. Becks has just landed a $300 million, 5-year contract to play for the L.A. Galaxy. The L.A. who? It’s a soccer team. Yes, we have a professional soccer team here in the US. In fact, we have several, not that many people in the US would notice or even care.

That brings me to the point I want to make. David Beckham, has given up his position as midfielder for Real Madrid to come to play for the top team in the US MLS. Let me paint this situation in colors most people in North American can truly understand. Imagine if Derek Jetter, Mr. Yankee, captain of the Bronx Bombers, the end-all-be-all baseball team in the world, suddenly announced he was going to go play for some bush-league team in the Mexican League. Imagine if LaDanian Tomlinson went off to play Arena Football. Imagine if… Well, you get the idea.

$300 million for 5 years is a heck of a deal for Becks – it works out to being paid close to $1 million per week. As to whether the Galaxy will get their money’s worth out of this deal is another matter entirely. Beckham has pined of his hopes to extend soccer’s popularity in Amerikanistan and actually make a name for the sport. Saying he hopes to succeed where Pele’ failed in the 1970s takes enormous hubris but if any current, professional sports figure has any chance of getting ‘Mericans to cozy up to that weird, European sport for broken people, it would have to be David Beckham – or perhaps Ronaldhino but to be honest, in any case, the British have no hope in hell of getting the colonies to dig football.

Regardless, I wish him luck and would like to say, “Welcome to L.A. Dave and Vicki and hope you all have a pleasant stay in our sun-blasted, urban sprawl”.