I am a subscriber to the LA Times and got this from their internet site. Whole bunch of info, and I mean a whole bunch!
Enjoy the reads!
Signing is a team effort
Leiweke, CAA and Adidas are key to the $250-million deal, which includes merchandise and profit sharing.
By Greg Johnson, Times Staff Writer
January 12, 2007
It took some really big dealers to wrap up the $250-million package that will bring soccer star David Beckham to Los Angeles later this year to play for the Galaxy in Major League Soccer.
Key movers in the deal that began to take shape on New Year's Day included AEG President Tim Leiweke, "American Idol" creator Simon Fuller, Creative Artists Agency and executives at German shoe giant Adidas. The supporting cast included MLS owners who recently restructured a salary cap and television networks that are paying millions of dollars for the right to broadcast upcoming MLS games.
Beckham's existing contract with Real Madrid in Spain prohibited him from seeking a new deal until Jan. 1, so that's when AEG's chase began in earnest.
"I made some people miserable because we worked on the holiday," Leiweke said. "And we kept at it until 3 or 4 this morning. There have been a lot of intense conversations."
Leiweke declined to comment on specifics of the deal that AEG and Beckham's camp described in a press release as being worth $250 million over five years. But the eye-popping figure isn't a straight salary deal like the U.S. record for an athlete — the $252-million, 10-year contract that Alex Rodriguez signed in 2001 with the Texas Rangers.
Beckham's Galaxy contract is worth about $10 million annually, according to sports, advertising and entertainment industry executives. Beckham, who pitches product for Adidas, Gillette, Motorola and Pepsi-Cola, hopes to earn about $20 million annually from sponsorship deals. Sales of jerseys and other gear could contribute another $10 million, and Beckham reportedly negotiated a profit-sharing plan with the Galaxy and AEG that, depending on the club's finances, could deliver another $10 million annually.
Though AEG couldn't approach Beckham until Jan. 1, the Los Angeles-based sports and entertainment company was able to build upon an existing relationship because Beckham earlier had opened a soccer academy at the Home Depot Center in Carson.
AEG's entertainment division also had done business with 19 Entertainment Inc., a Fuller company that created "American Idol" and had managed the Spice Girls singing group; Beckham's wife, Victoria, is the former Posh Spice.
Owners of competing MLS franchises also welcomed the news. "You've got to give Tim Leiweke all the credit in the world," said Dave Checketts, whose New York-based SCP Worldwide owns MLS Real Salt Lake. "This took a tremendous amount of vision, energy and work. And it helps to have [AEG owner] Phil Anschutz's checkbook."
Leiweke credited CAA partner David "Doc" O'Connor and agent Jeff Frasco for helping to speed the deal along. "Doc, Jeff, Simon and I are all friends," Leiweke said. "This was a huge deal for AEG…. But, if not for them, this deal couldn't get done in 10 days."
Adidas, which outfits MLS teams and Beckham, also was in on the negotiations. The sports marketing giant is betting that the newest MLS star will spark stronger sales in the U.S. AEG also got an assist from other MLS franchise owners who recently agreed to modify a league salary cap so teams could bring in players of Beckham's caliber.
The deal won immediate approval from U.S. television networks that broadcast professional soccer games. In August, ABC/ESPN and Univision signed an eight-year multimedia deal with MLS. ESPN2 will televise 26 regular-season games and three playoff matches. ABC will televise the MLS title game, the season opener and the All-Star game.
Bob Dorfman, executive creative director with San Francisco-based Pickett Advertising, believes advertisers will consider campaigns featuring Beckham and his wife.
"I can easily see a MasterCard spot featuring the Beckhams shopping for furniture to fill their new Hollywood digs," Dorfman said.
But it could take a while for Beckham to flex his sports marketing muscles to the degree that he has elsewhere in the world. Though U.S. soccer fans know Beckham, only 40% of Americans in general recognize him, according to Henry Schafer, executive vice president at Manhasset, N.Y.-based Marketing Evaluations Inc., which measures celebrity likability.
At present, Schafer said, Beckham lacks the charismatic appeal in this country that has been reserved for what he called "the crème de la crème of the athletic world, people like Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson."
Beckham will get one early measure of his U.S. commercial appeal in July when his contract with Gillette expires.
"We're going to evaluate the opportunities that this move has for our relationship," Gillette spokesman Mike Norton said. "But David has been the public face for Gillette's male grooming products since we signed him in 2004, and he's been seen in more than 150 countries.
With Beckham, what you see is what you get
Beckham's looks and fame are perfect fit for L.A., but his on-field talents are definitely on the wane
By Chuck Culpepper, Special to The Times
January 12, 2007
You're getting another beautiful face, Los Angeles. You don't seem to mind those.
And you're getting quite the spry haircut, subject to change at any moment. Sometimes it seems every third young male skull in London bears the David Beckham cut that looks like it went along content to stay close to the head until it made a single sweep upward like a wavelet in a pond.
You're getting a soccer midfielder, but let's shelve the minutiae for a moment.
You're getting another brand, and, come to think of it, you don't seem to mind those, either. You're getting a brand so effectively globalized that when Beckham alighted in China in July 2003, fans lined up to swoon, a teenager told of her Beckham dolls at home and a 26-year-old tobacco-factory worker told the Associated Press, "He's so handsome and he has so much class and breeding."
You're getting an earthling so famous his look-alikes make approved endorsement appearances to sell his fragrance, yet who somehow seems to exude an everyday decency plus a bale of what the French call "bien dans sa peau" ("comfortable in his own skin").
And you're getting a soccer midfielder, but let's shelve the minutiae for a moment.
You're getting somebody who married a Spice Girl — OK! Magazine had exclusive nuptial-photo rights — and you're getting three more inventive child names — Brooklyn, Romeo and Cruz — because you just didn't have enough of those. You're getting another human tattoo canvas who had his wife's name ("Victoria") tattooed on his back in Hindi even though the artist apparently misspelled it (added an "h"). You're getting somebody who prompts that atypical assessment from generally lunatic fans: Well, he'll sell a lot of shirts.
You're getting somebody so hyper-famous that it's possible for Europeans to suffer a mild malaise we might call "Beckham fatigue." Unscientific studies have shown that Beckham fatigue can congeal within six to eight months of taking up residence in England, at a point when the brain absorbs excessive Beckham-and-wife and begins to drown in the frothing impertinence.
Then again, you don't have Beckham fatigue, which might just be one reason you're getting Beckham.
You're also getting a soccer midfielder, and those of you who already realized that already know what kind of soccer midfielder you're getting.
The rest of you might notice this Beckham hubbub and think you're getting, oh, Ronaldinho.
You're not.
You're getting neither the best player in the world nor the former best player in the world. You're not getting the best English player. You're getting a fine 31-year-old who has spent much of the Real Madrid season seated in wane after 94 international appearances for England and 1990s stardom for Manchester United. You're getting a player who can kick the ball ingeniously but often can't beat somebody to the ball to kick it, a maestro when the ball sits still but not so much when the ball moves.
If you'll look carefully — and you might not, even — you'll notice that in soccer the ball moves more than it sits. If you'll look even more carefully, you'll notice that, still, if a dead ball struck from a free kick or corner kick curves wickedly and travels, say, into that big net at the end of the pitch — sorry, field — they count it as a goal.
Sometimes, it's the only goal all day, thus invaluable.
As you see, you're getting a player of debated merits on European chat boards, yet you're getting somebody who'll rate as a good Major League Soccer player.
That's a kind assessment in the English language, if a put-down in an English pub.
In the omniscient pregame conversations in English pubs, when people speak of Major League Soccer, they …
Well, they don't speak of the MLS.
But if somebody, say, brings it up, they tend to quibble over whether it resembles more England's second tier or its third. This can be expected from a nation with an 849-year head start on another nation (927 A.D. to 1776).
In the erudite pubs also known as English newspapers, words such as "minnow" and "ignominy" have greeted Beckham's trajectory to the Galaxy from previous stops at storied Manchester United and storied Real Madrid (since 2003).
"Minnow" referred to the Galaxy.
"Ignominy" referred to his exit from soccer Broadway, although many people, if offered $250 million for some ignominy, would take the $250 million and try to cope with the ignominy.
The Guardian's Ian Plenderleith wrote immaculately, "Due to his limitations as a player, Beckham may actually fit in very well in U.S. soccer."
The BBC.com's Phil McNulty wrote, "It seems he has effectively admitted his serious career is finished…."
And Guardian bloggers Barry Glendenning and Sean Ingle wrote rambunctiously, "According to the Battersea Dogs' Home website, 'Giving a home to a rescue animal is one of the most rewarding experiences a person can have.' However, they warn: 'It is important to know and feel that you are ready to take on the commitment of another life, a life that will be totally dependent on you for up to 15 years.'
"Or just five, if the mangy mutt in question answers to the name 'Becks.' "
From such genteel places does England conversation skip quickly these days to the week's pertinent matters, such as Arsenal's picturesque six goals the other night at Liverpool or whether manager Jose Mourinho might leave Chelsea after this season.
But you? Most of you don't know Mourinho from Ronaldo. You're getting a brand, and you're getting a beautiful face, and you've long shown the knack for handling those.
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Begin text of infobox
Across the pond
Voices from the English media on David Beckham's move to Los Angeles:
He is being hired not so much for kicking a ball, but his power to sell stuff: seats at games, shirts and other merchandise, TV rights, razor blades, places at his academy, you name it. In short, anything and everything AEG — as a global player with fingers in all kinds of pies — want to use him to flog.
—NICK HARRIS, THE INDEPENDENT
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Yesterday's outpouring of interest in a fading star's transfer to Tinseltown speaks more about the English obsession with celebrity, rather than current sporting ability. The brand plays on.
—HENRY WINTER, THE TELEGRAPH
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His image — the handsome husband of a pop singer, whose lifestyle is daily fodder for magazines from Teesside to Timbuctoo — is his fortune and LA Galaxy executives were quick to recognise that they were being offered the chance of sporting gold dust.
—KEVIN EASON, THE TIMES OF LONDON
Bill Plaschke:
He's here to serve, and sell, a Greater good
January 12, 2007
You want to sell soccer in America?
Vend it like Beckham.
You want to repair the divide between the millions of Americans who play soccer and the thousands who actually watch it?
Mend it like Beckham.
You want people to think soccer here will finally become a major sport and live happily ever after?
Pretend it like Beckham.
Arguably the world's most famous athlete is coming to work in Los Angeles, but there's something you should know.
David Beckham is not joining the Galaxy as an athlete, but as an advertising campaign.
He is coming as soccer swag, a walking Super Bowl commercial, a big-haired billboard.
His job here is not to win, but to give his sport one last chance to work in the biggest place where it doesn't.
His success will be defined not by corner kicks, but by converts.
"Soccer in America is the biggest-played sport up to a certain age," Beckham said in a televised message. "That's where I want to take it to another level. Potentially it can go higher than anyone can probably believe in America."
Translated, it's his job to round up those baggy-shorted runts clogging up your park and herd them over to his park.
That's all fine and good, but this has been tried here before, remember? A big star showed up to sell a secondary sport, and it worked for a while, but once that star disappeared, so did the sport.
Guy by the name of Gretzky.
Beckham's job is to be greater than the Great One.
No wonder he is being paid roughly $50 million a year for five years, miracles being worth at least much.
"Right now, the move means a ton; I've never seen ESPN this excited about soccer in my life," said Sigi Schmid, coach of Major League Soccer's Columbus Crew and former coach of the Galaxy. "But the real test will be down the road, in how it can help elevate our league and our sport."
Here's hoping Beckham at least does better than in his last two jobs; he was cut by England's national team and benched by Real Madrid.
Right now, at best, it's a bad news-good news deal.
The bad news is, at age 31, Beckham is not among the world's elite players anymore.
The good news is, neither is anybody else in MLS.
Beckham's joining the Galaxy is a little like if Mike Piazza were to join the Nippon Ham Fighters. Talent is relative. Running alongside the locals, Beckham will look like Gulliver.
"If you were looking for an MLS most valuable player, he'd certainly be a finalist," said Schmid.
The bad news is, Beckham already acts so much like a movie star — he has thus far refused to engage in live interviews with the Los Angeles media — that it will be difficult for him to engage with the suburban young families to whom he is trying to sell the sport.
The good news is, who needs to meet a movie star when you have your own movie?
The hit movie "Bend It Like Beckham" has given him thousands of fans who can't wait to cheer the real thing.
"That movie was huge with soccer kids, it still is," said Frank Bigelow, an attorney and a longtime coach, referee and league official in Pasadena youth soccer. "It's going to be a really big deal for those kids to go down and cheer him."
The bad news is, Beckham is a married family man who might not appeal to the Hollywood crowd he so desperately seeks.
The good news is, his wife, Victoria, is a former member of the Spice Girls, a woman whose professional name, Posh Spice, not only defines her, but describes her.
"When I think of the $250-million deal, I think of how much will Victoria spend on Rodeo Drive," said Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon. "Seriously, people will be drawn in by Beckham's novelty, and soccer will hope they will stay."
First, Beckham has to stop the Galaxy's attendance bleed. The team drew an average of 20,814 last season, a decrease of nearly 4,000 from the previous year, the first decline in its four years at the Home Depot Center.
Second, he has to stop the American soccer fan bleed, a condition understood by Bigelow, the Pasadena soccer dad who has seen it up close.
"It seems like I've been able to convert everyone into an American soccer fan except my own son," said Bigelow, whose son, Franklin, is 20. "He is an English Premier League snob. That's what he watches. He says the MLS is just not good quality."
Third, Beckham has to create new fans from young players and parents who are happily involved in 20 hours of soccer a week but would never dream of spending three hours a month watching it at their local stadium.
"Here's where he can make a real impact," said Schmid. "Beckham doesn't just pull from soccer people, he pulls from Hollywood, from the fashion world, from the business world. He can pull in a lot of new people."
But will they stay after he leaves? Can one aging star actually break the perception of MLS as an inferior league and the United States as an apathetic soccer nation?
Beckham will be lucky to even bend it.
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Biggest sports deals
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If David Beckham's deal with the Galaxy reaches its projected figures,it would potentially make him the highest-paid player in team sports.
Value Annual
(mill.)/ Year value
Name length signed Team (mill.)
David Beckham* $250/five years 2007 Galaxy $50
Soccer
Alex Rodriguez $252/10 years 2000 TX.Rangers $25
Baseball
Kevin Garnett $126/six years 1997 MN.Timberwolves $21
Basketball
Manny Ramirez $160/eight years 2000 Boston Red Sox $20
Baseball
Shaquille O'Neal $100/five years 2005 Miami Heat $20
Basketball
Kevin Garnett $100/five years 2003 MN.Timberwolves $20
Basketball
LeBron James $60/three years 2006 Cleveland Cavaliers $20
Basketball
Kobe Bryant $136/seven years 2004 Lakers $20
Basketball
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* Includes revenue from sources other than his soccer salary.
