Five years later, Beckham’s U.S. impact up for debate

It was Friday afternoon, three days after David Beckham said he would play one more season with the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer amid speculation he would finish his career in Paris.

Hundreds of replica soccer jerseys representing the world's best teams and players were hanging from racks at the Soccer Zone on Warm Springs Road in Henderson like ... well, one of Beckham's corner kicks.

Except none of the jerseys had Beckham's name on back. None had the name of his team on front.

In 2007 it was different, said John Kabibian, the man behind the counter.

"Beckham, Beckham, Beckham," Kabibian said. "We sold a lot of Beckham stuff."

Now, except for the Adidas Predator PowerSwerve silver and gold cleats Beckham endorses, his gear is harder to find than Blackburn Rovers goals in the Barclays Premier League.

People want Lionel Messi jerseys ($120). People want Cristiano Ronaldo jerseys ($115). People do not want David Beckham jerseys.

Not anymore.

On the day Beckham re-upped with the Galaxy, the Review-Journal ran three paragraphs in the sports briefs. We ran seven paragraphs on UNR's Wolfie Jr. being named the nation's best mascot.

When Beckham and his pop-star wife, Victoria Adams, aka Posh Spice, signed with the Galaxy in January 2007, trumpets were sounded and hosannas were sung. Beckham would do for soccer here what Wayne Gretzky did for hockey here. This was Tiger Woods in soccer boots. That's what everybody said.

That's not what I said, and it was nothing against soccer, because I like the game, though Liverpool seems to be stuck in sixth place in the table. C'mon lads!

That's not what Tony Priest, Dave Hill and Marty Appleby of Sheffield, England, said, either. They were sitting on bar stools at the Crown & Anchor British Pub near the UNLV campus on the day Beckham signed with the Galaxy.

"At the end of the day, it's how you were brought up," Priest said. "You guys have American football, baseball, basketball and a little ice hockey. We've been brought up with our football since the 18th century."

They told me we were going to like Ricky Hatton a lot more than we were going to like David Beckham, but that was mostly because they were sitting on bar stools.

(Yes, as the song was infernally sung, there's only one Ricky Hatton. But it seemed like the night he fought them, there were three Floyd Mayweather Juniors and about six Manny Pacquiaos.)

There's only one Wayne Gretzky, too.

Gretzky and Beckham were renown for distributing the hockey puck and soccer ball, but Gretzky also could put a hockey puck in the back of the net. Gretzky scored 894 regular-season goals in 20 years; Beckham has scored 90 in 18 years.

Theirs are different games, with different positions and different responsibilities. But American sports fans are infatuated with offense, not with guys who hold their teams together from central midfield.

"(Beckham) was never going to be that guy," said Simon Keith, the former UNLV soccer star who played for the Cleveland Crunch in the old Major Indoor Soccer League. "But I would argue he has made a huge impact" on American soccer.

Keith noted that MLS has moved ahead of the NBA and NHL in average attendance. "You go to a Seattle Sounders game, where they are all singing and chanting and there are flares going off, and tell me he hasn't made an impact."

The MLS expansion franchise fee has quadrupled to $40 million, and the league now has TV deals with ESPN and NBC.

Would it have happened without Beckham?

One could submit the United States' strong showing in the most recent World Cup might have more to do with the spikes in attendance and popularity. But those associated with the Beckham experiment say his presence has made American pro soccer credible again, as it was when Pele and Giorgio Chinaglia played for the New York Cosmos in the 1970s and held court at Studio 54.

"David coming to MLS, arguably one of the most popular cultural figures in the world today, was a statement to a really broad global audience that MLS was serious, that we were a legitimate business," MLS commissioner Dan Garber told the Los Angeles Times.

The oft-injured Beckham is 36 now, more style than substance. He still can bend a free kick like himself. And, according to my wife, he sure is handsome.

But to say he has had the impact that Wayne Gretzky had on hockey, that Tiger Woods had on golf, would be overstating it.

To say he has done for American soccer what Danica Patrick did for IndyCar racing would not be overstating it in the least.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.