The Beckhams Are Coming! The Beckhams Are Coming!

For months now, I have been beat over the head with the impending arrival of soccer, excuse me, football superstar David Beckham and his wife Victoria (aka "Posh Spice"). After attaining megastar status across the pond for his play on Manchester United of the English Premier League, the England national team, Real Madrid of the Spanish Primera Division and the hit film "Bend it Like Beckham" with Keira Knightley and that cute Indian girl from "ER," Beckham decided his next challenge would be to take on Hollywood when he signed a five-year, $32.5 million contract to play with the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=445425&cc=5901

From the perspective of the Galaxy the deal makes perfect financial sense, much like the signing of Japanese baseball players like Ichiro, Hideki Matsui and Daisuke Matsuzaka by the Mariners, Yankees and Red Sox, respectively. Beckham is by far the biggest name in soccer, if not necessarily its best player at this point, and what better way to market a sport that quite frankly is a niche in this country what with the huge popularity of NFL football, Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association. Much like baseball, soccer is an international game so you figure the Galaxy will make millions on the initial curiosity factor and sales of the new Beckham jersey alone if nothing else. Will it increase long term interest in the sport via ticket sales and TV ratings? I say no. I'll still watch soccer for a couple of weeks every 4 years during the World Cup, and then go right back to ignoring it when the Cup is over.

Aside from what he can do on the field, both David Beckham and his wife, Victoria have made no secret of their desire to cash in on Hollywood in terms of increased opportunities in the American television and film industry. So as to ingratiate herself with her new stateside audience, Victoria is not so subtly taking to the airwaves in a one-hour special on NBC on July 16 titled "Victoria Beckham: Coming to America.'' If this is half as funny as the 1988 Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall film of the same name I just might have to check it out. Odds are the humor in this special will be of the unintentional variety.

Just in case we were not yet buying the legitimacy of this new Hollywood power couple, we were also told that the Beckhams count Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes amongst their friends. Given Tom's bizarre behavior in recent years, what with the Oprah couch rant, the Brooke Shields feud and the fact that we still don't know if Katie was actually impregnated by aliens, I am not sure if this is the guy you want to hitch your wagons to at this point. As Lumbergh said in "Office Space," "Oooohhh. I am going to have to go ahead and disagree with you there." How about somebody who is a big name and well liked but not nearly as crazy, such as Will Smith, Brad Pitt or Matt Damon.

My point is that I feel like we are being manipulated here, and while the stakes aren't as high as say, the Iraq War, you can't tell people to get all fired up about soccer now that Beckham is here when quite frankly most of us didn't care about him or the sport when he was in Europe. So throw your tickertape parade and air your NBC specials and parade the Beckhams around with TomKat. It will elicit little more than a collective yawn from most of us Americans. Me, I'll be watching baseball and "The World Series of Pop Culture" - where, by the way, defending champion El Chupacabra was bounced in the first round by Fragilay, the most shocking TV development this summer since the screen went blank at the end of "The Sopranos." It's nothing personal Becks, and I hope you enjoy your stay, but I just don't care that you're here.