$50 Million a year for Beckham????

250 fuckin Million dollars over 5 years?????????? Is this true?? Have they gone totally crazy??? They could have bought a great big team for that much money!!!!


Beckham-Galaxy deal redefines salary universe

by Jim Slater
January 12, 2007
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A landmark 250 million-dollar, five-year deal has made David Beckham the world's highest paid footballer and could rewrite the US salary landscape for superstar athletes in other sports.

"It's an amazing amount of money," Beckham said. "This move for me is not about the money. It's about making a huge difference in the soccer in America."

Asked by ESPN if he would have left behind Real Madrid to join the Los Angeles Galaxy for half the money, Beckham laughed and said: "I can't say that. They might take half of it away."


Tiger Woods remains to world's highest-paid sportsman according to Forbes magazine, having made 90 million dollars last year from prize money and endorsements.

But the US golf legend is the only unretired athlete with a better payment package than Beckham's estimated take of 50 million dollars a year.

Beckham has a stake unlike any other US sport icon in the profits he will bring all clubs, something not even the mighty Michael Jordan produced during his days with basketball's Chicago Bulls.

"There are other great sports in America people have grown up with," Beckham said. "I'm not saying soccer will be as huge as those but there's a huge improvement to be made."

And a lot of money too, with Beckham having a stake in each and every one.

The 31-year-old Englishman has dwarfed the highest-priced giants in other US sports with a deal that includes merchandising tie-ins.

Alex Rodriguez has a 10-year deal worth 252 million dollars with baseball's New York Yankees while basketball star Shaquille O'Neal has a six-year contract worth 152 million dollars and gridiron standout Michael Vick makes 130 million over 10 years. Ice hockey's Jaromir Jagr makes 77 million over seven years.

Kevin Garnett has the top annual salary in basketball at 21 million dollars while Carson Palmer tops out at 16.2 million and Jagr has a top year of 8.4 million dollars.

Those deals are basically for sporting services, but that only scratches the surface for Beckham. Separate deals with entertainment industry and endorsement firms could be four times what Beckham makes with his fancy footwork.

"Whatever people think will justify that wage, that's up to other people to decide," Beckham said. "The money thing has never been important in my football career."

That's easy for Beckham to say after making a deal that should bring nearly one million dollars a week, which is almost 143,000 dollars a day or about 6,000 dollars an hour.

That's 100 dollars a minute for five years.

England's Daily Telegraph newspaper reported Beckham will make 10 million dollars a year in salary, 25 million dollars in sponsor deals thanks to greater image rights freedoms, his own 10 million dollar merchandise deal and a profit-sharing pact with the team's owners.

Its not about buying one player over a few.

Its a commercial decision, they are trying to obtain a leading market share, believing that Beckham's popularity will not only enable this but also increase the size of the market, aswell as set a precedent that Los Angeles Galaxy can obtain successful footballers from Europe.

Speculate to accumulate.

how are they going to pay?

Having had a wage cap for so long, presumably they have made healthy yearly profits, not to mention the guranteed sponsorship which comes with Beckham.

Dont get me wrong its still a risk bearing investment.

Apparently a wealthy billionaire, part of a big financial group, is helping with the financial backing. Here's the view from two American sports journalists, they mention the backers in the articles:

http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=jo-beckham011107&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=dw-beckham011107&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

it's madness really, he doesn't need that kind of money, no player should earn that

I think the fee he receives from the club for playing isn't actually that huge, its all the extras he gets

Tweedle wrote:I think the fee he receives from the club for playing isn't actually that huge, its all the extras he gets

Exactly - his annual wage is widely reported as being 10 million dollars (about 5.5 million pounds, or around 100 grand a week) but the rest is from Adidas, Gillette and so on.

Soccer: the bidet of U.S. sports

January 14, 2007
BY NEIL STEINBERG Sun-Times Columnist
Opening shot
Americans don't care about soccer. And we never will care. Never ever ever.

The Los Angeles Galaxy, a soccer team -- who knew? -- is throwing away a quarter of a billion dollars over the next five years, assuming they don't go bust first, paying the salary of David Beckham, who may be a star in England, and may be married to the former Posh Spice, but is going to be a fortnight flash followed by soccer-induced obscurity here.

Remember Pele? The Brazilian superstar who, like Beckham, having lost his edge in the international soccer world, decided to put in a few very profitable pre-retirement years playing in America. It was good for him, no doubt, but did nothing to popularize the sport here.

Why? Why couldn't soccer take off in the United States? Easy. There's no room for it. We have too many pro sports as it is -- baseball and football, hockey and basketball. Sports fans care about tradition, about legacy. Few fans ever shift their loyalty from one team to another, never mind embrace an entirely new sport, surrendering precious moments that could have been spent glued to NFL football in order to pay attention to a gang of perfumed foreigners kicking a ball pointlessly around an enormous field.

Soccer is like bidets. Do you know what a bidet is? Some strange hygienic device usually parked next to the toilet in European bathrooms. Very big over there. But nothing over here. Don't need 'em, don't want 'em, never going to have 'em. Ditto for Beckham, even at a million dollars a week. Especially at a million dollars a week.

Good one.

But a few things the author misses out on are:

1. "Soccer" is much more popular now in the US than in the 70s when Pele played there... now there is a base of young people who follow the sport. Thats the target market - the youngsters.

2. While Becks is nowhere worth that kinda money, what this $250 M deal does is it creates a hype about this sport among the youngsters as an equal to the most popular sports in US (NBA, NFL, etc).... now the youngsters will look at "soccer" being as lucrative as any other sport in america.... and thats the objective.

This time the american soccer authorities are doing a much better job of promoting the sport, and have a very long term vision... they want soccer to compete with "football" or basketball not now, but in 15-20 years time.

La Saeta Rubia wrote:Soccer: the bidet of U.S. sports

January 14, 2007
BY NEIL STEINBERG Sun-Times Columnist
Opening shot
Americans don't care about soccer. And we never will care. Never ever ever.

The Los Angeles Galaxy, a soccer team -- who knew? -- is throwing away a quarter of a billion dollars over the next five years, assuming they don't go bust first, paying the salary of David Beckham, who may be a star in England, and may be married to the former Posh Spice, but is going to be a fortnight flash followed by soccer-induced obscurity here.

Remember Pele? The Brazilian superstar who, like Beckham, having lost his edge in the international soccer world, decided to put in a few very profitable pre-retirement years playing in America. It was good for him, no doubt, but did nothing to popularize the sport here.

Why? Why couldn't soccer take off in the United States? Easy. There's no room for it. We have too many pro sports as it is -- baseball and football, hockey and basketball. Sports fans care about tradition, about legacy. Few fans ever shift their loyalty from one team to another, never mind embrace an entirely new sport, surrendering precious moments that could have been spent glued to NFL football in order to pay attention to a gang of perfumed foreigners kicking a ball pointlessly around an enormous field.

Soccer is like bidets. Do you know what a bidet is? Some strange hygienic device usually parked next to the toilet in European bathrooms. Very big over there. But nothing over here. Don't need 'em, don't want 'em, never going to have 'em. Ditto for Beckham, even at a million dollars a week. Especially at a million dollars a week.

bluenine wrote:Good one.

But a few things the author misses out on are:

1. "Soccer" is much more popular now in the US than in the 70s when Pele played there... now there is a base of young people who follow the sport. Thats the target market - the youngsters.

2. While Becks is nowhere worth that kinda money, what this $250 M deal does is it creates a hype about this sport among the youngsters as an equal to the most popular sports in US (NBA, NFL, etc).... now the youngsters will look at "soccer" being as lucrative as any other sport in america.... and thats the objective.

This time the american soccer authorities are doing a much better job of promoting the sport, and have a very long term vision... they want soccer to compete with "football" or basketball not now, but in 15-20 years time.

La Saeta Rubia wrote:Soccer: the bidet of U.S. sports

January 14, 2007
BY NEIL STEINBERG Sun-Times Columnist
Opening shot
Americans don't care about soccer. And we never will care. Never ever ever.

The Los Angeles Galaxy, a soccer team -- who knew? -- is throwing away a quarter of a billion dollars over the next five years, assuming they don't go bust first, paying the salary of David Beckham, who may be a star in England, and may be married to the former Posh Spice, but is going to be a fortnight flash followed by soccer-induced obscurity here.

Remember Pele? The Brazilian superstar who, like Beckham, having lost his edge in the international soccer world, decided to put in a few very profitable pre-retirement years playing in America. It was good for him, no doubt, but did nothing to popularize the sport here.

Why? Why couldn't soccer take off in the United States? Easy. There's no room for it. We have too many pro sports as it is -- baseball and football, hockey and basketball. Sports fans care about tradition, about legacy. Few fans ever shift their loyalty from one team to another, never mind embrace an entirely new sport, surrendering precious moments that could have been spent glued to NFL football in order to pay attention to a gang of perfumed foreigners kicking a ball pointlessly around an enormous field.

Soccer is like bidets. Do you know what a bidet is? Some strange hygienic device usually parked next to the toilet in European bathrooms. Very big over there. But nothing over here. Don't need 'em, don't want 'em, never going to have 'em. Ditto for Beckham, even at a million dollars a week. Especially at a million dollars a week.

And more:
"(American)Sports fans care about tradition, about legacy. Few fans ever shift their loyalty from one team to another, never mind embrace an entirely new sport, surrendering precious moments that could have been spent glued to NFL football in order to pay attention to a gang of perfumed foreigners kicking a ball pointlessly around an enormous field."

A laughable don't mess with the US face. Would have been funny if it wasn't that f*cking sad.

First of, American sports fans are some of the most plastic fuckers on earth. That alone would be enough to shut the argument, but I'm not done yet.

Their sports fans switch alliegences like the buy their gas-guzzling cars - a Dodge now, a GM next time and a Lexus for the missus. The teams are chosen due to the colours and as most of the teams (most of ALL American teams) aren't even 75 years old, let alone a century, the culture of switching teams is an accepted one, almost encouraged in few cases. Very few teams are chosen and supported due to their birthplace or even location. Fans can support about ten teams in the same league as well, and with sports merchandise as clothes you can even wear all of them without raising any eyebrows. Caps and jerseys are worn if their colours match or accesorise the outfit - not the team, mind.

For sake of argument to prove a point, the oldest sport, baseball aka America's favourite past time, has no original old team left in the MLB (perhaps Boston Red Sox & Chicago Cubs). The New York Yankees were Brooklyn Bombers, and new teams appear as long as you (sugar daddy) can pay them, Florida Marlins, Toronto Blue Jays or Colorado Rockies. Hey even Dubya owned one and it didn't go broke; but he sure tried.
American Football is ridiculously young (around 50 years), and even modern Basketball (with 3point rule) is only after the two competing leagues merged in early 70's.
New teams can join if they want in all sports (as long as the backhander is passed) and old teams change nicknames or monnikers faster and more often than some change their underwear. New Orleans Jazz became Utah Jazz (yeah, those mormons sure love the devil's music). Not to mention the infinite Negro leagues they had wipe away. Oops, was I wrong to say that?!
Unsurprisingly, if anything they don't have a sports culture - they have a bussiness culture.

Football league has the most fervent supporters but even they are plastic as they only follow them as the team they went to college to, not where they're really from necessarily. Dallas Cowboys used tohave a lot fans in the 90s, where are they now?

"Soccer is like bidets. Do you know what a bidet is? Some strange hygienic device usually parked next to the toilet in European bathrooms. Very big over there. But nothing over here. Don't need 'em, don't want 'em, never going to have 'em."
Yes my fellow Yank, and not only do all 'Urpians have bidets, we also have women with hairy legs and armpits, are to cowardly to join The Coalition of The Willin', wear berets, and are foolish to know more than one language.
BITCH.