Thursday, January 11, 2007

Update: Beckham to MLS - Official

It's on the front page of CNN. It's made the front page of ESPN. Hell it even made the front page of Drudge Report. Look's like Becks and Posh stole the thunder from Bush's Iraq speech last night.

Sources are now saying the deal is worth 5 years and 250 Million Dollars. If that seems absurd to you for a league that averages about 15k fans a game and has next to no tv revenue, you are not alone. I gotta believe the playing salary is somewhere between 10-15 million and the remaining 35 million dollars a year will be through sponsorships closely tied with MLS. Such as Addidas perhaps. Adidas already is the official uniform supplier for all MLS teams. And though Nike has the national team jerseys lined up, you gotta imagine that Adidas will be bringing Becks into your living room quite a bit this summer. I mean the salary cap for MLS teams is around 2.5 million. Per Team!!!! So Beck's has gotta be getting tons of sponsorship money which is what is being reported as the actual deal.

If that is the case this is still a great deal for MLS. The initial publicity already this morning is absolutely mega. It's now up to MLS to somehow sustain this. There lies the larger challenge.

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