Real Deal: It’s the Marketing
“Bend It Like Beckham” was fitted with Spanish subtitles Tuesday, and all it cost was $41 million.
David Beckham -- global marketing lightning rod, pop-culture phenomenon and pretty decent soccer player -- was sold by Manchester United to Real Madrid as two world soccer superpowers arm-wrestled for supremacy at the shopping mall and on the television and maybe, as almost an afterthought, the athletic field.
Real Madrid doesn’t need Beckham. From a purely soccer standpoint, Real already fairly resembles a world all-star team.
Brazil’s Ronaldo, the only active athlete who can rival Beckham in terms of global name recognition, currently plays for Real. So do two former world players of the year, France’s Zinedine Zidane and Portugal’s Luis Figo, as well as perhaps the world’s most famous defender, Roberto Carlos, and Spanish superstar Raul.
This embarrassment of riches won European championships in 2000 and 2002 -- and eliminated Beckham’s Manchester club in the 2003 European Champions League quarterfinals -- making the addition of Beckham seem like needless, gluttonous overkill.
But before Tuesday, Real trailed Manchester United in a new high-stakes league, where standings are measured in dollars and pounds and Euros and billboard postings and Internet Web site hits.
Before Tuesday, Manchester United was the best known and most commercially profitable soccer club on the planet.
With Beckham, who isn’t yet guaranteed a starting spot with his new team, Real is hoping to change that.
As a soccer player, Beckham, 28, is the consummate specialist. In his areas of expertise -- right-footed crosses and free kicks -- he is brilliant, if not peerless. Given enough space down the flank, or enough time while mulling his options over a dead ball, Beckham can break open a match with one flick of his foot. It’s a spectacular skill, easy to splice into international highlight reels, and with it, he has built a formidable mythology. The movie “Bend It Like Beckham” takes its title from Beckham’s ability to bend a free kick around the defensive wall.
But his overall game, especially defense, is hardly awe-inspiring. Slight of stature, almost frail in appearance, Beckham defies the stereotype of the English grinder who “gets stuck in” and wears his passion for club and country on the sleeve of his shirt, in equal parts mud and blood.
This has helped garner him a fanatical following in Asia, where young fans see him as sort of an anime superhero come to life, a magical elf among the thugs and lugs littering the rest of the field. Add in his pop star wife, Victoria (Posh Spice) Adams, his interest in left-of-center fashion and a delicate nose he frequently thumbs at English soccer’s lad-and-lager culture and it’s easy to see why Beckham’s appeal to fans and advertisers is more rock star than jock star.
To corporations with units to move, Beckham is Michael Jordan in his prime, Paul McCartney in buy-them-while-they-last soccer boots. He and Adams have become surrogate royalty in England, Charles and Di for a new generation, with the Times of London already speculating where the Beckhams might go house-hunting in Madrid:
“As for nursery and primary schools for [children] Brooklyn and Romeo, the English-language Numont School in Arturo Soria would probably fit the bill, but there’s also Runnymede College, the most English of Madrid’s international schools.”
Still, the concept of David Beckham continues to chafe some traditionalists, including his crusty Scottish manager at United, Alex Ferguson. Because of United’s decade-long run of success, Ferguson was awarded a knighthood. Sir Alex was fine with Beckham so long as most of the spotlight shone in Ferguson’s direction; he did much to shield his young midfielder from the abuse he received in England after Beckham’s red-card ejection against Argentina during the 1998 World Cup contributed to England’s elimination from the tournament.
But Beckham’s subsequent and massive rise in popularity strained his relationship with Ferguson, who began sniping at Beckham’s defensive shortcomings and holding him out of important matches.
After losing the opening leg of its home-and-home Champions League quarterfinal series against Real Madrid, 3-1, United desperately needed a big victory, by at least two goals, in Manchester. Ferguson began the match with Beckham on the bench. Beckham eventually entered the game as a substitute, and scored two goals, but by then Real had the goals it needed to advance to the semifinals on aggregate scoring.
It was not a surprising move, considering Ferguson, who found celebrity so addictive he canceled a much-ballyhooed retirement a couple years back and re-upped with a multiyear contract to continue managing United. Beckham had become bigger than Ferguson, even bigger than the biggest soccer club in the world, Manchester United. Beyond that, Beckham was pushing 30 with two years left on his contract. If Ferguson didn’t move Beckham to another team before then, he risked letting the world’s most popular player walk for nothing.
Ferguson found no shortage of potential buyers. He reached an agreement with Real’s archrival Barcelona, only to have Beckham veto the deal. Then he moved back across Spain to Real, still stinging over its Champions League semifinal defeat to Juventus and eager to ride Beckham’s popularity to stake marketing footholds in Asia and America, where Manchester United is touring next month.
That tour, which includes a stop at the Los Angeles Coliseum, lost much of its luster Tuesday.
A Real setback for promoters on this side of the Atlantic, but a small concern now for Manchester United, busy counting its new millions, and Real Madrid, so eager to tap into Beckham’s commercial clout that it might actually have to find a place in the lineup for him.
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Beckham By the Numbers
* 7: Jersey number that is synonymous with David Beckham, currently worn by Real Madrid’s Raul Gonzalez.
* $41.3 million: The price Real Madrid paid to Manchester United for its prized midfielder.
* $7.08 million: Beckham’s estimated salary at Real Madrid (not including bonuses).
* 13: Years spent with Manchester United.
* 86: Goals scored in 387 matches with Manchester United.
* $206 million: The combined transfer total Real Madrid has paid for Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo, Ronaldo and David Beckham.
* 10: The number of trophies won by Manchester United during Beckham’s tenure.
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World’s Leading Soccer Transfers
*--* Player Year Trade Amount Zinedine Zidane 2001 Juventus to Real Madrid $64.4 Luis Figo 2000 Barcelona to Real Madrid $56.1 Hernan Crespo 2000 Parma to Lazio $54.1 Christian Vieri 1999 Lazio to Inter Milan $50 Rio Ferdinand 2002 Leeds United to Manchester United $47 Gianluigi Buffon 2001 Parma to Juventus $45.9 Ronaldo 2002 Inter Milan to Real Madrid $44.2 David Beckham 2003 Manchester United to Real Madrid $41.3 Gaizka Mendieta 2001 Valencia to Lazio $41 Juan Sebastian Veron 2001 Lazio to Manchester United $39.5 Pavel Nedved 2001 Lazio to Juventus $36.4 Nicolas Anelka 1999 Arsenal to Real Madrid $35.7 Marc Overmars 2000 Arsenal to Barcelona $35.5 Lilian Thuram 2001 Parma to Juventus $35.4 Denilson 1997 Sao Paulo to Real Betis $35 Dollar amount in millions; Source: Reuters; dollar exchange rates at the time of the transaction
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Big Deals
Real Madrid’s signing of Manchester United midfielder David Beckham on Tuesday has continued a series of big-money summer deals in the last five years:
* 1999 -- Arsenal’s French striker Nicolas Anelka joined Madrid for 23.5 million pounds (US$35.7 million). Although he won the Champions Cup at the end of the season, he left for Paris Saint-Germain a year later for 20 million pounds (US$33 million).
* 2000 -- Presidential hopeful Florentino Perez pledged he would sign FC Barcelona midfielder Luis Figo if he won the election. After his victory, the Portuguese arrived for what was then a world-record fee of 37 million pounds (US$56.1 million).
* 2001 -- Madrid again broke the world transfer record by signing Juventus’ French midfielder Zinedine Zidane for 45.7 million pounds (US$64.4 million). He scored game-winning volley that gave Madrid the 2002 Champions Cup over Bayer Leverkusen.
* 2002 -- Striker Ronaldo joins Madrid for 28.5 million pounds (US$44.2 million) after scoring eight World Cup goals to help Brazil to its fifth triumph. Ronaldo has scored 21 league goals this season, making him Spanish league’s third-leading scorer.
* 2003 -- Beckham, the world’s most marketable player, agrees to join the Spanish powerhouse after Madrid and Manchester United agreed on a euro35 million (US$41.3 million) transfer fee.
Associated Press
