Spend it for Beckham.
Soccer.
Don’t turn the page – yet.
Major League Soccer announced Thursday that its annual all-star game will be played on July 19 in Denver – well, Commerce City – at the brand-spanking-new Dick’s Sporting Goods Park. (I haven’t figured out a snappy, short name for the stadium, and you don’t want to go where you’re thinking.) Denver apparently beat out New York for a major event, as usual.
Don’t turn on Paige – yet.
The MLS all-stars will play Celtic FC, the greatest team from Scotland.
Still not excited?
David Beckham could be making his MLS debut and playing his first game in Denver/Commerce City.
Now I’ve got your attention.
David Beckham is to soccer fans what the Spice Girls once were to my daughter and many other daughters. By the way, Beckham is married to the former Posh Spice, Victoria Adams Beckham. When Beckham, once the face of soccer, and his wife, known for her body of work in rock ‘n’ roll, married in 1999, they were treated as British royalty, especially when they moved into a mansion dubbed “Beckingham Palace.”
You don’t know the Colorado Rapids’ co-leading goal scorer last season, Kyle “Bend It, He Hopes, Like Beckham” Beckerman, but you have heard of David Beckham, who had a movie and hundreds of babies named in his honor.
So you definitely want to spend it for Beckham if he plays in the all-star game. He is scheduled to be released from his Real Madrid contract on or before July 1, and he is expected to play at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park (isn’t that better than Pepsi Center or Invesco Field at Mile High?) because an MLS deputy commissioner said Thursday that his boss gets to make two picks for the all-star team. Do you seriously believe Don Garber would overlook Beckham for, say, Ugo Ihemelu?
How about a halftime concert featuring Posh Spice and Vanilla Ice backed by the cast of “Miami Vice”?
Many (thousands of) people scoffed when Los Angeles Galaxy owner (and Denver’s own) Phil Anschutz and Galaxy president (and former Nuggets president) Tim Leiweke lured Beckham (who has no connection to Denver) to UnReal L.A. for $250 million over five years. Beckham basically was kicked away from English soccer and since has been benched in Madrid.
Anschutz didn’t become one of the 50 wealthiest men in the world by making stupid mistakes. A few years ago he signed Celine Dion for $300 million over three years to play Las Vegas. Someone thisclose to Anschutz told me the Denver businessman could earn $150 million on the deal if she sold out the theater. She sells out.
Beckham will sell out every home game and every road game and every game on the Galaxy’s trip to the Far East, and his jersey and other merchandise will make a ton of cash, and he will be bigger in movies than “King Kong” and “Godzilla” combined – “The Midfielder, The Goalkeeper and Beckham’s Wardrobe”?
And Beckham will give MLS the credibility it never has received, particularly for older American men (me) who haven’t given a solid whit about soccer.
Soccer moms will have a reason to watch the sport being played by someone other than 10-year-old boys and girls.
Anschutz, who never grew too old to play with trains (Southern Pacific, then Union Pacific) or be a newsboy (The Examiner newspaper chain) and wanted to make movies (“Ray” and “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe”) or play monopoly (ranches, Staples Center, Millennium Dome), went on a Qwest, but is more interested in a quest – soccer. He has owned four professional soccer teams in the U.S. (including the Rapids for several years) and three in Europe.
He really wants to be The Father of Our Soccer Country.
As Anschutz said to me in at least six exclusive interviews: “No comment.”
With the presence of Beckham and soccer-only stadiums in MLS cities, including Denver/Commerce City, Anschutz just might do it.
D’s.S.G. Park is a masterpiece of an edifice (for 18,000) and should sell out like Dion for the Rapids, who have averaged more than 14,000 per game for their 11 previous seasons in cavernous football stadiums.
Denver probably will see Beckham three times this year.
Admit it. You already are considering the purchase of tickets for the All-Star Game. We could become soccer aficionados, but we must not become soccer hooligans.
You may turn the page and turn off the Paige now.
Staff writer Woody Paige can be reached at 303-954-1095 or at wpaige@denverpost.com.
