The game’s name sounds similar in the majority of countries. Football, fussball, futbol, futebol, and similar terms all refer to the same game. However, it is known as football in the United States. The American professional soccer league known as Major League Soccer (MLS) has been around for a while.

The Major League Soccer (MLS) does not completely control global public attention to the sport or recognise its champion as the “World Champion,” in contrast to other American major league sports. The MLS has been evolving continuously. Did it receive a lot of media and public attention in the world of football? No!

It doesn’t really matter whether football is the second, seventh, or tenth most popular sport in the US; Americans will still follow the NFL, MLB, NHL, or NBA. Since they are the most well-known sports leagues in the world, the general public pays equal attention to those leagues.

The world of sports has begun to change in recent years as a result of the globalisation of media; in that process, English football’s Premier League, which bills itself as “The Greatest Show on Earth” and is currently the most popular and watched sporting league in the world with a current global viewership of half a billion people and media income for seasons 2007 to 2010 worth over $5 billion, has taken centre stage. Who will watch the American major league sports besides domestic fans if the world will watch football leagues like the English Premiership or Spanish La Liga? Will some Americans start following international football leagues as well? Such inquiries made soccer a problem in American athletics.

Every now and again, around the time of the World Cup, MLS executives would awaken from their slumber of being in the shadow of the Top 4 American major leagues, and it would become clear how enormous the game of football is in terms of global public interest, media attention, and sponsors.

The MLS would lapse into sleep as the World Cup-related commotion subsided. After the World Cup in 2006 in Germany, when the global audience had a clear picture of European football’s modern stadiums and multi-million dollar player contracts, it was not to be that way again. Football was thrust into the global sports limelight.

This time, the whole American professional sports entertainment sector must take the lead in promoting MLS, not just the MLS itself. It’s a business opportunity that couldn’t be passed up or thrown away due to the amount of money associated with international football.

Some have referred to it as the deal to bring Beckham to America is thought to be the biggest in sporting history. In the summer of 2007, U.S. soccer attempted to take over the world of football by storm by offering David Beckham a $250 million contract, the most expensive football player contract in sport history. The world received a message from MLS.

The Beckham family moving to LA dominated news reports in the middle of the summer, when European leagues were in between seasons and the waters were calm, giving MLS the visibility it wanted. Have the MLS-supporting stories already captured the public’s and the world football media’s attention? No!

Is exposure worth $250 million in the long run? Only time will tell. Autumn has arrived, the international and European leagues are in full flow, and Beckham, the LA Galaxy, and the MLS are covered less frequently in the worldwide sports headlines. Los Angeles will probably not advance to the play-offs, which will leave the media with less to report about.

A $250 million one-player investment seems risky in a league where there has been an overall loss of more than $350 million in the first eight years of its existence (according to a 2004 BusinessWeek report), where only two teams, LA Galaxy and FC Dallas, are currently profitable, and where three additional teams are expected to become profitable within a year. What are the chances, if so?

In recent years, a number of well-known athletes have made the decision to leave the major leagues of Europe and South America in favour of a lucrative contract with teams in the Gulf states. Rich transfer agreements were covered in the headlines, but there was not enough follow-up in the media’s coverage of those leagues.

Not to mention that, previous to David Beckham’s arrival, MLS made an effort to garner publicity with Freddy Adu, a youngster who was dubbed the “next Pelé” and was just 16 years old. Adu gained a lot of media coverage, and everyone was aware that he plays for MLS team DC United.

Many people may or may not be aware that Adu, who is now 18 years old, signed a deal with Benfica FC in Portugal this past summer. Adu spent some time practising with Manchester United before signing with Benfica during the summer, but Alex Fergusson did not convince him to stick around.

Adu will receive $1.2 million per year, which is a good salary but not the contract that makes the most attention, thanks to Benfica’s payment of $2 million to the Salt Lake City club for the player’s release note. On September 18, Adu did not play for Benfica against Milan in the Champions League. By contrast, Messi, who is currently Adu’s age, was already a member of FC Barcelona’s starting lineup at that time. With Adu, the MLS doesn’t seem to have attracted much attention to the sport or helped him become the best player in the world as was anticipated. The United States has produced some of the greatest football players in history, including Pelé, Beckenbauer, and Eusebio…

What difference may Beckham’s playing now (who is currently on a 6-week injury leave) make after decades of attempts that failed to provide the desired results for the success of US football? Let’s take a quick look at the Major League Soccer (MLS), a professional soccer league that debuted in 1996 and currently has more than 10 seasons of history.

Facilities and logistics:

Beckham’s LA Galaxy are playing the KC Wizards on September 27, 2007, the day this piece is published. The author of this material, SPORTiana.com, gained knowledge of the MLS through the KC Wizards in the summer of 2006, a year before Beckham joined the league. At that time, the head coach of the KC Wizards complained that he and two other assistant coaches were managing the team’s practise, requiring him to leave a number of players from the 26-man roster sitting on the bench because he couldn’t have them all out on the pitch simultaneously.

The Arrowhead Stadium complex’s training facilities comprised an outdoor pitch and the indoor pitch and gym used by the NFL team KC Chiefs. The open-air training area for the Wizard was positioned close to the fence next to the practise areas for the KC Chiefs.

A lot of players would skip practise sessions on the Wizards pitch because of the almost completely split turfs and rock-hard surface. It would be a stark difference to the teams from the leagues where Beckham previously played to have a head coach, two assistant coaches, a fitness trainer, an NFL stadium and amenities, and a little office area in a stadium corner.

Players:

Majority MLS players are selected out of college to participate in the league. Football players playing for full scholarships in college typically sign their first professional contracts at around age 22. In other nations, players typically sign their first professional contracts when they are 18 years old. By the time a player is 22 years old, they have completed a four-year deal, and management are better able to assess their potential as professional footballers.

This implies that college athletes are four years behind. Major world football teams would like to invest their money in a 22-year-old prospect who has already had 4 years of pro football experience when they sign a first pro deal at the age of 22, since they would exit the 4 year contract at the age of 26. Most international clubs would not sign a college league football player without pro football experience at the age of 22, hence college players rarely choose to play in the MLS (players’ first pro contract) over better paid leagues.

Famous American players like DeMarkus Beasley ($2 million to PSV in the Netherlands, currently playing for £700,000 with Rangers in Scotland) and Tim Howard ($4 million to Man Utd in England, currently playing on loan with Everton) entered the Major League Soccer (MLS) straight out of high school without playing collegiate soccer, just like Freddy Adu.

There isn’t much room for Major League Soccer (MLS) when an average football fan has the option to watch a variety of games, such as the titans of the game squaring off in domestic leagues, such as this past weekend when Man Utd and Chelsea faced off in England, Barcelona and Sevilla in Spain, Roma and Juventus in Italy, PSV and Feyenoord in the Netherlands, Boca Juniors games in Argentina, and Lyon in France.

A football fan wants to see great competition, competitiveness, passionate supporters, tradition, the finest players in the world, established players with a history of playing for elite clubs, and ultra-modern football-specific stadiums, the majority of which the MLS does not provide. To pique the same interest among the global public, the MLS must capture the attention of the American public and media. The model players for a prosperous competitive league are hard-working, appealing all-around athletes like Eddie Johnson of the KC Wizards or Jaime Moreno of DC United, who demonstrated their talent in this summer’s Copa America 2007.

The MLS’s plan to build contemporary soccer-specific stadiums for all clubs is a step in the right direction. Prior to and following the 2006 World Cup, the German Bundesliga experienced a remarkable increase in public interest and media coverage on a home and international level, leaving a legacy of fantastic new and renovated old stadiums. The MLS should internationalise as much as it can. When foreign billionaires started buying clubs in the English Premiership, world-class players began to arrive in even greater numbers, making it the most watched and lucrative football league in the world. Many authors have made assumptions about why football is not as popular in the United States as it is in some other nations, and the majority of them mention that there is not enough scoring in the game. This time around, it might be advantageous to alter the game’s regulations such that there are more goals scored per game.

The New York Red Bulls’ new stadium will have a full “European-style” roof. Football is a strong force that has already altered the philosophy of North American major league sports. In 2007, MLS began selling advertising space on the front of jerseys (at a floor of $500,000 per shirt sponsorship), mimicking the custom of international football. MLS clubs now compete in the Super League and the Copa Sudamericana.

The popularity of football is growing along with the immigration from Latin America to the US. The MLS has promise because football is the most popular recreational sport for both boys and girls. The MLS Commissioner Don Garber stated in 2006 that he anticipated all of the league’s clubs to be profitable by the year 2010. Beckham may not sell as much goods for LA Galaxy during the course of his remaining four seasons with the team as he did during his time with Real Madrid, but even as an MLS player, he appeared on the covers of Sports Illustrated and drew 66,000 fans to a full Giants Stadium.

Regarding his move to the MLS, David Beckham stated: “I’m coming there to play football… I’m not claiming that football will become the most popular sport in the United States as a result of my move here. If football wants to succeed in the football globe, it must be done one step at a time. For more details https://worldoffootball.in/