If you do hit them, then you’ve made history.” “And if you don’t hit them, then it was fun trying. “Shoot for the stars,” Fuller said in the late journalist Grant Wahl’s book, The Beckham Experiment. 3 with $58 million, behind only Jay-Z and Beyonce and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith.įuller, the entertainment mogul behind American Idol and the Spice Girls who brokered the deal, spoke about the ambition behind the structure of the contract. Forbes magazine’s list of the highest-earning Hollywood couples from 2007-08 had the Beckhams at No. The Beckhams became close friends with Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes and became A-list celebrities in Hollywood. AEG also signed on to promote the Spice Girls reunion tour, which would include multiple concerts at AEG-owned venues. It also aligned the entertainment interests of the Galaxy’s owner, AEG, and that of Beckham’s manager, Simon Fuller and his company, 19 Entertainment, as well as those of Beckham’s wife, Victoria Beckham, the former Spice Girl.īeckham’s move to MLS helped provide a boost to Victoria’s celebrity profile and Hollywood opportunities, including a one-hour TV special called Victoria Beckham: Coming to America on NBC. The deal with MLS had numerous commercial benefits for Beckham. Beckham’s consideration, in other words, was about the long term as much as the short. The move was questioned throughout the footballing world, but Beckham kept front of mind that his playing days would one day end. The English midfielder was just 31 years old and coming off of a league-winning season with Real Madrid. The creative approach to luring Beckham away from Europe set the stage for how Miami approached the Messi negotiation in order to compete with the deep pockets of teams in Europe and Saudi Arabia. (Reports indicate another former Barcelona teammate, Jordi Alba, is also joining them in Miami, but not as a DP.)Ī more important influence, however, may have been the structure of Beckham’s deal. Without the DP rule, those types of signings would be impossible. Miami is using one of those DP slots to sign Messi and another to ink his former Barcelona teammate Sergio Busquets. The level of the league went up as a result. Teams now have three “DP” slots each and the rule has been used to bring both big-name players like Thierry Henry, Kaká, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Didier Drogba, as well as up-and-coming stars or lesser-known players who have thrived in MLS, like Miguel Almiron, Josef Martinez, Diego Valeri and Hany Mukhtar. It took two years for Leiweke to convince MLS owners to pass the “Beckham Rule,” as it was initially nicknamed. The threads linking Beckham’s deal to Messi’s contract are numerous.īeckham’s arrival was accommodated by the creation of the designated player rule in MLS, a tool which allows teams to spend above the salary cap on certain players with no restrictions. How MLS referees will officiate Messi: Navigating the idea of protecting superstars.Why Christian Pulisic’s dream move to Chelsea took a turn for the worse.Messi debut could be broadcast at half-time of Gold Cup.Apple, Lionel Messi and the $2.5bn question: What's next?
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