In a word, No. The cold hard truth is that soccer is not on the radar for most main stream sports fans in the United States. That's not a knock on the sport or those who play it – after all its arguably the most popular sport in the world. But the interest it garners here in America is just a fraction of the attention of the NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA football and basketball, and others. In fact, here is just a quick list of sports that command the attention of the American sports fan more than soccer:
- Football (professional and college)
- Basketball (professional and college, men's and women's)
- Baseball
- Hockey
- Auto-racing (in particular NASCAR, and yes I'm conceding that it's a real sport just to support my argument here. That may be a topic for another day).
- Tennis (men's and women's)
- Golf
- Boxing and MMA
- American Gladiators
OK, maybe not so much with American Gladiators, but you get the point.
Besides, and I'm speaking as a soccer neophyte here, from what I understand David Beckham is not even considered the best player in Europe or England. If somebody is going to draw attention to soccer, it is going to have to be somebody that can completely and totally dominate the game. Somebody who can revolutionize the way the game is played. David Beckham is not that person. If Beckham is not going to show us anything we have not seen before, why would his involvement change anything? It won't.
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