There are David Beckham, Andrea Pirlo, Alessandro Nesta, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Thierry Henry, Franck Lampard, until Steven Gerrard. So, why are so many star players interested in playing in MLS competitions?
The highest league caste in the United States is known as Football Major League or commonly abbreviated as MLS. Please note, this competition began to exist in the mid of 90s. At the beginning of the formation of MLS, there were several clubs that went bankrupt. They were often hampered by financial problems because the audience at that time was still very minimal.
But slowly, football began to grow and develop in America. It’s been two decades, MLS has been very profitable because each team had been owned and controlled by the league’s investors. There were no more financial or operational problems.
Having been increasingly known, Arjen Robben who will leave Bayern at the end of the season intended to appear in the MLS competition. Robben claimed to be interested in the MLS challenges and wanted to feel the atmosphere of first-time competition.
MLS began to be chosen by most players after being popular with the name David Beckham. Yes, many players eventually decided to play there after finding out the former Manchester United’s star was grazing in the land of Uncle Sam.
David Beckham was brought in by the LA Galaxy in January 2007 and it can be said that his arrival became an important factor in the development of MLS.
Beckham had been contracted by LA Galaxy for five years with a total fee of 6.5 million dollars per year. After receiving a fee beyond the basic salary, there are still several other agreements that LA Galaxy had pay to Beckham. Even though they have to pay such an expensive fee, LA Galaxy was considered avoiding a financial loss. Why? The team’s popularity had increased considerably after the arrival of David Beckham.
After Beckham had arrived, it was noted that the costume sales for all MLS teams increased by 700%. Besides that, in the first month of Beckham’s arrival, the number of people visiting MLS sites increased by 117%.
In this case, Beckham became a players’ booster in MLS’s career along with Thierry Henry, Kaka, and David Villa.
With the arrival of star players, the number of spectators automatically increased. With the number of increasing viewers, the benefits gained by each team were also getting bigger. Since it got a big profit, the star players still got paid quite high even though their abilities were already ‘used up’.
That was why many people decided to pursue their careers in MLS competitions.
MLS competition indeed became a business field for several parties, including the players. In terms of business, the MLS system was the best system that generated money and also the stability of the teams that compete in it. The MLS system was even adopted by the Indian Super League and the Australian Football League.
In fact, the “pioneers” of MLS star players, David Beckham, since some time ago, officially obtained the right to establish a club in Miami. In this regard, he collaborated with Marcelo Claure as the CEO of Sprint telecommunication company, Jorge and Jose Mas who are the leaders of the Miami-based MasTec Son construction and telecommunications company Masayoshi Son who acted as the founder and the CEO of SoftBank, and an entrepreneur, Simon Fuller.
Beckham’s big step Beckham indicated that the competition has become a lucrative source of profit. Even, it is not impossible if other star players also take part in the club he has defended, or even set up a club like what David Beckham has done.
The last reason which makes some players decided to have a career or even spending their time in MLS is that this competition is considered not too tight. Just put the name of the Italian player, Giovinco. While still with La Vecchia Signora, Giovinco only got a few minutes to play in the last two seasons.
But after anchoring in Toronto FC from 2015 to early 2019, Giovinco has reached 100 caps and scored more than 50 goals and 30 assists in all competitions. Even though he didn’t retire there, it showed that the competition could still be played by twilight players with relatively declining abilities.
Some of these factors are the reason why many star players are interested in experiencing the MLS competition.
