Avoiding the Drop

Way back in July, there was this book about David Beckham. You might have heard of it, actually; it was all about how Becks had taken MLS for a ride, cashing his big paychecks and not really giving a damn about the soccer. As if that weren’t enough, author Grant Wahl heaped blame that rightfully belonged to Alexi Lalas, Ruud Gullit, and Tim Leiweke onto Beckham’s shoulders. By the book, Beckham is pretty much a black hole of ego that enveloped the L.A. Galaxy and sucked them down into the lower reaches of the Western Conference, well outside of playoff contention.

Now, a year after the Galaxy got rid of Lalas and Gullitt (and brought Bruce Arena on board), they’re not only in the playoffs; they’ve won the Western Conference, either because of or in spite of the fact that Beckham’s actually, you know…played. So with that in mind, let’s take a look back at the season and see what affect, if any, Beckham might’ve had.

Let’s start with the obvious: attendance. After all, Wahl’s book characterized Beckham’s move as more about the finances than about the soccer. We’re going to ignore the fact that MLS attendances are down about 4.17% from last season (or 11.10% if you don’t include Seattle; thanks to MLS Daily for those stats), too; there’s no “Beckham effect” in a match played between Kansas City and San Jose.

So here are the numbers (not including the AC Milan and Barcelona friendlies, US Open Cup matches, or anything else they did outside of the thirty league matches):

• Before July 16th (the day Beckham returned), the Galaxy was seeing about 19,292 fans at their home matches, 18,013 on their away matches; ignoring venue, the Galaxy was playing in front of about 18,691 fans a match.
• After (and including) the July 16th return, the home attendance averagewas 22,101, away attendance average was 22,048, and total attendance average (home and away) was 22,073.
• That’s a net gain of 2,809 home fans, 4,035 away fans, or 3,382 fans per match (if you ignore venue) after Beckham came back.

Therefore, an argument can be made that Beckham’s presence was valuable to the Galaxy’s bottom line; he still appears to put “bums in seats”, as the saying goes.

Was Beckham the only factor behind the attendance spike? No, probably not; see, Becks came back right around the time that the Galaxy started getting good. Before July 16th, the Galaxy picked up 24 points in 17 matches (roughly 47% of the points available to them). Furthermore, they only won five games in that span of time.

The fortunes of the team changed right around July 16th (they’d actually won three in a row entering into the Red Bulls match that marked Beckham’s return); following that date, they picked up 24 points in 13 matches (61% of the 39 points they could’ve earned), losing only three matches in the buildup to the end of the season. Can you give the credit for that to Beckham? Who knows…but the fact that the team found wins much easier to come by after he got there than they did before is interesting.

And that’s really the thing, isn’t it? Wahl’s book was written in the middle of Beckham’s contract, and it was already calling time on the Beckham’s stint with the Galaxy. That completely ignores the fact that he was injured his entire first year (which the Galaxy could’ve known about had they bothered to check) and was subjected to the Lalas-Leiweke Experience in the second year. You put a decent manager and a decent talent evaluator on that team and all of a sudden the pieces fall into place. That’s not to excuse Beckham; he was certainly part of the reason that Ruud Gullitt was brought in, so he’s gotta take some of that blame. Ultimately, though, that was a poorly run team before he got there; you can’t saddle him with the blame for the Galaxy not planning out their roster appropriately.

At the end of the day, the reality is this: Beckham missed half of this season. When he came back, the team won more games in front of more fans than they did when he was gone, and his team ended up winning their conference while he made 11 appearances out of the 13 he could’ve made. I’m not saying he’s definitely a valuable member of the Galaxy, or that he’s definitely the reason for the increased attendance…but if he isn’t, than someone needs to prove it to me with something more than anecdotes about how he doesn’t pick up every meal check on team outings.