Saturday, Aug 30, 2008
He's one of the most famous humans who has ever lived -- even though he's not that cute, not that smart and not that great a soccer player.
Jun 28, 2003 | It hasn't been like this since the death of Diana. Britain has been suffering from a national nervous breakdown ever since David Beckham, handsome icon of the Manchester United soccer team, announced last week that he was leaving to play for Real Madrid. The Sun, the most popular tabloid, set up a Beckham "grief helpline" and claims it has been swamped with calls from distressed fans. One caller said he was considering suicide, while several confessed that they were so upset they couldn't perform in bed. A man who has "Beckham" tattooed on his arm threatened to cut if off. "I cried myself to sleep after hearing the awful news," said grandmother Mary Richards, age 85. A London cabby, ever the voice of reason, asked, "Has the world gone mad? He's only a footballer!" But he was mistaken. A footballer is the least of what David Beckham is.
In the era of soccer that will come to be known as B.B. -- Before Beckham -- the sport was a team game. What mattered was the club, the team and the player in that order. Then in the mid-1990s, David Beckham -- or "Becks" as he is known in that familiar, affectionately foreshortened form with which the British like to address their working class heroes -- came along, flicked his (then) Diana-style blond fringe and changed the face of soccer. It wasn't his legendary right foot that altered the game, but his photogenic face -- and the fact that he used it to become one of the most recognizable, richest and valuable athletes in the world, receiving a salary of $8 million per year, earning at least $17 million more in endorsements and commanding a record transfer fee for his move to Real Madrid of $41.6 million.
Beckham's greatest value is his crossover appeal -- he interests not only those who have no interest in the club for which he plays, but those who have no interest in soccer. He is the most recognized sportsman in Asia, where soccer is still relatively new. Possibly only Buddha himself is better known -- though Beckham is catching up there too: In Thailand someone has already fashioned a golden "Becks" Buddha. He's even managed to interest Americans, for God's sakes. The 27-year-old, tongue-tied, surprisingly shy working-class boy from London's East End has succeeded in turning the mass, global sport of soccer into a mass, global promotional vehicle for himself, reproducing his image in countless countries. He has turned himself into a soccer virus, one that has infected the media, replicating him everywhere, all over the world, endlessly, making him one of the most famous men that has ever lived.
David Beckham, in other words, is a superbrand.
In recognition of this, Becks was the first footballer ever to receive "image rights" -- payment for the earning potential his image provided his club -- and got them, to the tune of $33,300 a week. In fact, image rights were the main issue at stake in the record-busting six weeks of contract renegotiations he had with Manchester United last year; his worth as a player was agreed at $116,500 a week almost immediately. Then there's that $17 million a year for endorsing such brands as Castrol, Brylcreem, Coca Cola, Vodafone, Marks & Spencer and Adidas. And Becks just keeps getting bigger. His trusty lawyers have already registered his name for products as various as perfumes, deodorants, jewelry, purses, dolls and, oh yes, soccer jerseys. Such is the power of the Beckham brand that it's hoped it can rescue the fortunes of Marks & Spencer's clothing (a high-end British chain that has become a byword for "dowdy"). But alas, the brand couldn't save murdered Suffolk girls Holly and Jessica, poignantly pictured last year in police posters in matching replicas of his No. 7 red shirt. When it was still hoped that they might be runaways, the man himself made a broadcast appeal for their return. There was the Becks, eerily right at the heart of the nation's hopes and fears again.
Beckham has even managed to brand a numeral -- 7 -- the number on his soccer jersey. A clause in his Manchester United contract guaranteed him No. 7, he has 7 tattooed in Roman numerals on his right forearm, his black Ferrari's registration plate is "D7 DVB," and his Marks and Spencer's clothing line is branded "DB07." He even queues at No. 7 checkout when he goes shopping. This is often interpreted as a sign of his superstitiousness, but is more an indication of his very rational grasp of the magic of branding. (He may, however, have to settle for the number 77 when he moves to Real Madrid, as the coveted 7 is already taken by Spanish superstar Raul.)
But somehow, Beckham has not yet become a victim of his own success and has managed to remain officially "cool." Europe's largest survey into "cool" recently found that Beckham was the "coolest" male, according to both young women and men. Beckham's status can be attributed to his diva-esque versatility and his superbrand power: "Like Madonna he is very versatile and able to radically change his image but not alienate his audience," says professor Carl Rohde, head of the Dutch "cool hunting" firm Signs of the Time. "He remains authentic." Each time he goes to the hairdresser's and has a restyle -- which is alarmingly often -- he ends up on the cover of every tabloid in Britain. In other words, whatever Becks does, however he wears his hair or his clothes -- or, crucially, whatever product he endorses -- he is saying, as Rohde puts it, "this is just another aspect of me, David Beckham. Please love me." And, of course, buy me. And millions do.
Becks' greatest sales success, however, was actually on the football field -- though less with the ball than with the camera. He's the most famous footballer in the world, and considered by millions to be one of the greatest footballers of all time, but arguably he's not even a world-class player. A very fine one, to be sure, but not nearly the footballer we are supposed to think he is -- not nearly the footballer we want to think he is. Sport, you might imagine, is the one area of contemporary life where hype can't win, where results, at the end of the day, are everything. But Beckham has disproved that, has vanquished that, and represents the triumph of P.R. over ... well, everything. His contribution to Manchester United was debatable. On footballing skills alone, he is arguably not worthy of playing for the English national team, let alone being its captain. However, in the last decade soccer has become part of show business and advertising. Beckham is a hybrid of pop music and football, the Spice Girl of soccer -- hence his marriage to one. He is -- indisputably -- the captain of a new generation of photogenic, pop-tastic young footballing laddies that added boy-band value to the merchandising and media profile of soccer clubs in the 1990s.
Beckham's footballing forte is free kicks. This is entirely appropriate, since these are, after all, among the most individualistic -- and aesthetic -- moments in soccer. Unlike a goal, with a free kick there's no one passing to you, no one to share the glory with. Instead there's practically a spotlight and a drum roll. And how he kicks! "Goldenballs" (as his wife, Victoria, aka Posh Spice, reportedly likes to call him) has impressive accuracy and his range is breathtaking -- along with his famous "bending" trajectory, his kicks also have style and grace. Long arms outstretched à la Fred Astaire, wrists bent delicately upward, forward leg angled, and then -- contact -- and a powerful, precise, elegant thwump! and follow-through. An Englishman shouldn't kick a ball like this. This is the way that Latins kick the ball. Beckham doesn't just represent the aestheticization of soccer that has occurred in a media-tised world -- he is the aestheticization of it. Like his silly hairdos, like his "arty" tattoos, like the extraordinarily elaborate post-goal celebrations he practices with the crowd, almost everything he does on the field is designed to remind you that No. 7 is anything but a number.
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