The news reports contained last week the desperate hope that Beckham and Posh Spice are going to save U.S. Soccer. It is a hope too far. It is akin to believing that Tom Brady can save European Football
First a test. Does anyone recognize this person? 
OK, now how about this person:
and finally, this one:
If you are sitting in the US, it is much more likely that you recognized the 2nd picture, George Clooney, over the first, David Beckham, or the third, popular Bollywood Actress Ashiwarya Rai. But using my handy “Google hits as survey” technique, Clooney and Beckham have similar numbers of hits at about 2,800,000. Ms. Rai comes in behind but still quite substantial at about 2,000,000 hits. They are each massive stars in some part of the digitized world.
The point of all this is that in this globalizing world, stardom that stretches worldwide is elusive. Just because the honchos at Major League Soccer know who Beckham is, it’s less likely that the fans who currently aren’t coming to MLS games will suddenly start flocking there. Instead they may stay home and watch (1,400,000 hits):
Sean Foote's Blog 