I'm not going to watch soccer. You can't make me. I don't care how much they paid Beckham:
Every five years, people predict soccer could "take off" in America. Every five years, it doesn't happen. Why? Because Americans don't want to watch anything less than the best possible athletes. That's why the USFL and Arena Football failed as TV sports, that's why the CBA doesn't have a TV contract, and that's why ESPN2 doesn't show minor league baseball every night. Pro soccer can't become a major American sport when 99.7% of the quality players play overseas. It's a fact.
So what's my silver lining? That people keep stupidly perpetuating the "every kid grows up playing soccer -- those are the kids who become adults and who might buy tickets" argument. You know what else I did as a kid? I gave myself a Muslim name. I ate my own boogers. I seethed because Tom never caught Jerry. I checked my closet every night to make sure an evil clown wasn't there. I left my baby teeth under my pillow because a fairy gave me money for them. None of these things has any correlation to my life now. The fact remains: Americans will never care that Beckham is playing soccer in a league of half-decent guys, just like English people wouldn't care if they had a mediocre baseball league and the London team signed A-Rod.
It's not just the quality of the players, though. We'll take a shine to soccer about the time we start using the metric system.
