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Monday Ticker: LA offers Beckham extension, MLS negotiating and more

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photo by Michael Janosz/ISIphotos.com

By FRANCO PANIZO

The Beckham experiment could end up lasting another year. At least the Los Angeles Galaxy is hoping so.

The Galaxy has offered David Beckham a one-year contract extension, which is believed to be worth $8.9 million. The offer is an attempt to keep Beckham with Los Angeles, as his contract is set to expire at the end of the year.

The 36-year-old Beckham has been linked with clubs in England, but he is expected to meet with his advisers at season's end to decide on what's best for the next phase in his career.

Beckham has scored two goals and has 12 assists this season, the latter stat currently good enough for second best in the league behind only Houston's Brad Davis.

Here are more stories from Monday:

MLS NEGOTIATING TO SELL PART OF SUM

Major League Soccer could soon see a change. According to a report, the league has been in negotiations in recent weeks with Providence Equity Partners over selling an equity stake in MLS's media and marketing business, Soccer United Marketing (SUM). The report states that Providence is looking to obtain a 25 percent stake in SUM for $125 million to $150 million, which would make SUM's value somewhere in between $500 million and $600 million.

What that would mean for the league is that it would have extra cash to spend. A part of that cash could be given to shareholder-owners, who, as a group, have lost hundreds of millions of dollars since the league's inception in 1996.

Neither MLS nor Providence Equity commented on the report.

IBRAHIMOVIC OUT OF MILAN'S CLASH AGAINST BARCELONA

Zlatan Ibrahimovic won't get to face his former club on Tuesday, as he has been ruled out of AC Milan's Champions League game against Barcelona with a muscle injury. It is unknown how serious the injury is, but Ibrahimovic's absence further depletes Milan's forward options for its match against Barcelona. Robinho is also out with an injury and Filippo Inzaghi was not been included in the squad.

ROBBEN TO MISS VILLARREAL GAME

Arjen Robben's groin injury is set to sideline him from Bayern Munich's Champions League Group A fixture against Villarreal on Wednesday. Robben has been recovering from the injury for a few weeks now, but he still isn't healthy enough to return to action. Robben joins Ivica Olic, Daniel Pranjic and Breno as Bayern players who will miss the match.

PITTMAN JOINS CRAWLEY TOWN ON LOAN

American striker Jon-Paul Pittman is on the move once again, and this time he is returning to a familiar place. Crawley Town has acquired Pittman on a 93-day emergency loan from fellow League Two club Oxford United, which signed Pittman back in May. Pittman has played for Crawley Town before, having spent little over a year and a half with the club from 2007-2009.

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Think it's a smart choice for the Galaxy to offer Beckham an extension? What do you make of MLS possibly selling part of SUM? Who will be missed more by his respective team, Ibrahimovic or Robben?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. It’s not like the NASL. Yeah we have some aging stars but we also have now incorporated the Young DP rule. We have measures installed now to ensure we keep financial stability. MLS will not go bankrupt. Beckham is great for the MLS, and so is Henry, Pardo, Marquez and even Ljundberg too. The bigger the star that comes over, the more attention you will receive all over the world, even if he is a tad bit past his prime. I do think before 2020 we will have at minimum 24 franchises throughout the US & Canada, all making profit and we will considered a B league, a bit under the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, on par with the french league and other leagues. 40 players like Brad Davis would destroy the league. This is America. NASL died when Pele retired. Pele kept the league afloat. Stars will keep MLS viable.

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  2. the path to Copa Lib doesnt lie through the mexicans. it lies through Garber’s ability to get on his knees before corrupt conmebol ****.
    Anyway, so imagine Brent Musberger in a promo saying “They’ve dazzled us with their skill” ..then a clip of old Ronaldo’s world cup goal…”They’ve given us Pele”…with old clip of Pele w/cosmos. “And now they here to play the Americans. Santos of Brazil versus Real Salt Lake, on NBC this Saturday”.

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  3. For a marketing firm, or whatever, SUM’s website sure sucks. Perhaps they could use some of that 1.25 million to create a better presence.

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  4. i remember reading an article about lamar hunt after his death. it said that one of his advisors complained to him (or his late father- can’t remember which) about him losing money over his “soccer hobby”. he said that he lost a million in a the first year or two of the league, to which lamar responded ‘well i guess i’ll be broke in 400 years’

    just some food for thought… but yes, i would also like to see some documentation on that. On a different note i would also like to see the teams be publicly traded like in england.

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  5. He’s no longer the big attraction he once was? I would bet that Beckham alone is responsible for the sale of an additional 90,000 tickets a year across MLS for all Galaxy matches. In addition, the PR coverage he draws is worth hundreds of thousands. I don’t believe he is worth $5 million but he remains an extremely valuable asset to the league.

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  6. Ives,

    Do you have any documentation to back up the fact that the owners have lost “hundreds of millions of dollars” since 1996?

    You know, besides the words of the owners and commissioner, who have really excellent reasons to lie about this subject.

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  7. I love how people pontificate here like they know more then MLS executives. Believe me, there is no way the league would pay Becks 8.9MM/yr or sell 25% of SUM unless they were sound business moves that benefitted the league financially. Period.

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  8. I think it’s really important for the league that becks is offered and accepts an extension. He’s lived up to the DP status this season, and with all the injuries and loans prior, it would send a signal that MLS can work with top talent, and top talent wants to play and stay in MLS. Same reason it was a great deal to make sure donovan didn’t leave. It’s nice to the know the league isn’t neccessarily a waystation for has-beens. Becks still plays better than most 36 year olds, and has a lot to offer the league in terms of visibility and on-field talent. If he’s going to become an owner in the near future, it’s better all around if he doesn’t go do a few years in dubai or london then come back here.

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  9. Not under MLS rules, you couldn’t. You could buy two Brad Davises for Beck’s salary cap hit (which, to Aeg is all that matters, this is monopoly money for them)

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  10. Becks still IS a big attraction. Have you seen the Gals away attendance. It is probably a few thousand higher than the rest of the league. Becks also gives the league cache that Davis doesn’t AND there is a clear market for his services outside MLS. I think MLS players should be respected more with contracts, but to equate Beckham with Davis purely based on their two assist numbers is silly.

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  11. Why are they “probably” going to take ~$125 million now? Well maybe because this economy has been so lousy and you need capital to remain solvent. This could be a game changer to preserve MLS’s steady growth. If the owners alos make a good chunk of change, this could also lead to more investment! I would love to see some more billionaire’s owning MLS teams. If they could dump a few million into DP’s each year for the next few years, the whole of MLS can grow exponentially( since the “rich” owners can take a temporary loss for long term gains).

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  12. Beckham has been great for the league, in terms of publicity, sales, attracting other stars, etc. And he’s actually playing AND producing this year, to boot. Pay him.

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  13. …some over the hill publicity hound, who’s among the league leaders in assists, is an all-star, and has provided more commercial benefits to the club and league than any other player in league history.

    But yeah none of that is as important as that chip on your shoulder, right?

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  14. Unless they NEED the cash right now for something, then selling a 25% stake in SUM seems like a bonehead move.

    SUM’s growth is probably the one metric that tracks very closely with the growth of soccer in the US. Because of their involvement in promoting MLS, Euro friendlies, El Tri friendlies, the Gold Cup, and basically anything “soccer” in this country, they are the one business entity thing that stretches across a very complex and disparate market for the sport here.

    We all know soccer is growing rapidly in the US, I think it is a less obvious case that MLS is going to grow quite as rapidly as the game as a whole here, because a lot of the groth is coming from the latino market and from what some people call Euro-snobs. SUM is an entity that can capture all of the benefits of that growth, and has been — look at that $600M valuation for what is basically a niche marketing firm.

    The MLS owner/operators’ stake in SUM is what makes their ownership stake in MLS worth having. There’s no way that SUM’s value has peaked, and there’s no way they can get similar growth by plowing those funds back into the league as it exists, right?

    So what is the play? Why are they sacrificing big future growth for cash now? Why sacrifice the golden goose for some peking duck when you can have it keep laying golden eggs?

    I think there’s a story here, not sure what it is.

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  15. Why not pay tons of money for an international icon who has brought a ton of publicity to the league, sells tickets everywhere he goes, and is second in the league in assists? Maybe I missed the part where I get angry.

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  16. To quote paraphrase Jay-Z, Becks isn’t a businessman. He’s a business, man!

    His wages are mutually beneficial to himself and MLS.

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  17. Robbie Keane just turned 31 in July. If anything, his acquisition vindicates MLS. Rather than coming here at age 34 or 35, he came to the States rather than going elsewhere. Could he hang with the Prem League? No, but not 22 year-olds can either.

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  18. For the price of Beckam I could buy 40 Brad Davises orr equivalent players all but guaranteeing a championship. Keane is just more proof that we’ve entered the NASL slippery slope where the league is about overpaid aging stars and everyone else is just a sideshow. The wage gap disparity and the perception that you can come to the MLS for one last payday hurts the credibility of the league not the other way around. It also diminishes the overall quality of play when you lose talent to lower European leagues because your salary regardless of performance can never exceed $200k.

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  19. In the SUM article is states that one option would be to use the funds to subsidize teams or players. That would be a great idea. MLS should use the proceeds along with any additional franchise expansion fees to create one big trust. Sort of like colleges and universities with their endownments. The dividends are used to subsidize expenses, any additional expansion fees are used to grow the trust.

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  20. As a long time Galaxy fan… I was excited Becks came to LA and equally unhappy with his loan stints whenever he felt like. Then the injuries, etc. Id like to see David Beckham give LAG a year for free for all the time he missed here.

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  21. Luke Rogers endorses this strange comment.

    On a more serious note – LAG and everyone going after Becks know why they rate him so much. These guys are not idiots and for a 36-year old dude I’m betting it’s not all about his on the field output.

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  22. Figureheads come at a premium. Without Beckham, chances are we do not get Keane, and the league does not get some of the other international players that a more respected league garners.

    For the Galaxy, they still do command appearance fees and TV rights fees that make the investment worth it. Maybe he doesn’t produce the stats on the field people would like, but he does work his butt off and is one of our best players. Safe to say he does have a lot of intangibles that are benficial to the team and the league as a whole.

    Also, the league has and will continue to benefit as long as he wears the patch on his arm.

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  23. I think base pay for Becks is 6.5mil. However, I believe advertising and jersey sale percentage are part of that that constituted the fabled $50mil per year. I think Becks probably has earned a sum in regards to these other incentives equal to his base salary. My guess is that this offer is one sum, no added percentages of jersey sales or anything. Obviously, the bigger story is the partial sale of SUM. I bet the owners of the Florida teams wish they could claim some of that…and maybe legally they should try. Anyway, so if that percentage of SUM that is sold increases I could see Providence providing a bolder analysis of the potential soccer market…think pressure to get MLS into Copa Lib w/respect to the potential revenues if they can market it as near-CL status. Too bad it aint Traffic buying SUM

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  24. So will Brad Davis get $9M?Becks is no longer the big ticket attraction so doesn’t deserve the big contract. One day I hope the MLS pays players based on performance and not for their accent.

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  25. I thought becks was on about $5m per year on the current deal. If so, cant see how they would increase his pay that much. They must still be making a killing on beckham shirts.

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