Looking over the last 2 decades or so, you can see the growing trend of talented soccer players who played at a high level in Europe coming to the MLS near the twilight of their career. But the main question is why? Since the MLS’ inception in the mid 90’s the league has been transformed from a mediocre league with no viewers to having some of the biggest soccer stars of their generation play and be pioneers of the league.
Since the MLS gained success and footballers started to move there, other leagues have tried to get the success the MLS has had with older stars, leagues like China and Saudi Arabia have stepped up and tried to show the world that they can be a hub for footballers to make good money and play good football and this seems to be failing. So why does the MLS have success?
David Beckham
The overall push for soccer to be a bigger sport in the US is apparent, we even had Will Ferrell making films about a soccer coach, the US has been trying to get a taste of the soccer success that surrounds the world and the transfer that changed this was David Beckham signing to LA Galaxy. This was a deal that shook the world and made people take the league a little more seriously.
When David Beckham’s name was said, not many people thought of the best player in the world. He wasn’t the best English player, he wasn’t the best player in Madrid, where he spent his time prior to the move, he was just a very good player who happened to be an icon of his time. He was like this generation’s Harry Styles, he was a pop culture icon, he had a film about him, he was married to a pop star and he was the face of football in pop culture. He could get a haircut and be front-page news and this is the exact reason why the MLS changed forever. He brought more eyes, more sponsorships, and more players and changed the attention the league got. You can go on football betting odds today and look at the big games and bet and this isn’t something you could do before he signed, the MLS was a ghost league and now it is booming.
The US Culture
The United States is the biggest country in the world, we are the most powerful and a landmark country for anyone. A lot of people’s dream holidays and dream places to live are in America, this doesn’t stop with soccer players, if anything, it is more of a challenge for soccer players. A soccer player won’t be able to do well if he has to play in a bad league and then in turn he won’t be able to make a lot of money. When Beckham signed, players made the move because he got such a lucrative contract and they saw this and realized their dream, moves could be made while making more money than they would in Europe.
New Influx of Players
As I mentioned earlier, the leagues like Saudi Arabia and China, started to take the biggest players and give them contracts they would never want to leave. Not to say the MLS got worse and got less attention but it was definitely a lower time and the European legends started to come over in a shorter influx than the previous few years suggested. However, this changed in 2018 when David Beckham gained ownership in a newly formed club by the name of Inter Miami, since then, more players have been joining again. The most recent ones were Gareth Bale joining LAFC and the best player of all time, Lionel Messi, joining Inter Miami after a few months bringing his old friends and teammates, Luis, Suarez, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba and further cementing the MLS as a league top watch.