Even by David Beckham's rather high standards, this has been a pretty crazy few days. First, there was his appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, in which he lost a game of Egg Russian Roulette that resulted in his perfectly coifed hair being drenched in raw yolk.
Then, of course, his Super Bowl ad made its TV premiere on Sunday. That featured Beckham running all over town in nothing but his underwear before ultimately arriving back at his faux photo shoot completely naked.
While those were certainly fun events, the biggest and most relevant bit of news is yet to come. According to the New York Times, MLS is poised to announce that Beckham and his group have officially been awarded the Miami franchise, which will bring the league to 22 teams. The announcement is reportedly scheduled for Wednesday.
The announcement is not a huge surprise, as it has only seemed to be a matter of time until this long-rumored move would become a reality. What is a bit surprising, though, is the timing.
All along, MLS commissioner Don Garber has said that in order for Miami -- or any other franchise not being bankrolled by Manchester City -- to gain admittance they needed to have a workable stadium plan in place. By all accounts, nothing like that yet exists in Miami. It appears as though Beckham's group has become focused on a piece of Miami-Dade County-owned land on the waterfront called Port Miami. The hope is that a lease will be worked out for the land that would pave the way for a 25,000-seat stadium. If all goes well, Miami could be competing in MLS as soon as 2016 but possibly not until 2017.
Despite this pending announcement, there's very little that suggests anything is actually done. Understandably, municipalities are more reluctant than ever to be seen as making sweetheart deals for sports teams and this is some pretty cherry land that is possibly being repurposed for something that almost certainly won't be the most effective way to put money into taxpayers' pockets.
Of course, that's probably why MLS and Beckham want to make this announcement. Once a team is really secured, maybe it becomes easier to convince politicians and the public that this is a risk worth taking. Beckham seems to have cobbled together a group with plenty of money, but this will be the first concrete sign that they are truly committed to making MLS in Miami work in a way that it never has before.
Assuming this can actually get done, it has all the appearances of a situation that would make the league more attractive as a whole. It would also give Orlando City an obvious rival, as well as bolster the league's presence in the South.
The danger, obviously, is that this announcement does little to pave the way for actual soccer being played. If Beckham can't get a deal done in the next few months, he could be left with a team that has no home. One imagines they would eventually be forced to start off somewhere like FIU Stadium, which might be fine temporarily but is obviously not a situation that helps the league or team in the long term.
Let's hope the league doesn't end up with egg on its face.
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