Brookings Press Blog

Beckham in America: A New Era for Major League Soccer

Soccer superstar David Beckham’s U.S. debut is expected to spark a dramatic increase in the popularity of the U.S. soccer scene, driving up team franchise expansion fees by at least $20 million, says author Zimbalist.

The media firestorm ignited by the Los Angeles arrival of David Beckham and his popstar wife Victoria (better known as Posh from the Spice Girls) was a preview of the impact the high-profile Beckham will have on the American soccer world, hopefully bringing it up to international standards. Andrew Zimbalist, coauthor of National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer, told the LA Times that due to Beckham’s international popularity and a “growing interest” in Major League Soccer, it might be “conservative” to assume in the near future individual U.S. team franchise expansion fees could be near $30 million, a 300 percent increase over the $10 million price tag from pre-Beckham days.

Beckham’s first season, beginning with his debut game on July 21st (assuming he is not sidelined due to ankle injuries), will be a litmus test for his overall impact on the American soccer world. Judging by the near doubling of Los Angeles Galaxy ticket revenue in the past few months, soccer in the States is about to experience a level of popularity rarely seen here but common abroad. This draws into sharper relief the difference in world views of leisure time: why does everybody else in the world obsess over soccer while baseball is as American as apple pie? Andrew Zimbalist and coauthor Stefan Szymanski elaborate on this contrast in National Pastime, which not only explores the cultural differences that led to this split, but also the economic factors that enable baseball to be so profitable within the United States alone, while the world soccer industry, though immensely popular, struggles to “break even.”

- Read “Beckham's arrival rings in new era for soccer in U.S.” on latimes.com.

- Learn more about National Pastime.

(Photo of David Beckham courtesy of the LA Galaxy)

Math You Can Use

Canadian Business Law Journal Calls Book "Interesting and Engaging"

In recent review in the Canadian Business Law Journal (Vol. 44), Teresa Scassa calls Math You Can't Use: Patents, Copyright, and Software by Ben Klemens "interesting and engaging" and "an important contribution to the debate over the appropriate means to protect the fruits of the innovation economy." Scassa goes on to describe the unique perspective Klemens adds to this discussion.

Klemens's mathematical background, combined with his ability to express complex propositions with clarity, free from excessive technical jargon, leave him well placed to make a unique contribution to the development of policy in this area.

In Math You Can't Use, Klemens discusses the intellectual property issues regarding software from the perspectives of law, computer science, mathematics, and economics. He explains that patent laws are intended to apply to physical machines. Software, on the other hand, is quite different and should not be treated as just another machine. As a solution, he outlines how copyright could be more effectively implemented to protect the rights of software developers without unnecessarily hampering innovation. Ultimately, he concludes, it is up to Congress to determine how software should be protected.

Ben Klemens is a guest scholar at the Center on Social and Economic Dynamics at the Brookings Institution, where he writes programs to perform quantitative analyses and policy-oriented simulations. He also consults for the World Bank on intellectual property in the developing world and computer-based simulations of immigration policy.

- Learn more about Math You Can't Use.