Watch US television for any length of time and the endless trickery of commercials will eventually break down into three different types.
The first are advertisements for standard food units, each about a hand-sized bomb of small, crunchy, salty treats; but each also has its own advanced range of colors and sounds and packaging needed to dress it up as a different kind of real human food. Try the delicious new Flame Sauced Philly Cheese Taco Wing Waffle Dog Deep Dish MegaDeath Burger-Shaped Eat Thing. You will not be disappointed. Or you will be. Whatever it is.
The second type is health care ads, which consistently show a happy, active, quiet person throwing a frisbee or playing chess, while a concerned voice talks about the transformative benefits of the Omni-Pill.
Although because the Omni-Pill is also a violent chemical, the second part of this montage must be accompanied by a list of its many possible side effects, which include, surprisingly often, suicidal thoughts, depression and genital warts. All this is referred to in the same warm voice and the same happy image, so that for about 30 seconds you watch a glossy and attractive advertising campaign for suicide, depression and the lifestyle of genital warts.
The third type is David Beckham ads. All Beckham. Any kind of Beckham. Beckham-verse in all its deep guises.
An Australian TV show has already made a funny clip noting that Beckham is the hardest working man in America, furiously giving back every minute of his waking life, from morning coffee, to breakfast pancakes and washing his pants (he’s 52 years old: here’s his ass cracking); going DIY shopping, eating a bomb-shaped lunch, drinking beer, obsessing over his watch, driving too fast, probably going to a bar where he now has to neck whiskey, then turn into some kind of unnamed sun god before finally falling asleep on a really expensive mattress (you can’t see his cleavage).
Making money is art, said Andy Warhol. As this super cheap World Cup enters its last phase Beckham’s real-time creativity is at its best.
Do people in the UK really know how big he is now, not just as one of the most famous people in America, but in his reach and power? Already a millionaire, Beckham is reportedly set to make up to $25m this World Cup, more money than anyone else, while being completely neutral about it. A hydration break alone, when he drinks beer, drives a hot van and begs you to go back to school, is an endless supply of cash flow.
As the competition shifts to Beckham’s Miami power bunker where England face Norway on Saturday, the underbelly of the world’s biggest entertainment economy, the level of attendance can feel overwhelming. There were moments between the games when Beckham was present at the same time in three different planes: on the big screen as part of the stage, giving this empty boxing wave; then there are also in the form of TV commercials, fried food, buying sanders; and the third time there in real life and, the real Beckham, he lives in a disturbing way, like a pizza suddenly driving a car.
This sounds like a filler level, Total Beckham. There are even counter-narratives that may reach a critical mass. Forbes published a disturbing article this week that warns against exploitation. Maybe Beckham the most popular now. Are we facing a market collapse, subprime Beckham, empty Beckham bonds, the collapse of all industries?
This does not seem possible. There are two factors at play here. The first is the apparently unlimited capacity of the US to absorb these things. The second is the remarkable hunger of Beckham himself, the will to make this happen, to become a living symbol. Warhol also said: “I want to be a machine.”
How did this happen? And will it ever stop? Perhaps the most remarkable aspect is that Beckham has achieved this despite arriving in this country late in his career in his prime.
Beckham was a great soccer player, and surprisingly underrated now, hard work and high art, something that often gets lost a little in the light of his persona. Nobody here really knows about the preternatural accuracy of his corners or that free-kick against Greece.
In this sense Beckham stands alone among Brits who have broken America. He did this by basically doing nothing. This isn’t the Beatles selling laid-back rock and roll, or JK Rowling’s writing books. She is incredibly beautiful just for being famous. And something in this meets a seemingly insatiable need.
You can try to fix it. There are three obvious aspects. The first is Beckham’s unique personal icon, his remarkable quality of having a certain remarkable quality. In front of what we are looking at is a handsome tattooed man wearing an expensive t-shirt. There is an indescribable star magic in her smile, that old Hollywood charm. But you can still be a smart plumber.
OK, so you try to do it. In fact, Beckham’s presence is carefully measured, perfectly sparkling, strangely cloudless. There is almost no energy, and then there is a large amount of strong, compact energy. And there is a kind of guilelessness in him, a tabula rasa effect in which any quality can be revealed. As one popular Miami hairstylist put it: “He’s mean, but he’s also soft.”
Beckham seems to know Latin at times. He likes and tracks aspects of black culture. Of course he is also Sir, which he plays very well. For all its transformative wealth of influences, America is still a place that longs for a sense of identity. It wants, if not your approval, then your confirmation, the confirmation of its righteousness from sea to shining sea. A supportive and nice gentleman who loves you too. This should feel very good, very safe, very soft right now.
Simply, think about how everyone in US public life is, constant shouting, anger, noise, confusion. Beckham is not. He is dumb but he also agrees. He’s America’s dad, America’s DILF. In some of his presentations he is now portrayed as a quiet inspiration, with a very American kind of you-can-do-it vibe. Look, I’m just like you. I’m the perfect billionaire for you.
So much for soft power and soft signs. What about hard power and hard money? The thing that really makes Beckham is being adopted as the owner of the Inter Miami Franchise. And the thing that made it happen was his billionaire business partners, the Cuban-American brothers Jorge and José Mas Santos.
The exact share of ownership is not public information. Beckham’s face is clear. And the Mas family is the engine, the most powerful pillars of Miami’s Cuban exile community. The most interesting Mas is still the late father of two brothers. Jorge Mas Sr. fought on the US side in the Bay of Pigs, then he came to Miami and worked as a dishwasher, while he was involved in various armed plots to overthrow Fidel Castro, until he was called terrorists and mafiosi in Cuba until his death at the age of 54.
Mas made the family money in communications and construction. He was a protégé of Boris Yeltsin, supported various anti-Castro guerrilla leaders, and challenged the former mayor of Miami to participate. One time he drove around town in an empty Mercedes with a Magnum in his glove box.
He also transferred his power. It can be hard to do things in Miami if you don’t know the right people. Mastech Industries are good people. On the day off from the World Cup the company’s offices at the airport were empty, just a strange person with an Inter Miami lanyard who bought a coffee and then disappeared through the company’s doors. The pavement is hot. Everything here is baked hot. Power is distributed, as before, inside cool and mirrored rooms. And a new stadium is going up not far from here, the Freedom Park Arena, completing the Mas-Beckham area’s size, and providing another weapon that will generate money, power and status.
Using Cuban-American power and geopolitics: this is how Beckham did this in practical ways. He found the right guys, and the right guys saw what he could be. The Inter Miami franchise is valued at around $1.5bn (£1.1bn). And Beckham has become a football icon in this country. His family is respected, he has been promoted to that stage where celebrity becomes a kind of royalty, which is followed as a court game.
This calls for one last thing in play, another shot of fuel. And that third factor is Lionel Messi, who arrived at Inter Miami in 2023, has a contract until 2028, and has charged a lot for commercial items and extensive electricity.
In Wynwood, in the heart of Miami, a large mural of Messi has become a sports tourism attraction, a tourist must-have, and a reminder of his Beckham-esque vanity, which has real appeal in a city full of Central and South Americans. The Inter Miami shirt is now the fourth best-selling shirt in football, an amazing result, from one source.
Beckham actually painted a small part of that Messi mural, up there on the cherry picker. And Messi is now inextricably linked to his rise, an influence that continues now to the final defeat of the World Cup. Beckham has worked on this for 30 years, a brand expansion that began even in his early playing days.
There will never be another English footballer like him. Partly because Beckham got there first and has since taken over; but also because this is a rare football life, with unlimited potential in that dim, endless public domain.
