CARSON, Calif., July 13 — David Beckham began his soccer career in the United States on Friday with a stadium reception that was part crusade, part contrived spectacle, as if it had been jointly produced by Billy Graham and World Wrestling Entertainment.
Music blared, confetti cannons exploded and about 2,500 fans of the Los Angeles Galaxy attended the introduction, some chanting, “There’s only one David Beckham,” others singing his name to the theme from “The Flintstones.”
Some 600 media types from 10 countries chronicled Beckham’s brief appearance. He wore a smoky gray suit and drew a verbal yellow card for calling his sport “football,” before correcting himself, saying, “I’ll get used to that.”
His wife, Victoria, known as the pop star Posh Spice, made a calculated entrance in a fuchsia dress and spiked heels that, if nothing else, aerated the turf at the Home Depot Center, the Galaxy’s home field. She coolly posed for photographers, one leg in front of the other as if preparing to take one of her husband’s famously bending free kicks.
At this junction of sport and celebrity, few seemed to notice that Beckham’s new teammates were training on a nearby practice field in anonymity and a decidedly lower tax bracket.
“I’m a pastor; I always preach about idolatry,” said Jorge Del Toro, a Galaxy season-ticket holder. “I have qualms about being here, but he’s David Beckham. He seems to be a blessed individual with creative talent and a humble spirit.”
Not to mention the ability to rake in money as a global brand as he attempts to elevate soccer into the American mainstream. On Friday, commerce was as urgent as soccer, an observation that could not have been more evident if the stage that held Beckham had been shaped like a cash register.
The Galaxy will pay him at least $32.5 million, and up to $250 million, over five years in a profit-sharing arrangement, and the team wasted no time attempting to make its money back.
A new blue-and-white uniform has been introduced for Beckham’s arrival, and the jerseys were selling for $80 to $100 outside the Home Depot Center, while water was being hawked inside for $3.25 a bottle.
His international appeal is such that the Galaxy has already sold 250,000 of the jerseys, team officials said, a considerable number given that Beckham will not play in his first match until July 21 in an exhibition against the British power Chelsea.
Tim Leiweke, the chief executive of the Anschutz Entertainment Group, which owns the Galaxy, has said that Beckham’s presence could be worth $1 billion to the team. Lest anyone forgot about merchandising, a giant replica of the new team jersey lay in the end zone of the Home Depot Center, while a banner featuring Beckham in the new outfit hung from the stadium roof.
This is a cult of personality rarely seen outside North Korea. Still, Beckham has undeniable star power. Pablo Ruiz, a Galaxy season-ticket holder, canceled three meetings Friday to welcome Beckham, the team’s star midfielder.
“The world is looking at my team today,” Ruiz said. “It’s a circus, a gimmick, but it’s a good gimmick. Oscar Wilde wrote that you should be concerned when people don’t talk about you.”
Carlos Almendarez, a high school counselor, flew in from San Francisco, and he is not even much of a Beckham fan.
“I just wanted to see the hysteria,” he said.
Jeff and Teri Miller, season-ticket holders, surprised their 11-year-old daughter, Courtney, and let her play hooky from summer school. “She thinks Beckham’s cute,” Teri Miller said of her daughter. “I think he’s cute, too. Courtney told me I was too old to think he’s cute.”
Jeff Miller, the commissioner of a regional youth soccer league, said Beckham’s arrival felt like a seminal moment, similar to Wayne Gretzky’s arrival in the late 1980s to play for the Los Angeles Kings.
“Hockey wasn’t such a big draw,” Miller said. “Then the Anaheim Ducks came into existence,” eventually winning a Stanley Cup title. “Now you’ve got youth hockey all over Southern California.”
Don Garber, the commissioner of Major League Soccer, called Friday “truly a historic day for soccer in America.”
Beckham is sure to raise interest in the sport. Still, he has his work cut out for him. Until now, the most famous soccer star playing in the United States was Mia Hamm, and she has been retired for nearly three years.
“Potentially in the States, soccer can be as big as it is everywhere else in the world,” Beckham said, a statement perhaps made more out of politeness than accuracy.
Not everyone was impressed, or even aware, of his arrival. The actor Richard Chamberlain, asked about Beckham in a television interview at a movie premiere, said, “I’m not sure I know who he is.”
Some British reporters have accused Beckham of wanting to become an American idle, moving into semiretirement here in a lesser league while his wife hobnobs with Tom Cruise and other celebrities. In the sports pages of The Los Angeles Times on Friday, a column by Bill Plaschke bore the headline “Hype Gripe” and asked why anyone should care about a player who is more celebrity that athlete.
But Beckham’s career is on the rise again at 32. Whether it is ascendant enough to invigorate the woeful Galaxy and boost long-term fan interest in M.L.S. cannot yet be known. But on Friday, his charisma was enough to draw Alexander Mira, a Galaxy fan who banged on a drum and wore something on his head that was either a diorama featuring photographs of the team’s players or a small shrub.
“I see David Beckham and my heart is happy,” Mira said.
There was one clumsy moment Friday. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles, who has been involved in a much-publicized extramarital relationship with a newscaster from a Spanish-language network, was booed, then heckled when a spectator yelled, “Is your girlfriend covering this?”
Shortly after, the half-hour introduction concluded and Beckham prepared to walk soccer’s version of the red carpet, providing sound bites to television reporters lined up along one end of the field. As fans began to leave, Alexi Lalas, the general manager of the Galaxy, had one final exhortation: be sure to buy a jersey on the way out.
