The Whirlwind of Becks and Possible Effects

This Saturday night at Giants Stadium, the Red Bulls will play the Galaxy in front of the largest crowd ever to witness a regular season New York game.

This will provide a unique oportunity for the club to leave an impression on the masses Beckham will draw to the swamp.

Obviously the ticket revenue from this game will go a long way towards pleasing the Red Bull overlords, but there are many other things that make this weekend important and interesting.

For starters, the Becks hype machine seems to be at the highest it has been since his debut against Chelsea, thanks in large part to a trmendous preformance in last night's SuperLiga semifinal against DC including a signature bending free kick goal as well as an assist to catapult LA into the final.

That preformance as well as his improving health will likely help drive ticket sales in the last couple days leading up to the fixture.

But this goes deeper than one night of ticket sales. Red Bull New York's visability will take a huge jump, especially in the local papers and news. In fact, Jozy Altidore, Juan Pablo Angel, and David Beckham will be hosting an invitation only soccer clinic in Harlem tommorow. This is a great opportunity to get the club out there linked with a name like David Beckham as well as help grow soccer in the community.

The overall hope for the game itself is that the enormous crowd is won over by the Red Bulls play and the electric soccer atmosphere created by the thousands and that they all become Red Bulls supporters themselves and come back to other regular season games. Now, that is sort of a pie in the sky type scenario, but part of it can come true. I have no doubt that at least a few of those just there to see Beckham will be won over and return for future games not including Becks, but as past history shows when a big crowd comes to GS the after effect will not be something spectacular. Check out a great piece on that at Metrofanatic.

As the article states, the team has not usually done its job in these situations, so I guess it cannot be that accuratley guaged.

The attendance woes of the club have been well documented in recent years. We all know there are thousands upon thousands of soccer fans in the area, but thr trouble has been for the club to get them out to games consistantly to form a larger, stronger fan base.

They came to see Ronaldinho and Barcelona last year, and they are comming to see David Beckham this year. Consistant sucess will help with attendance, but it is clear that what this area needs to get amped on MLS is a superstar. They need their in that they just can't refuse. They need that one thing that will undoubtedly take them all the way out to the swamp, and eventually to the much more conveniant Red Bull Park.

The ticket sales and attendance for this match has and will leave a big mark on the NYRB front office. If their original thought was that the masses would only come out for a friendly with a star studded Barcelona team, that has been proven totally wrong with an almost as large crowd comming simply to see another MLS team with that one superstar, David Beckham.

Rumors have been floating around in MLS and fan circles for months about the possible addition of a second dp slot for each team (thus giving NYRB a third). These rumors were put in the message board spotlight as the mlsrumors blog revealed that sources have indicated the possility of that. Now, no one knows the credibility of the source or anything, but this rumor has been out there for a bit and could happen. But also it could not, that's what a rumor is.

The question is, will this crowd leave such an effect on the club's brass that they make their push for an international superstar of their own that will drive the crowds to the stadium, or will they continue their holding pattern until Red Bull Park?

Now the third dp thing is just talk as of now, but the reality is that Reyna's contract will be over at the end of next year, earlier than Red Bull Park is set to open with the current delay. In the next few years Red Bull will have to decide if it wants to finally break the bank like everyone has heard they can and get that player that will give the soccer fans in the metro area their official "in".

The crowd will say "do it", and there is no doubt Red Bull will be listening.