The Jester’s Quart: Jordan vs. Beckham

[Greg_Wyshynski]

It was called Placencia, a town on the coast of Belize. The diving nuts would stay there as a base camp before sailing off to wherever the real underwater vistas were located. Otherwise,...
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[Gunnerman]

I never saw Jordan play so for me, Becks >>>>>>> Jordan

[BtownJay]

Never saw Jordan??? Thats impossible, and I don't believe you.

Jordan >>>>> Beckham, no question.

[Rusty27]

Gunner,please do not read this post..............




Agree with Jay.

[Gunnerman]

It's not impossible Jay.

Too late Rusty I already read it and must say I don't agree with it.

[BtownJay]

Michael Jordon is possibly the best player in any sport outside of Wayne Gretzky. How someone could have made it through life with a TV and NOT seen him seems insanely impossible to me.

[Gunnerman]

Well it ain't. I have not watched an NBA game since Dr. J played with Sixers.

[BtownJay]

All you had to do was turn on the local news during their sports time to see his greatness. Or read a sports magazine, or watch a sports channel. I'm completely baffled as to how sheltered you were.

[Gunnerman]

Oh I have seen highlights, when I say I saw someone play it means I actually watched them play an entire game or at least the majority of one. Highlights don't count when I say I saw someone play.

[Rusty27]

There were only two periods in my life when i watched the NBA aside
from an occasional portion of a Shaq/Kobe matchup and luckily LeBron's insane 1st round playoff OT game.
When Larry Bird played
When MJ played

[Ishkur]

An interesting article, Greg, with an overly long intro that is pretentious in its coyness, but you forgot to point out that yes, in this impoverished country, you found a Michael Jordan fan.

One.

If you had bothered to tilt your head a little bit to the side, yes right over there, to your right, you'll find a much larger dirt field with about 30 kids on it, kicking a ball around. All of them trying to bend it like Beckham.

I will concede that Jordan probably did more for basketball than any single person has ever done, market-wise, for any other sport ever, but it is still dwarfed by the global momentum of soccer, which is currently crashing into North America like an insane tidal wave, carrying Beckham in its wake.

That Beckham didn't have to sell the game or become bigger than it does not discredit the magnitude of his popularity. Beckham influences whole fashion, clothing, and market trends in some demographics. He's like a walking stock market ticker--the very things he chooses to wear, eat, breathe, sleep, live, and buy are worth billions. While everyone wanted to Be Like Mike..........everyone wants to Live Like Becks.

As far as sheer household names goes, perhaps the only athlete more well-known than Beckham is probably Pele.

[Rusty27]

Are you serious? You want to exclude Jordan from influencing fashion?
Did people want Beckham fashion so bad they would steal Beckham fashion off of another person wearing it? They did it to get Jordan's gear.For God sakes,people buy the freakin underwear Jordan wears!From his sunglasses,his jersey,his bald head;everything he did was imitated in fashion. As far as fashion goes,Beckham needs Posh by his side to sell himself that way.
Who know's maybe you're right.There are a lot of households in Brazil.

[Ishkur]

Yes. Yes they did. And yes they do.

They go one further and cut their hair to be just like his. How many hairstyles has he single-handedly made popular in Japan and Korea.

Jordan is big, and basketball is popular, but it just doesn't have the global reach of soccer and never will. If we're talking about sheer numbers, soccer has total, complete, uncontested rule over three whole continents that basketball registers as slightly above passing interest. Beckham is merely placed at the spearpoint of this mass sublimation.

[Greg_Wyshynski]

[quote=Ishkur;208435]An interesting article, Greg, with an overly long intro that is pretentious in its coyness, but you forgot to point out that yes, in this impoverished country, you found a Michael Jordan fan.[/quote

Might be the first time in my life I've been refered to as coy.

I will concede that Jordan probably did more for basketball than any single person has ever done, market-wise, for any other sport ever, but it is still dwarfed by the global momentum of soccer, which is currently crashing into North America like an insane tidal wave, carrying Beckham in its wake.

Soccer's global popularity has nothing to do with whether Beckham is a greater star than Jordan was. That's like saying Derek Jeter is the most popular player in baseball by virtue of being the most popular player on the most popular team.

That Beckham didn't have to sell the game or become bigger than it does not discredit the magnitude of his popularity. Beckham influences whole fashion, clothing, and market trends in some demographics. He's like a walking stock market ticker--the very things he chooses to wear, eat, breathe, sleep, live, and buy are worth billions. While everyone wanted to Be Like Mike..........everyone wants to Live Like Becks.

Everything that you used to describe the Beckham effect was perfected by Jordan a decade earlier. Like I said, I'm not trying to dim Beckham's star...but while he influenced trends, Jordan built Nike, made the NBA a global league and became perhaps the most well-recognized American athlete internationally since Ali.

As far as sheer household names goes, perhaps the only athlete more well-known than Beckham is probably Pele.

You know, there's been a bit of exportation of American pop culture since the 1970s that *might* have influeced Jordan's popularity outside of the U.S.