If you somehow managed to miss it. soccer again has stolen a march on rugby big time with news of the David Beckham deal. The biggest name in world soccer is coming to the United States to play for Major League Soccer club the Los Angeles Galaxy, and while that's a huge coup for the Galaxy and the MLS, it could be an equally huge blow to rugby's efforts to garner some attention. Brian Lowe reports

Even though the round ball game lags behind the four major professional sports in the US, including the sagging NHL, in terms of its general popularity and television ratings, ask American sports fans who Becks is and chances are that most of them will know that he's the guy who can bend it without having to think too long and hard about it. This guy is a big deal in almost every corner of the globe and there can be little doubt that he will put more butts in more seats at more soccer games in the US. On the day that his signing was announced the Galaxy sold two-thousand season tickets and the phones rang off the hook at many other MLS team offices.

If you're like me and you don't give a hoot about soccer, you must at least acknowledge that what the Galaxy's front office has managed to pull off is massive. Their mega deal dwarfs even that of the great Pele being lured here back in the days of the NASL. Including endorsements, Beckham is expected to rake in $250 million over five years to kick a ball around the Home Depot Center in Carson, CA.

You may have heard of that place. To put it into some perspective, his package eclipses that of baseball's Alex Rodriguez. What a great story the Galaxy franchise can now tell potential sponsors about their return on investment. And the MLS now has something really cool to hang its hat on when talking with potential national or perhaps even international sponsors. This is the kind of thing rugby needs to be able to do at some point down the track if the game is to be taken seriously in this country.

Sure, the MLS is rolling the dice in the hope that this will create a buzz loud enough to attract a lot of new fans to soccer across America, but good for them for having the cohunes to take a shot at the big boys in the NFL, NCAA and NBA. And make no mistake, Beckham isn't crossing the pond for altruistic reasons, he's coming here for the big payday, but don't bang on him for that because after all this is supposed to be the land of opportunity. So how does this affect the continuing growth of rugby in this country?

If you're like me and you don't want to see the oval ball game take a hit, brace yourself because it could turn out to be a hell of a big setback, and here's why.

Soccer has been able to land the big fish for several reasons. MLS games are televised, and not just on cable channels, their matches are played in real stadiums, they have a very healthy fan base already, and they have corporate backing. Rugby can't match any of that. And oh by the way, the mainstream sports media has actually heard of soccer, just look at all the fuss they've made over Beckham. Rugby would salivate at the mere prospect of that kind of media attention.

Here are some other things to chew on. Rugby isn't on TV, in a lot of cases club games are played in city parks or on high school fields, by and large our fan base is limited to the rugby community, and we have jack squat in the way of corporate sponsorship.

Rugby is caught in a Catch-22 situation; there's no money with which to buy TV airtime and because it's not on TV there's no compelling reason for potential sponsors to pony up for that much-needed airtime. It's that dang ROI thing. It's a tough cycle to break and the likes of Kevin Roberts, Nigel Melville and their lieutenants will need to do a lot of shucking and jiving with corporate America to change that culture. Hopefully they'll succeed in doing so but it is an extremely tall order, particularly as for the most part corporate America doesn't care about rugby.

For those of us who haven't recognized that the gulf between soccer and rugby is getting wider, imagine if an American rugby club wanted to bring in a superstar player from overseas, say a Daniel Carter, George Gregan or Brian O'Driscoll, what could it offer? Well, we can't pay much, we play in parks, you'll have to suit up on the sidelines, there's no TV coverage, and oh yeah, no one's ever heard of you but we think you'd be a great fit anyway. Yeah really.

This isn't meant as a criticism; rather it's a reality check. It's a cold, hard look at where rugby is in comparison with where soccer is in America and why the Galaxy have been able to pull off the biggest coup in US soccer history. The fact of the matter is that soccer is a have and rugby is a have-not because soccer has made itself professional here and rugby is still largely amateur.

That needs to change and in order to effect that change cages need to be rattled, we need a professional product to put on the field, a product that can be marketed and one that can go on TV. And that old mindset that still exists of protecting our fiefdoms must be quashed or rugby runs the risk of being left behind completely, and that would not amuse the IRB.

Brian Lowe is the editor of AmericanRugbyNews.com.