The real football fans - the Hispanic community

The drive from Sunset Strip to the suburb of Carson, where David Beckham will soon be playing for the Los Angeles Galaxy football team, is a long one.

The freeway south passes through what used to be known as South Central Los Angeles — rebranded South Los Angeles, to help to offset its reputation for gang violence — and eventually reaches a 19sq mile (50sq km) industrial enclave where the Hispanic barrios now outnumber the black and Filipino neighbourhoods.

To the average Briton, the landscape of Carson would be instantly recognisable from any number of gritty LA cop dramas: a place where El Pollo Loco is a more familiar brand than McDonald’s, and where the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinión counts as many readers as the Los Angeles Times. The Galaxy stadium is one of three landmarks, along with California State University (established to improve race relations after the 1965 Watts riots) and a landing pad for the Goodyear Blimp. Given that many of the local people work in construction, it’s no surprise that the football team’s stadium is sponsored by Home Depot, a huge DIY chain.

To white Angelenos — many of whom hadn’t even heard of the Galaxy football team until this week — its Hollywood- inspired name is a joke: Carson might as well be on a different planet to Sunset Strip and the fashionable nightspots of Hollywood and the Westside. Few A-listers would venture as far south as Carson without a bodyguard and a bullet-proof Range Rover. By extension, Beckham’s transfer was also considered a joke, in spite of its $250 million (£125 million) price: enough to make Mission: Impossible IV for Beckham’s new best friend, Tom Cruise.

When they finally passed comment on Beckham’s signing, LA’s bloggers alternately quipped that soccer was a sport “generally played by 12-year-old girls in high socks” and that Beckham should be “the cover boy of Who Gives a S***? magazine”. Meanwhile, an editor at the Los Angeles Times privately chuckled: “Not even the paparazzi will get down to Carson: the traffic’s too bad.”

At least the hosts of ABC’s Good Morning America were a little kinder yesterday morning, presenting Beckham with a “welcome to America” gift of Kobe Bryant’s Los Angeles Lakers basketball team shirt. The headline running across the screen was “Bank it like Beckham”. Nevertheless, the shirt was also an uncomfortable reminder: in LA, Beckham will have to get used to being out-headlined by the Lakers, as well as the LA Dodgers baseball team.

Beckham, however, is well aware that his move to Southern California has nothing to do with pleasing white Americans — or, indeed, white American television networks, which get queasy at the thought of broadcasting two 45-minute halves of uninterrupted soccer without a single commercial break. In that sense, the accusation from Britain that Beckham’s move to LA is simply the latest evidence of his celebrity preening is wide of the mark: in LA, he will be more of a working-class hero than he ever was at Manchester United.

In fact, Beckham will represent a completely different side of LA from Hollywood — a side unexplored by most of those who come to LA on summer holiday to visit Disneyland and Universal Studios.

As far as Hispanics are concerned, football is already a mainstream sport in America.

During the 2006 World Cup, America’s biggest Spanish-language broadcaster, Univision, routinely outrated the all-American sports network ESPN, and its sister network ESPN2. Even some English-speaking football fans, especially British expats, chose to watch the World Cup in Spanish, because ESPN’s coverage was considered so passionless (Wayne Rooney’s groin-stomp and subsequent red card, for example, barely raised an eyebrow on ESPN, whereas on Univision, the commentator almost passed out with the unfolding drama).

And not all of the football shown on Hispanic TV is played overseas. In fact, national football teams from Mexico and South America often play exhibition matches in the United States. America’s national team recently faced the Mexican and Venezuelan sides at Reliant Stadium in Houston and at Qwest Field in Seattle respectively. Tens of thousands of Hispanic fans showed up to cheer on their countries.

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