The Debriefing: David Beckham Is Going to Change ... Probably Nothing

AOL SPORTS - New York, NY, USA - David Beckham cannot make you watch soccer. I suppose he could, if he were to break into your house, duct tape your wrists and ankles and hold a pistol to your temple as he put some MLS highlights into your DVD player. But I don't think that's going to happen.

Beckham will be good for the MLS, much like a delicious bundt cake is good for a church group's bake sale. It'll earn some short term cash, create some good word-of-mouth advertising around the neighborhood, and get some people talking. But the bundt cake is not sending the kids to the Vatican for two weeks in August. You can't build a future around it.

The ideal outcome for the Beckham-to-America experiment would be for him to raise the sport's profile permanently, create a greater sense of respect for American soccer, and to get people to stop chuckling when they hear the initials "MLS."

But that's a pretty tall order.

This is not a man whose personality is going to captivate America. This is not Muhammad Ali. This is not Joe Namath. This isn't even Terrell Owens.

I've read that he's a sensitive and intelligent fellow, and I'm not saying I don't believe it, but I've rarely seen evidence of it. I was moved (very, very slightly ... really, I can't emphasize how slightly) at his selfless desire to play for his country, but this burning intellect remains hidden to me.

I hope to see evidence of it one day, but if I were to judge from this clip alone ... the man actually seems quite dumb. The crack at around 6:08 was a favorite of mine.

Of course, sports history's shown that you don't need a particularly strong or likable personality to captivate the American public -- Michael Jordan comes to mind -- but Jordan did jaw-dropping things in a sport that people already liked.

Beckham's not going to do anything jaw-dropping, and he's not going to do anything in a sport that people already like. As great a soccer player as he is, he's not the type to drop jaws. He's not going to go end-to-end like Lionel Messi, nor can he do any of the ridiculous things that Ronaldinho can do with a soccer ball.