Beckham picks Miami for MLS franchise

PREVIOUS TEAMS

The city briefly had an MLS team, the Miami Fusion, which played in neighboring Fort Lauderdale. It joined MLS in 1998 but was closed by the then struggling league after four seasons.

The only professional team in the area is the Fort Lauderdale Strikers, which plays in the second-tier North American Football League.

When he was in Miami in June, Beckham visited two potential stadiums and declared Miami an "exciting" venue for a top-flight soccer team.

Beckham visited Sun Life Stadium, home to the NFL's Miami Dolphins, whose owner Stephen Ross has expressed interest in investing in soccer events, and met with the Dolphins Chief Executive Mike Dee.

Sun Life can hold around 75,000 fans and has hosted several international soccer friendlies in recent years but may be considered overly large for an MLS team.

Together with British entrepreneur Simon Fuller, whose management company 19 Entertainment handles Beckham's business affairs, Beckham later visited a 20,000-seat stadium at Florida International University.

Beckham was also accompanied by Bolivian-born billionaire Marcelo Claure, chief executive officer of Brightstar Corporation, a Miami-based wireless services company, who is also an avid soccer fan and owns one of Bolivia's top clubs, Bolivar.

Some sources have suggested Beckham might also be looking at the Miami Marlins baseball stadium as a temporary venue until a new soccer-only stadium is built.