If the commercial breaks are anything to go by, the face of American soccer isn’t the player who wears the No. 10 shirt for the national team, but a 51-year-old English bloke who scored all of 18 goals in his six seasons with MLS.
While USMNT forward Christian Pulisic has been saddled with the nickname “Captain America”—a burden he’s never been particularly keen on lugging around with him—the disproportionate volume of airtime that David Beckham has commanded throughout the 2026 FIFA World Cup would seem to suggest that the east London transplant is U.S. sports royalty.
Beckham has all but haunted the airwaves since the World Cup kicked off on June 11, becoming the most ubiquitous feature of the tournament’s ad breaks. Per iSpot data, the former Manchester United and Real Madrid midfielder’s top three commercials alone have already racked up 418 million impressions, and you’ve likely seen his 30-second star turn in that Home Depot spot roughly a trillion times in the last month.
Like most Home Depot ads that feature a world-class sports figure—alums include Michael Phelps, Nick Saban and Shaquille O’Neal, whose endorsement slate makes Peyton Manning look as reclusive as Howard Hughes in his Kleenex-box slippers era—Beckham’s script paints him in a weirdly mundane scenario. The “Build It Like Beckham” spot opens with a shot of the billionaire’s frankly ramshackle backyard (er, “garden”) which he transforms into a miniature football pitch/outdoor theater with more than a little help from the retailer.
