David Beckham Interview: Forbes Iconoclast Summit (Transcript)

It’s about the lead-up to the World Cup, and it’s all about the legacy of what the World Cup leaves. And when we talk about inspiring the next generation, that’s what it brings. That’s what a World Cup brings.

And I’ve seen it in other World Cups. I’ve been lucky enough to have played in 3 World Cups myself. I’ve been to 4 World Cups, but I’ve only played in 3 World Cups. And I’ve seen how it inspires the next generation. We can talk about the business side, the economic side, what it does for cities, what it does for families, what it does for communities, which is what I like to talk about.

I like to talk about what it does to communities, and I’ve seen over the years when I’ve traveled around the world, whether that be for my job as a soccer player or the work that I do with UNICEF, I’ve seen the impact and the power that sport does have. Soccer is the biggest game in the world, but it’s not just about the soccer side, it’s about sports in general. Getting kids playing sports, it’s so important. It’s so important for their characters, it’s so important for their confidence.

And I’ve seen when I’ve gone to these different countries working with UNICEF how walking out onto a football pitch or just a piece of dirt with 2 goals or 2 goalposts on there, I’ve seen how it inspires these young kids and how excited they get. So to do that and to bring that to America and Canada and Mexico, it’s such a big moment and such a moment that can lift the game in general here.

The game has come on a huge amount in the last 15, 20 years, and that’s a number of people that have been part of that. We’ve had a commissioner that has been part of our league for a long time, Don Garber.

MANEET AHUJA: I think he’s here.

DAVID BECKHAM: Don is somewhere here. He’s waving over there. And Don has done incredible work over those years, bringing this league to what it is today, supporting in the way he supported. He did try to buy my franchise back off me at one point.

MANEET AHUJA: We’re going to get into that.

DAVID BECKHAM: So we’re going to get to that. But all joking aside, Don’s done incredible work and there’s a lot of people done incredible work.

The $25 Million Expansion Clause

MANEET AHUJA: So I want to shift now to another important moment, which you just alluded to. 2007, you amazed the world when you signed for the LA Galaxy. But the real story was the option in your contract to one day own an MLS franchise club for $25 million. But back then, the average franchise value was around $37 million. $25 million. Today, Forbes values Inter Miami at $1.35 billion. When did you realize the potential of the $25 million expansion clause?

DAVID BECKHAM: To be honest, the reason I moved to America, the reason I moved to the LA Galaxy, was purely to win championships and to grow the game in this country, because I really believed in America. When I was here in ’94, that’s when I really fell in love with America. And I knew at some point that I wanted to live here, that I wanted to be here, that I wanted to play here at some point. If I had the opportunity in my career, I wanted to live in America with my family. And LA Galaxy gave me that opportunity.

Like I said, I didn’t come here for financial reasons. I came here because of the challenge. I came here because I believed sport can grow in this country. And I wanted to be part of that.

But after I’d agreed to come, I then obviously got into the negotiations, and I wanted a legacy in the game. I’ve been lucky enough to have had a great career playing with incredible teams and incredible players and incredible coaches. But after I finish, I want people to look back and not just look at the football side, look at the legacy side of what I achieved in my career. And part of that legacy, I knew that if I was to own my own team one day, I’d be able to take my grandkids and my kids to take their grandkids and their kids into a stadium and say, “Daddy built this.”

MANEET AHUJA: That’s my favorite line from the story, right? “Daddy built this.”

DAVID BECKHAM: So that’s what I really wanted. And obviously I was very lucky when the deal got put together and I asked for that clause to be put in it. Don agreed to it. Thank you, Don. And the other owners agreed to it, which I think they might regret a little bit. But I think they also know the impact that obviously we had moving to America and moving to LA. So it was an interesting negotiation, but it was one that I was very proud of.

And did I know at that moment what it would be worth in the future? Probably not, because unlike most people in this room, I don’t come from a business background. My background— I never got any GCSEs, I never got any A-levels, I never really achieved anything other than being at school every single day. My attendance was great. But other than that, I don’t come from a business background.

I just suppose I’ve made the right decisions over the years, and I’ve been lucky in a sense. But I always go with my gut, and when my gut tells me to do something, then most of the time it’s a good thing. But with the clause, did I know what it would be worth all these years later? Maybe part of me did, but it wasn’t ever about that. It was about a legacy in America, a legacy in the game, and building this great game that we all love up to another level.

The 12-Year Journey to Inter Miami

MANEET AHUJA: So you exercised the clause and you chose Miami. Your commitment, though— a lot of people know the success story today. I don’t think people fully realize. Maybe if you lived in Miami or reading the local news, you might have read about it. But this was a 12-year journey. You said it was the toughest professional challenge of your career. 3 failed stadium deals, right? At one point, Don Garber offered to buy back the option for $50 million, and everyone told you to do it, but you refused. What kept you in?

DAVID BECKHAM: Look, I remember, and I’m sure Don remembers, being on the phone. I was sat in my lounge in London. I had my accountant there. I had my best friend there who helps run my business. I had a lawyer there. Victoria wasn’t there, but I had a lot of people around, and we had to talk about the debt that we was in because we were trying to build this team and we hadn’t got anywhere.

MANEET AHUJA: It was $39 million, right? You were $39 million in the hole.

DAVID BECKHAM: Yeah, yeah, and we hadn’t got anywhere. And I remember flying to Miami once and being on the plane on the way back, and there was a guy that was sat a few seats away, and I was earwigging to his conversation because I heard him start to talk about me. And he said, “Can you believe this guy? He’s like coming into Miami, he thinks he could build a stadium there. He’s never going to get it done.” He said some really not nice things, and I thought, this is going to be challenging.

It was, without doubt, the biggest challenge in my career, personally and professionally. But there was something about it that I just thought, keep going, because I don’t give in easily. You know, if you ask my—

MANEET AHUJA: That’s clear.

The Mas Brothers and the Shift in Inter Miami’s Fortunes

DAVID BECKHAM: I’m pretty stubborn, and my wife will vouch for that. And when someone says to me it’s not possible, I never believe them. And I always believe it’s possible to make something happen. When we were in that room and obviously Don was on the phone and he said, we’ll buy it back for this amount. And I know he probably had some pressure from, maybe a few of the other owners. I don’t know, because at that point it could be sold for a lot more. And I said, no, Don. I said, I believe in this. And that’s all I had to say to Don. And Don said after, on the phone to me, he said, you have my support.

And from day one, Don has supported me, and he’s been there through the difficult times. And then he’s been there through the good times of us opening the stadium in Miami recently. And it really is a hell of a journey, but I knew deep down that it was one that was worth kind of risking and working hard for.

MANEET AHUJA: So Commissioner Garber also was the one that introduced you to your current business partners, right? Jorge and José Mas. And that’s really when everything shifted. In addition to additional capital, they helped get things done. I spoke to Jorge and he said that he had a conversation with you and he said, “Don’t worry, I will take this on my shoulders.” Talk to us about how things started to shift, how you would describe their impact on Inter Miami, and where the team is today.

DAVID BECKHAM: Yeah, I think Don came to me and he said, “I had a conversation with someone a few months ago, and I think that they could be great for Miami.” I said, “Well, who are they?” He said, “Well, they’re these two Cuban brothers, Jorge and Jose Mas. They have a very successful business in MasTech, and they love sports.” And I was like, “Well, do they love soccer?” And he was like, “Well, they love baseball.” And I was like, “Okay, close, close enough.”

So then I met Jorge and Jose, and the moment I walked up to them and said hello — they had all of their family with them, and this was just to view one of the stadiums in Kansas — the moment I met Jorge, I knew this was the partner that was going to help me build this club. Not because of the financial side, but purely because he had the same values as me. He was doing it for the right reasons, because so much he’d given — Miami had given his family so much — so he wanted to give back to Miami. So I knew that he was doing it for the right reasons.

The moment I met them two and their family, I knew that they were going to help me build this team to what I wanted it to be. It wasn’t just the financial side. They came with their business expertise. They came with the experience of building in Miami and able to build in Miami and real estate in Miami. And without them, it would have been very difficult for me to make my dream come true.

Manifesting Messi: The Pink Shirt and the Dream

MANEET AHUJA: So I want to shift to some of your other business ventures in a minute, but an important last cornerstone of Inter Miami is Messi, right? And you told us during the interview that even before there was a team, you manifested him on a deck. And maybe you could tell the audience that story. And after he signed, commercial revenue tripled.

DAVID BECKHAM: Yeah.

MANEET AHUJA: And we see where the valuations are today. He validated a belief that you held for 20 years on the power of soccer.

DAVID BECKHAM: I think, as you all know, it’s very difficult to bring a player of that level into a league that wasn’t fully established. Putting a deal together, it’s very complicated to do that, trying to convince a player of that level to come to a league that is not at the level that he’s been used to playing to, but even getting to that level.

But going back to that moment where I was sat in a small room in New York with a branding agency called Doubleday and Cartwright, a small agency in Brooklyn — they had rebranded the Milwaukee Bucks — and I wanted, obviously, we didn’t have a badge, we didn’t have a sponsor, we didn’t have colors. And I remember sitting there, and there were a few moments that I said, “Okay, this is how I want the badge to look. Go back over the last 100, 150 years of branding of club emblems, and this is what I want. And by the way, I want our team to be playing in all pink.” And at that point everyone went, “No, no, no, we’re okay with the badge, but pink, no.” And I said, “Well, unfortunately, or fortunately for me, I’m making the decisions.” I decided on pink. And on the last specific pink — yeah, a Miami pink. And I’d looked at all of the colours that we have in Miami of the different buildings, and it was just this certain pink that I wanted. So then we decided on that, and everyone was like, “Okay, get it, you make the decision.”

And then after that, on the last slide that I was showing on my presentation, there was a picture of Leo Messi in our pink shirt — sorry. In our pink shirt. I never swear, I’m really sorry. In our pink shirt. And everyone went, “You can’t do that.” And I was like, “Well, that is my dream. My dream is Messi in Miami wearing pink and winning championships.”

MANEET AHUJA: And look at your dream today. Look at your dream today. We just have a couple of minutes left. I mean, we could talk to you for ages, but I know you’re a busy guy.

DAVID BECKHAM: I’m happy to stay a few more minutes.

MANEET AHUJA: All right. Great, great, great. Yes, let’s do it.

Partnering with Authentic Brands Group

MANEET AHUJA: Beyond Inter Miami, you have quietly built an entire operating company portfolio. In 2022, you sold a 55% stake in David Beckham Ventures to Authentic Brands Group, the world’s second largest licensing company behind Disney. Authentic founder Jamie Salter, who I think also is here today, described you to me as a “GOAT brand we can scale globally.” He’s also referred to you as akin to Mickey Mouse in a Harvard Business School case study and other comparisons. Walk me through the decision to partner with Authentic.

DAVID BECKHAM: I think I’ve been very lucky throughout my career. I’ve had the career that I’ve had on the pitch, but then some of the decisions that I’ve made off the pitch have led me into doing different things. It’s like what I said to you upstairs — at some point in my career I knew that I would be on the front cover of GQ or Vogue. I never ever thought in my entire career or life that I would be on the front cover of Forbes.

MANEET AHUJA: Woo!

DAVID BECKHAM: So I suppose the decisions that I’ve made over the years to build my business in the way that I’ve built it — I decided at some point, do I want to own the whole of something small, or do I want to own a little bit of something huge? And I think that that decision, once I had built my business up, there were a few companies that came to me and wanted to obviously partner with me and buy part of my business. But for me, my business is very personal. It’s something that I’ve built up with one of my best friends for a long time, for the last 25, 30 years.

MANEET AHUJA: Dave Gardner, right? Dave Gardner, also here today.

DAVID BECKHAM: Also here today. And we’ve been friends since we were 14 years old. So my business, our business, is very important to us. And going into business with the right people that have trust, that have loyalty, is important. And that really is the most important and was the most important decision — to partner with the right person and with the right company.

So it was a big decision, but it was a decision that I made because I purely felt that I could then scale the brand, scale the company to a different level, with still keeping complete control in everything that I do and keeping it to a level that I do. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. I’m lucky I’ve got good partners, good partners that understand that I’m a worker, good partners that understand that my business is about trust. It’s about loyalty. It’s about making the right decisions. And also, it’s about authenticity.

Building an Empire: From I Am 8 to Studio 99

MANEET AHUJA: So that decision has clearly also been a great business decision. I think since 2022 to today, I think the business has nearly doubled or over doubled, right, in terms of revenue. And under Authentic, you launched and founded a variety of additional businesses. Your nutritional supplement brand, I Am 8, hit $100 million in annualized revenue in 11 months, a number most consumer wellness brands chase for well over a decade, and you launched BeeUp, a honey fruit snack business. Studio 99 has a Netflix first look deal. You’re building operating companies. How are you thinking about each of these projects individually and as a part of the Authentic Brands Group ecosystem?

DAVID BECKHAM: Look, there’s no one partner in my business or company in my business that I’ve partnered with that is more important than the other. They’re all important to me, and I think that that is why I’ve had long-term partnerships. Over the years, I’ve been with Adidas now for almost 30 years. I’ve been with the Marina Bay Sands group for 16 years. All of the partners that I have had are long-term partners, and we always continue to extend those partnerships because we do the right things. We work hard. We turn up on time.

MANEET AHUJA: Early. Early, actually.

DAVID BECKHAM: I turn up very early.

MANEET AHUJA: Notorious for being early.

DAVID BECKHAM: I know. It actually annoys my wife, which I said that to you the other day, because my wife’s like, “We don’t need to get there so early,” and I’m like, “We really do.” And then we went to a party recently and we actually were turning up while the servers were still setting the tables, so she wasn’t that happy about it. But no, I like to turn up early.

I treat the partners exactly how they should be treated, and I think the reason why the business has doubled over this time is because we’ve worked hard at it. And I think that that is important in business. My father instilled that into me, and my mom instilled that into me from a very early age. They worked hard, and my dad still works hard now. My grandfather worked till he was 79 years old or 80 years old. So that was instilled in me. So that’s what I take into business.

Lessons in Leadership: Sir Alex Ferguson and Ken Griffin

DAVID BECKHAM: I had great people around me like Sir Alex Ferguson, the boss of Manchester United.

MANEET AHUJA: Yeah, you still call him the boss.

DAVID BECKHAM: I still call him the boss. I know what I would get if I didn’t call him the boss. But he’s a special man, and he showed me leadership and what leadership is. My dad did it to a certain point, and then when I moved to Manchester and moved to Manchester United, it was Sir Alex Ferguson that then showed me what leadership is about and what teamwork is about. Teamwork is about doing the right things, making the right decisions, understanding that everyone in your business is important. You don’t have to be an unkind person, a mean person to be successful.

And I’ve seen that over the years. I’ve been lucky to be surrounded by great people and become friends with great people like Anastasia, who is incredibly successful, incredibly hardworking, someone that you look up to, someone that you ask for advice. People like Ken Griffin. I see Ken Griffin on the front cover there. I’ve become close friends with Ken over the last few years just through social circles more than anything, but I ask him for advice. I talked to him about —

MANEET AHUJA: Well, I should note, if you haven’t read the cover story already, he said if there’s an opportunity to buy into Inter Miami — and because I’ve interviewed Ken several times and asked him on this page on Iconoclasts why he hasn’t yet bought into a sports team — he jumped at the chance.

DAVID BECKHAM: I know, I saw that.

MANEET AHUJA: We broke a little bit of news there. Do you have any comment to that? I didn’t get a chance to ask you.

DAVID BECKHAM: Well, maybe I’ll speak to him privately about it first, and maybe we can just lift the valuation a little bit. But no, like I said, I’ve been so lucky to have been surrounded by so many great people over the years, and I feel very fortunate with that.

Closing Thoughts

MANEET AHUJA: So I know we’re well over time. I know we extended a little bit, but I like to end things on a little bit of a lighter note. Although I’ll say this entire interview has been — you’re pretty funny, Sir David.

DAVID BECKHAM: I keep telling my wife that. I do keep telling her, but she thinks she’s the funny one.

Victoria Beckham’s Business & The Knighthood

MANEET AHUJA: Well, I will say—

DAVID BECKHAM: —which she is quite funny.

MANEET AHUJA: Yeah, she— well, we got the chance to meet her at your photo shoot. She directed your photo shoot.

DAVID BECKHAM: She did.

MANEET AHUJA: She—

DAVID BECKHAM: Well, she had a couple of hours, and she never really comes on to set with me most of the times because she’s obviously a very hard-working lady. Actually, one of the most hard-working ladies that I’ve ever come across.

MANEET AHUJA: You sent me a voice note actually about how proud you are about the state of her business and where it stands today.

DAVID BECKHAM: Well, I remember us being sat there for about 2 and a half, 3 hours talking, and then all of a sudden I got home and I was like, oh my God, I forgot to talk about obviously the success of Victoria’s business and what she’s achieved.

For that, my wife has worked for over 19, 20 years since she stopped being with the Spice Girls. 19, 20 years working hard with a business that she has put so much into, and she was in debt for probably 16, 17 of those years. It was myself and her that were—

MANEET AHUJA: —you invested a little bit in the business.

DAVID BECKHAM: We invested, we invested. So we invested in her, and that’s one of the best pieces of advice that I’ve probably been given in business. I like to invest in myself. I like to invest in my wife because I know that she’s going to get up every single morning and go to work because that’s what she loves. And that’s what she knows, and that’s what she does best.

I mean, she’s a great wife, of course, as well as being a great mom. But she has built that business. Like I said, she’s all of a sudden in the last 3 years been profitable. She’s doing incredibly well. She’s building a beauty business that is incredible. She’s just opened her second store and the first store in the US, which is combined. And I just feel like I’m plugging my wife’s business, which I kind of am. Yeah. So if you ever find yourself in Miami, in Bal Harbour, she’s just opened a store there.

Being Knighted by King Charles

MANEET AHUJA: All right, well, I’m going to ask you one final question, because back in November another important moment was you were knighted by King Charles. And we were talking in the interview, and I’m sorry to out you, you got a bit emotional about it, right?

DAVID BECKHAM: I can feel myself getting emotional now.

MANEET AHUJA: Please feel free to get as emotional as you’d like. And so legacy is something extremely important to you, and life has ups and downs and challenges for all of us. Talk to me about what this moment represents for you, through all the ups and downs.

DAVID BECKHAM: I think we all have challenges. Everyone in this room all have a challenge or something that is going on in their life that is difficult, and whether that’s in business, whether that’s in family, and we’ve been through it all as a family, of course, and we’ll still go through it, but we stick together as a family.

And these moments, like being knighted, it was such a special moment. To receive one of the biggest honors that you can receive and be given it by the King of your country, and someone that is so respected and someone that I have looked up to for many years, even before he was our King — someone that is changing the world and trying to change the world and do better in the world — is an incredible man.

But then to be there at Windsor Castle down on my one knee, being knighted by the King of England, that was— I mean, it doesn’t get better than that.

MANEET AHUJA: And well, maybe the cover of Forbes is a good second.

DAVID BECKHAM: It’s a very close second. But no, it was literally the biggest, biggest honor that I could have ever achieved in my life. And for an East End boy, growing up the way I did and obviously having the career that I did, to then be in front of the King and having that honoured on me was surreal.

MANEET AHUJA: Well, Sir David, thank you so much for joining us at Iconoclast.

DAVID BECKHAM: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

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