The NASL sucked though. While Pele helped the sport tremendously in the three years he was in NY, he couldn't help soccer in America. It will never be close to as popular as it is in Europe if we keep calling it soccer. It_is_football. American football while seducing a great portion of this country, somehow, it isn't as good as football is. Maybe if American football went under football could come popular here? Nah, there is still basketball, baseball, golf, nascar, and hockey.
Beckham will help the sport somewhat by giving it publicity, but he wont do much to help the sport. No one can. If possibly we hosted the World Cup for 20 years straight we could get football going in this country, but that will never happen.