Over the years, Major League Soccer has tried various ploys, gimmicks and clever ideas to get Americans more interested in its product. Some have worked very well. Others have been downright flops.

It took two words to trump them all: David Beckham.

Welcome back from Wonderland if you haven’t heard that Becks and Posh — English mega-star Beckham and his ex-Spice Girl wife Victoria — will arrive on these shores in July. The player who inspired the movie “Bend It Like Beckham” may not be the center of the universe (although some fans think he is), but he has certainly transformed the Galaxy — as in the Los Angeles Galaxy, the team he will play for.

“Let me put it this way,” Galaxy general manager Alexi Lalas said, “the past couple of months have been unlike anything our organization — and to be honest with you, our league and our sport — has ever experienced. Incredible challenges, but all positive. It’s been nuts.”

Lalas said Wednesday that the Galaxy have more than doubled their ticket revenue from this time last year, and get this: People have been traveling to the Home Depot Center just to have their picture taken in front of the stadium where Beckham will play. It’s safe to say that never happened at RFK Stadium with Freddy Adu.

“We’re dealing obviously with security issues, with press that didn’t give us the time of day before,” Lalas said. “Alternative press that’s not necessarily sports-oriented is interested now — and not just in David Beckham but in our team. The international fan mail that we get has been phenomenal.”

All this for a player who will miss the first three months of the season. Opening day is Saturday, but Beckham must first complete his contract with Spanish club Real Madrid and take a vacation to recharge his batteries before joining the Galaxy. Still, his signing has overshadowed everything else as MLS begins its 12th season.

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“We have so many things that are going on positively, and we view the Beckham signing as just one of those things,” MLS commissioner Don Garber said. “This has taken on a life of its own, and it really, truly garnered more attention than we ever expected.”

What else is there besides Beckham? There’s a new expansion team, Toronto FC, the league’s 13th franchise and the first in Canada. There are new stadiums in Denver and Toronto, which means there are now seven teams that have profit-friendlier, soccer-specific venues to call home. All games will be televised for the first time in league history. Teams can now sell advertising space on the fronts of their jerseys, a practice unique to major American sports but commonplace elsewhere.

“We have lots of individual things that are happening that are making the league more popular,” Garber said. “Overall attention and fan following and commercial opportunities continue to grow, but it’s growing at a slow steady pace — and that’s our goal. ... I have no doubt that Major League Soccer will be a dominant league in this country. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when, and we just don’t know when when is.”

But anything the league says or does right now is a blip compared to Beckham, who has a five-year playing contract worth about $27.5 million and will make tens of millions more from endorsements and other sources. His signing is the result of a new rule — nicknamed the “Beckham rule” — that allows teams to exceed the league’s modest salary cap to sign one or two major players. His move to the U.S. echoes the signings of aging soccer greats Pele, Franz Beckenbauer, Johan Cruyff and George Best to the long-ago-defunct NASL in the 1970s.