No one has talked about it in this thread, but I'm slightly concerned about the possibility of a strike. A LOT will be on the table at the next CBA, and no doubt either side will want to come out ahead. Could get ugly.
No one has talked about it in this thread, but I'm slightly concerned about the possibility of a strike. A LOT will be on the table at the next CBA, and no doubt either side will want to come out ahead. Could get ugly.
Unlike the other major sports leagues in NA, MLS doesn't represent the best athletes in their particular sport in the world. This means that MLS does not need to fight for the players currently within MLS. Aka if you want to be paid more $$ etc, we can find other people who will do this the way we want. In other leagues that just won't happen. There is also a ton of league turnover. MLS Owners will be able to construct pretty much every term they want. Players might be able to choose one particular thing that they mandate in order for them to ever sign the new CBA and when they get that thing they will chalk this negotiation as a win.Originally Posted by Super
Things we have been discussing like more DP slots dont really help current MLSers, sure some of them would like to graduate to DP type money, but chances are that money wont be evenly distributed. Usually it goes to foreigners. I see the Players wanting to have real free agency, less option years in contracts, teams retaining player right etc stuff that blocks players from gaining more money in contract due to demand. Itll be fun to watch it play out, but a lockout = potential end to MLS. The whole world has started to take notice of our league structure and the positives , but if they see the downside of a full on strike it will kill the leagues image. That might also work in the players favour.....hmmm
I disagree that we don't have to fight for players, it's a global market for talent and it's competitive. MLS will ultimately get whatever it decides to pay for.
I'll be shocked if the union doesn't make up ground this time out. Optics are already heavily in the MLSPU's favor and they went and brought in big time sports union negotiators after the last CBA. They handled the last round poorly and they seem very focused on fixing it.
The league is not in a good position to allow a strike with their expansion plans while many lower end guys - who will be the focus of this, not DP slots - have very little to lose.
Last edited by ag futbol; 02-25-2014 at 10:56 PM.
Yup.
And the league is going to find little sympathy at all with the fans who want better football and who understand minimum wages in the $40,000 range isn't going to cut it.
hmmmmmm
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/J...oundtable.aspx
SBJ: Don Garber said recently that the league is losing $75 million to $100 million a year. What was your reaction to that?
PAULSON: It’s very accurate. There’s a balance that happens in every league. The reality is that the league is losing what it’s losing. There are a lot of strong trends and there has been a lot of great growth, but there’s more work to be done.
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
no way those numbers include the money the league and its teams are making off of SUM
it does not. but legally, SUM is a separate company from MLS (mainly due to its interest in US national team and Mexican national team stuff)
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
fair or not, this is what I'd like to see the cap be like
$5 million
$500k max budget hit
4 DP's; at least one has to be either domestic or young; young DP's cap hit is $300k (21-23); 200k (20 and under)
roster size increased to 32
cap budgeted players increased to top 24 paid
senior roster player minimum - $75,000
developmental roster player minimum - $60,000
no more stupid special rules;
- allocation money can only be used to buy a player from another team in league or out of league
- no retention fund
- no special DP
- no more GA or HGP cap relief
etc..
- no more charter limit;
you fly domestic if the flight time is x long (2.5 hours maybe 3 hours);
you have the option of flying charter if A. there is no direct flight from your cities airport to your opponents airport B. flight time is over the decided reasonable amount C. there is only 1 direct flight a day from your city to your opponents and would cause a team to have an unusual practice time or miss a practice completely.
Also would like to see
- minimum training ground requirements (most teams would probably meet this by now)
- minimum standards for an academy program
Last couple things for me, and maybe this is a step above and beyond, but feel it would be more towards parity/fairness (especially point 1 & 3)
- Room (the difference in what you can get in some cities vs. others is ridiculous; $600/month would go a lot farther in Columbus than in Toronto on a room rental)
- Car (a lot of teams have a partnership with a car company; would it be so hard to equip these players with, in Toronto's case, a KIA, or something like that)
- Equalization payments; especially now with Florida teams coming in, it is less attractive to play in certain markets over other markets due to the way players are taxed; maybe instead of having gross salaries, all salaries can be considered net
legally yes, but for the owners to cry they aren't making money when they also have a piece of this property as part of being a league owner is completely ridiculous
I get you, and I partly agree, but SUM is technically separate from MLS and it counts as another asset for an owner. Kinda like MLSE forced to consider Raptors as part of TFC property, and its earning. (this is what I understand from legal POV)
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
I want to see someone try to get Defoe to drive a Kia
WE DID IT!
http://pressbox.mlssoccer.com/conten...edia-resources
list of current DPs. Every team has at least 1 DP. 2/3 of DPs come from Central/South America, most are on 'low' DP salary I'd bet.
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
I like all this, but I would up the minimum salaries, and the salary cap to $6 M to compensate.
Every team in Europe dreams of UEFA Champions League qualification. For MLS to take it to the next level, the obvious next step has to be to create a salary structure that at the very least allows teams rich enough or ambitious enough to beat the Mexicans! Until MLS teams regularly win the CONCACAF Champions League, MLS will be considered "Retirement League Football" and will struggle to attract the 20 something crowd of elite players to the league. TFC with a tens of millions of dollar wage bill in a $3M capped league is an example of some of the flexibility they have built into the salary cap already. Now they need to either increase the cap to Mexican average budgets (in time) or this league will never climb the ladder and become a top 5 league in the world.
As an example of the things they could consider, how about a form of revenue sharing similar to the proven European leagues? I mean, lets be honest, there are very few teams in the English Premier League that can be confident that they can achieve the goal of UEFA Champions League qualification and the rest of the teams don't have a hope in hell of getting there. Look at Southampton this past season ... they finished eighth and stand to lose Lallana, Lambert and Shaw at the very least. For that showing though, they stand to reap a small fortune in transfer fees and add-ons. That's how the world of football has worked for a hundred years. If you ask me, MLS NEEDS to take the reigns off of teams like NYCFC, LA Galaxy, Toronto FC, NYRB and anyone else that wants to build a team capable of winning the Concacaf Champions League and for the rest of the teams the reward for supporting it would be a massively increased TV deal and the opportunity to develop a young player and sell him on ... just like Toronto FC did with Maurice Edu ... except that another MLS team should be allowed to purchase the remainder of a current MLS players contract too ... that way, teams like Columbus?? could turn a profit on a young DP when he develops into a mature player which would in turn allow them to operate at a higher budget than they would otherwise have had and the owner will make his tidy profit. If you ask me, adding a million or two onto the salary cap or tweaking minimum salaries or enhancing allocation amounts is just lipstick on a pig and will do nothing for the league as a whole. TFC already spend way more than that on salary anyway. This league needs to import a LOT more younger talent of the Michael Bradley age and not just Americans for MLS to be taken seriously in the global football world. Until that day comes, why would NBC ever want to pay a lot of money to MLS for TV rights when they can televise a better product from England ... and TV money is the ONLY thing that will advance this league to where MLS keep saying they want to take it.
Fair enough points but the supposition to start them all is flawed.
Competing with the Mexican league is like competing against Russia for a World Cup....its amazing where the money comes from to get things done.
It's all moot anyway, though, Yohan. Tax structures in the US allow for writedowns from related corporate entities. In essence, any owner can use his MLS team as a write-down machine and claim a loss at the end of the year.
The year the Galaxy signed Beckham, it sold 250,000 Beckham jersey's alone ... and claimed to have made a $2 million profit on the entire year, despite being sold out most games.
All of this financial news from MLS strikes me as nonsense; the friggin' CFL has a $5M salary cap, has a $96,000 figure for base pay, has much larger rosters, and half the teams still do okay financially.
I would like to see a 5 million dollar cap and a 4th dp slot added... MLS has over 30 players going to the World Cup and nearly half alone on the U.S team... I defiantly think something has to give here... Keep developing players and keep adding the Labas of South America and you're in good shape moving forward.
21 actually to the world cup
What I really want to see that would free up some money in the cap and be a very good compromise for league and players,
is to have your DP players salary not count against the cap at all. This would free up some much needed cash to sign more players or bump up some players salaries.
Also I would continue to keep a max of 3 DP players per team.
Exactly, the Owner-Operators benefit twice.
1. They make a lot of money in SUM, which is not shown as earnings to the franchise much because most of the earnings aren't paid out as dividends.
2. They then claim a large tax-loss on their team franchise, which excludes the substantial TV revenues (under SUM) on the income side, and has phony, inflated (but legal) stadium depreciation on the cost side. They offset the tax-loss against their taxable income from their other businesses. Lowering taxes is just as good as bringing in more money, the result is the same.
The owner-operators then have the temerity to claim to the Player's Union that MLS is "losing money" based on their phony tax-losses. That's laughable, smart people don't pay $50-$100 million in franchise fees (plus stadium costs) to lose money.
Last edited by Oldtimer; 06-04-2014 at 08:29 AM.
MLS is a tough, physical league, that emphasizes speed, and features plastic fields, grueling travel, extreme weather, and incompetent refs. - NK Toronto
The key to making this league stronger isn't adding more star power or big names, it's bringing up the calibre of bottom level player, and allowing for depth that is not semi-pro quality.
Depth is a big deal. Obviously it is needed for covering injuries and absences. If teams are to compete in the CL, they need depth to handle the extra games. But the side of depth that is seldom talked about is competition for places. Many players/positions are pretty much a lock for a given player since the drop in quality to the next in line is so bad. Competition for places is crucial to get the most out of a team.
I would be very surprised if a 4th DP slot is added. I would not be surprised if the owners propose increasing the total number of players allowed on a roster along with an increase in the salary cap (ie, keep pressure on min sal remaining low) and that's where the players will have a serious problem.
Completely agree. They are already wasting money on 3 DP spots as it is. 1-2 should be sufficient, beyond that let's start paying for better regular players.
The only way I would see a 4th DP slot making sense is if it was some special slot to retain talent in the league. That, or when NYCFC want to sign their 4th David Villa caliber player
If there is one thing I want its transparency, its in the best interest if the union to bargain for thar too.
I agree with brad. Maybe raising the salary cap (even doubling it) and keeping it at 3 dp slots is the best way to go.
I agree, probably some sort of domestic (N.Amer) retention exception/cap discount.The only way I would see a 4th DP slot making sense is if it was some special slot to retain talent in the league. That, or when NYCFC want to sign their 4th David Villa caliber player
As for the big owners exerting changes, that wouldn't be surprising at all. I don't know that NYCFC or the Brazilian financiers of Beckham's team want to bring in more superstars. I think they will want more decent bench players, many of which probably come in at the high end of the average salary range. That to me says salary cap increase rather than DP slots.
I'd really like to see the following things in the next CBA
- A salary cap minimum of $4.5m and a maximum of $9m
- 3 DP slots with a cap hit of $1m each
- Minimum salary of $80k
- Transfer Fees not to count against cap
- All salaries count against cap
- Allocation order eliminated
It's time that MLS exposes the teams/owners that refuse to spend (i.e. Kraft) and that will be done through creating a minimum salary cap. The maximum salary cap allows ambitious teams to be bloody ambitious for once - I want to see MLS succeed in CONCACAF. Minimum salary just makes sense as paying players national averages ($39k) does not incentivize kids to go pro rather than go to college or pursue a different sport and 39k isn't enough for people to live off of.
I disagree with raising the cap that much that fast. I see a lot of wage inflation compared to actual skill level involved. I would rather see all players get a straight $15-20K raise for the 2015 season, with a salary cap ceiling of $5-6 million (and a floor of $3 million). Then for every year of the agreement, raise the salary cap floor/ceiling and non-DP salaries by 10% per year through to the end of the CBA (probably 5 years, so 2019). It's the lowest wage players that really need the jump in Salaries. I think 2020 will be the year the salary cap breaks the $10M barrier and MLS will become a destination league.
I wish I made $39k a year.
They can't take too much of a bump. They have to keep the salaries somewhat realistic. There's still teams bleeding money. Expanding too quickly will have dire consequences for clubs.
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