"The Don" Speaks to NY Times Soccer Blogster

[VPjr]

jdg's value is low right now due to last year in contract. if he signs a new contract, expect his value to go up.

also, strikers are generally valued higher than other players

Jules is 29 years old. If he had 2 years left on his contract, he'd still be worth barely $4 million. There is no sell on value and he's a holding mid. Clubs don't pay enormous money for 29 year old holding mids.

The whole transfer fee market has changed alot over the years. People are paying huge fees for young players where there is a hope to sell them on. Older players can demand a sizeable fee too but usually that is only paid by huge clubs that are not worried about sell-on potential

[trane]

"Then people up in Montreal look at what the U.S.L. teams have done in the Champions League and wonder why they should even want to be in M.L.S. But it’s big for them, not as big for us."

Champions leaague not a big deal? It is too me. I wonder if this is a coded message that Montreal will not join the MLS? Miami is apperanlty set to join.

Flats it is time for you to take his job.

[jloome]

I agree with some of your points (and some of Garber's) but I disagree on these (and some of Garber's).

1) the fair market value for an expansion is whatever candidates are willing to pay for that team; there is no "inherent" value of an MLS team. And if we were to come up with some formula that calculated that value, it would be made up of all kinds of values (future potential value, current revenue potential, scarcity of teams). So 40 million is fine, so is 100 million, so is 10 million... there's no "right" value for the team, and it's only too high if nobody wants to pay it. The value Garber has stipulated has not prevented any good candidates from applying... and I don't understand why we, as fans, should care what Portland pays to get in.

2) the whole "only three teams make money on paper" thing is completely unproven and a total guess by Forbes. Teams don't reveal #s; it's always been a case in pro sports that NA teams massage finances with creative accounting. Lew Wolff, owners of San Jose, once said the great thing about MLS is the downside is almost nothing financially and the upside is huge.

3) it's been proven that teams have much worse attendance on Wednesdays, particularly early in the season, so it would certainly be a problem to lose 30% of your attendance if you moved to wednesday games. My solution was that you schedule Wednesday games for teams that have high season ticket holder rates, so that game day sales are not hurt.

4) Other leagues have playoffs other than MLS, like Mexico. Just because Europeans do it one way doesn't mean we have to follow their lead like sheep. Personally as someone who has grown up with playoffs, I like it. Europeans love playoffs too, but it functions as things like Champions League or World Cup quarters/semis etc. Same idea, slightly different formulation of teams.

5) If you've been following Garber's comments relating to the Collective Bargaining Agreement, he implies the reason he doesn't want to raise the cap is not that the league can't afford it, but that he doesn't want to tip his hand to the players about the state of MLS finances.... seems smart to me that you don't gift the players $$$$ before you have to negotiate with them.

Good post rocker. Mostly valid arguments, although I disagree/worry about a few of these issues.

1) I agree on your definition of fair market value. But as commodity traders and hedge fund operators will tell you, there are real economic dangers in artificially inflating a market's value to "what people are willing to pay" when there's no evidence the economics of the business model will, in the long-term, support it. It leads to inflationary pressures within the model....such as the expectation during CBA negotiations that commodity value should equal a greater reward for employees, leading to inflated operating costs. This was a MAJOR problem for the NASL, and they'd do well to keep in mind that attributing major-league values to a minor-league structure has been problematic in the past.

For example, let's assume Seattle continues to sell tons of seasons's tickets. Realizing the franchise has a massive starting debt position due to the franchise fee, the teamsets face value tickets at twice what they are in the rest of MLS, knowing the extras will be picked up anyway. All of a sudden, you have a fight between league owners, because smaller, less successful franchises can't afford to increase their revenue from the same base without losign fans.

These are real issues even in a league "owned" by the teams, so it's not just as simple as "what the market will bear."

2) It's not a "total guess" by Forbes. It's official information released by the league -- although you're right that American sports franchises have a long history of being write-down tools for other aspects of a corporate owner.

3) I agree with the short-term pain issue, but a) they already have bad draws on ANY day other than Saturday and b) they have to schedule games on days other than Saturday. Ergo, it makes sense to have them on regular days, so that fans can make long-term schedule changes to accomodate them. Splitting games up between Thursday and Friday, with no consistency of any sort, makes no sense at all. Better to ahve Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday games and avoid as many conflicts with international play/other sports.

4) Other leagues have playoffs, and I'm not necessarily against playoffs; my problem with Garber's perspective is that in his world, the playoffs write the ending to the story; in mine, the team that got the most points from the season should get that nod. You can still have playoffs without promotion/relegation; it's called a cup bracket. Make the playoff winner the "Cup"winner, as cups are often decided on one-off, do-or-die situations, and give the league title to the one who.....actually won the league. Not a huge leap in logic, after all.

5) You're just wrong on this one (at least, in quoting Garber) although you're probably right if Garber was being honest. What he said was "And I don’t see any major changes to our rosters, in terms of size, or other elements of our financial structure, such as the salary budgte. We’re in the final year of our CBA and we’re going through some challenging times."

"Challenging times" is a suggestion of financial restraint, not barganing finesse. So he didn't say leave any subtle hints on the floor here, he was just disingenuous (because you're right, there are going to be major changes in it.)

I guess what bugs me more than anything is that in sticking with "the plan", as businesses tend to do, he's sending the message that he doesn't hear or discounts out of hand the concerns of the fanbase. That's very troubling.