I submit that's not as certain as it may seem. Once a sport crosses a certain popularity threshold in this country, attendance no longer 'wins', and TV market size becomes more important (assuming you're not the NFL, where all TV revenue is shared). And it seems to me the whole point of this proposal was precisely to cross that very threshold.
What stadium did the Flunders build? The Seahawks owner & citizens of Washington built that while waiting for someone to come along a build a league that would make the Sounders profitable and wait for a couple of clowns to front the expansion fee.
Not for an open cap but it is amazing how many people are intimidated by the Sounders. Please don't fret there is zero chance they will have an open cap in MLS. The big bad Sounders aren't going to blow anyone's house down. It's just a little huffing and puffing.
I was curious, so I pulled the Mexican League numbers since they went to the short tournament in 1996 and looked at the last 32 champions -- comparable to the number of champions crowned since 1980 in the other leagues you note above -- and I got 14 different champions during that period. Obviously the Mexican League doesn't have a cap, but it appears to produce comparable levels of parity to the NFL, which makes me wonder if a playoff system, not a hard cap, is really the great parity leveller. I don't think MLS will move away from a cap, but as long as a playoff system remains, I think the league could allow for more variance in payroll spending without MLS turning into another La Liga.
I think MLS is going to stick much closer to an NFL model than an MLB one. A system where rich teams can outspend poor ones is jeapordizing baseball's status as a truly national sport. On the other hand, the NFL's financial model allows every team to be competitive, with good management. A salary cap plus DP model seems to be a good hybrid. If the Sounders want to spend more money on players, they certainly can. There is nothing stopping them from spending megabucks on their DPs.
The Sounders have not really gone the route of paying the older star lots of money, what they and other teams that play in champions league could use is more depth, allocation money is the answer. Of course unless we make it to the finals this will be less of a problem next fall.
Don't worry, I haven't been. I'm still waiting for Seattle to dominate MLS like all of it's new found say it has or will, if just a few things are changed to what they think their ownership will do if the "shackles" come off
Isn't that basically what Soccernomics argued in their comparison of EPL to NFL parity? And American football is a sport with far less random results than soccer. It's much harder for a team to lose if they outplay their opponent than it is in soccer. Yup. Seems pretty obvious. The argument is whether fans prefer a poor league where their team has an exactly equal chance of winning to a better league where they might have a slightly lesser chance (but not "no chance"). The other argument is what the owners of MLS LLC would prefer... I suspect they want to ensure enough parity to keep the league open (and give fans in every market a belief they have a chance every season) but recognize that for the real money from TV to start rolling in, especially globally, it's more important to enhance the standard of play and marketability of players. The real frustration of the OP though is completely reasonable and I've brought it up before. It's not about letting Seattle win more because they have more fans (in their stadium). It's that MLS's current financial structure more or less only allows windfalls for individual teams to be taken as profits by the I/O with little room for fans to demand that their money be funneled back into the team. It was a problem in Toronto in our first three seasons: by 2009 we payed some of the highest ticket prices in the league, filled our stadium, and literally sold out of merchandise at one point but, until De Guzman, none of that was being plowed back into what fans care about: better players who can win more often. (Arguably it still hasn't.) I don't think people appreciate just how tainted the Toronto sports market is with respect to MLSE (and the Leafs in particular) and how bad that looked. It's gotten to the point that some fans here legitimately believe that the team won't be successful until the stadium is empty and "our owners are forced to give us a winning team." Yes, you're reading that right: there are not insignificant numbers of TFC fans (and former fans) who think the best way to support the team is by not buying tickets and not showing up. Those people don't care about the rest of the league and don't understand its finances. All they see is a team with high prices and a (reasonably) full stadium that has the worst record in the league over the past six seasons and resent being asked to just keep doing the same thing. And before the inevitable "quit your whining Canuck and just get better management" comments: yes, I get it that no one has the right to a winning team and, perversely, MLS's parity controls are designed to limit experiences like Toronto's. Most people everywhere don't want to support a perennial loser. We're playing by (almost) the same rules as everyone else (now) and it's simply poor management that holds us back not long term economic disadvantage. I'm not one of the ones talking about walking away. Actually, with the national TV deals in Canada now I watch more MLS than I ever did! I think this is a magical moment for the league where it's becoming the league we - the NA soccer hardcore - have always wanted but hasn't gone too big money to disconnect it from the average fan. I get the irony that what I'm endorsing would be a move towards a big money league I might not be able to afford! What it's about though is the illusion of agency. That's why fans cheer, sing, create banners, and have little rituals of superstition: we want to feel like we can influence the outcome of the teams we invest in emotionally. (It's silly and narcissistic and the smarter ones recognize the futility of it even while doing it but it's what we do.) For someone like me, buying a (pair of) season tickets is an endorsement of the league and the sport on this continent. I sense the same impulse from most of the "oldtimers" who followed MLS through it's dark days at the turn of the millennium. But for most fans their ticket is an endorsement of their team. It's not a simple commercial transaction where they buy a certain amount of entertainment that will last a certain amount of time every other Saturday for 8 months. They want to feel like their money is a contribution to their team's success. If you completely disconnect the financial investment of owners from the financial investment of fans you contribute to shattering that illusion. Don't be surprised when cynicism and ennui are the result. MLS is lucky Seattle has a great manager who keeps them consistent winners because blowing another opportunity like New York, Boston, and Toronto would be tragic. And again: I get that any problems, historic or otherwise, in New York, Boston, and Toronto have more to do with their ownership than with the structure of the league. (Also, for the record, would MLSE have spent more and would it have resulted in some winning in T.O. if the league had something like the OP suggests? Based on history yes and no respectively! So the rest of you wouldn't have had to worry: we'd still suck.)
My point has been that the messure of a teams success isn't attendance. The Galaxy have roughly the same revenue as the Sounders, possibly much more if you take the whole AEG thing into account, with roughly half the attendance. So should the salary cap be linked to TV ratings? 'Cause in that case I think the Galaxy would be quite a bit higher than the Sounders. Or maybe merchandise sales, because I'm pretty sure that Beckham dude moves some merch'. Are there any other arbitrary factors we can base salary caps on? So no, I'm not really intimidated by the Sounders. When you actually win something outside of the coveted "Highest Attendance" in MLS I'll start to worry.
Well written, The title says Seattle and the salary cap, but of course Toronto was the first down this road and teams like Portland, and Sporting Kansas City are going to get more frustrated as they enter champions league and have to play Mexican teams that have 3 times the payroll, heck its probably more. They are going to expect that their support will be rewarded with growth in payroll. Everything doesn't have to be black and white, it doesn't have to be U-10 or EPL, there is some middle ground there, we do keep score after all. Just some allocation money thats all I'm asking for.
The Sounders attendance thing is just pulling the chain of people who overeact to any dissussion of variences in the cap that might reward Seattle. Galaxy were the big target before Toronto, and Seattle joined the league, so the jealousy is nothing new. BHTC Mike made the point well, and its not just Seattle, its LA, Toronto, etc. Fans are going to get frustrated that as the revenues increase for their team, the salary budget does not go up commensurately. The idea we always need to keep it 100% the same and stay where the bottom of the league is in revenue rather than rewarding those teams that are financially successful, is just based on fear. There are ways the league can grow that don't involve having EPL salaries.
OK, let's bring this whole thing back to reality. Let's say you're a guy who owns 19 burrito joints across the country. You have had people invest in "Don's Burritos" and in return they get to run one of the stores and keep some of the profits from that store. Over the years you've noticed some disturbing trends. The store 30 miles outside of Boston isn't getting any business and the owner has other hobbies he cares more about. The store in San Jose is tiny and doesn't make any money. The Toronto store is doing well, but the employees keep screwing up the food orders and people are starting to stay away. Meanwhile the giant Seattle store is getting tons of business and the store in LA is able to charge double what the other stores are charging. The guy who runs the store in Kansas City relocated and did some advertising and has really turned it around. The Dallas store is out in the middle of nowhere, but is starting to gain a cult-like following. Do you: a) Give MORE money to the Seattle, LA and Kansas City stores? b) Seize the Boston and San Jose stores and run them on your own until you find new owners? c) Realize that not all markets are the same and use the profits from Seattle and LA to support the poorly performing stores in order to build your brand? d) WTF with the guy who runs the Toronto store? If you answer anything but "C" you have no idea how MLS works, and why the salary cap is never going to change while the single entity business model is in place.
The problem is you are making the answers black and white, you can do all of these things. C is not the only answer. MLS owners share risk and profit but its not 100% jointly owned. I agree there will be no lifting off the salary cap and am not asking that the cap be removed, only asking for something like more allocation money based on revenues. It would be financially responsable, teams should be allowed to use some the profits they make. I think you could do this and still have plenty of parity. I see there is a fear that if the door is cracked then thats the end of the salary cap. Surely subsidizing failing clubs isn't the long term answer either. SKC has shown you can reinvent teams, it can be done and a few years ago people were claiming that it couldn't be done.
It's not so much that the Toronto store keeps screwing up food orders. The problem is that the owners of that sandwich shop seem to hate sandwiches.
Can I just say that your habit of responding to someones comments, then quoting those comments below is infuriating? I mean, in order to understand what the hell you're talking about, I need to read the quote for context beforehand. So all you're doing is making it harder for other people to exchange ideas with you.