Effective way to use $1 billion for improving MLS

Discussion in 'MLS: Commissioner - You be The Don' started by gamekid2k, Feb 4, 2013.

  1. gamekid2k

    gamekid2k Member

    Aug 2, 2010
    Dallas
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    According to Wiki' there are 1226 billionaires. If any of them wakes up at the wrong side of the bed and decides to send 1,000,000,000 dollar "donation" to MLS, what is the best/effective way to spend this limited money?

    Invest in the Academy?
    Get more designated players?
    Increase the salary cap?
    Start MLS TV?
    Invest in marketing?
    Invest in infrastructure?
    Expend the league?
    Spend all money at once or spread it out over X number of years? If so how many?
    Spend in one area or slice it into different area? If sliced at what percent per area?
    Other ideas?
     
  2. gamekid2k

    gamekid2k Member

    Aug 2, 2010
    Dallas
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I'm putting together my plan and I noticed that 1,000,000,000 dollar is very easy to burn thru. Here is my short and easy plan. I will spend 1,000,000,000 dollar over 5 years that will be 200,000,000 dollar per year. I will distribute 200,000,000 dollars to each of the clubs evenly. Each club needs to spend 50% of this money in increasing salary cap. Remaining 25 percent on Academy and other 25 percent on marketing and buying up newspaper sports editors. This is probably the biggest bang for the buck MLS can get for 1 billion dollars.
     
  3. Zoti

    Zoti Member

    Oct 9, 2009
    Brooklyn
    20 new teams at $50 million/pop and then institute Promotion/Relegation.
     
  4. WarrenWallace

    WarrenWallace Member

    Mar 12, 1999
    Beer and Cheese
    Internment camp for all those wanting pro/rel. And for those that want MLS to have a 'winter' schedule.
     
  5. aztec21bas

    aztec21bas BigSoccer Supporter

    Jun 24, 2009
    Mullica Hill, NJ
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    A. This should be in YBTD forum.
    B. Three postings to get PRO/REL posting... seriously?
    C. I wish there was still a way to neg rep.
     
  6. chapka

    chapka Member+

    May 18, 2004
    Haverford, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Spend $250 million to tear down RFK and build a privately-financed DC United stadium on a 99-year lease. Make it a showpiece stadium that can also host national team games and have a plan to expand it in the future to host a World Cup final.

    Spend $125 million each as a co-investment on stadium projects in Boston and Los Angeles.

    At that point, you have every team in a stable, sustainable stadium situation.

    Distribute $25 million to every team but DC, New England, and Chivas, to be spent for whatever soccer-related purpose they feel it will best serve in their own market--youth academies, training facilities, stadium expansion/renovation, marketing, infrastructure, buying out Freddy Adu's contract, signing a DP, whatever that investor thinks will make the most difference in that market.

    Keep the last $100 million for a rainy day. Or use it to pay off the players' union to let you get away with the rest of these line items.
     
  7. chapka

    chapka Member+

    May 18, 2004
    Haverford, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Here is more or less the effect your plan would have:

    2013: $2.95 million
    2014: $103.1 million
    2015: $103.25 million
    2016: $103.4 million
    2017: $103.55 million
    2018: $103.7 million
    2019: $3.85 million
    2020: $4 million

    That's a great plan if you think the Mayan apocalypse is coming in December 2018. Otherwise, it's a recipe for disaster.

    If you're going to spend the money on salaries, you'd be better off raising it by $1 million per team for 50 years than $100 million per team for 5 years.
     
    RevsFanDan and blacksun repped this.
  8. sportie1

    sportie1 Member

    Sep 4, 2008
    totally right
     
  9. thomas19064

    thomas19064 Member+

    Apr 29, 2008
    Delco
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Clearly the correct answer is to sign 40 high profile DPs for and distribute them to the teams via a new DP Draft.... 20 teams, 2 DPs each. o_O :confused:
     
  10. song219

    song219 BigSoccer Supporter

    Apr 5, 2004
    La Norte
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    Vanuatu
    Unlimited hookers & blow for the players and free legal representation on a as-needed basis.
     
  11. FuzzyForeigner

    Oct 29, 2003
    WA
    Club:
    Seattle
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    move firsco stadium closer to downtown using a gravity mass device and then, when relocated, build the most beautiful roof you've ever seen on the stadium
     
  12. Allez RSL

    Allez RSL Member+

    Jun 20, 2007
    Home
    Well...that's not exactly right. I assume those are per-team salary cap numbers?

    He said distribute the $200 million evenly among teams, and then ask them to spend half on salaries, so it'd be a $5 million/year/team bump. It wouldn't be nearly as crazily catastrophic in 2019, but it would be bad -- if league revenue didn't change at all in the interim.

    But maybe the extra $5 million/team would push enough eyeballs to the league that someone wouldn't mind spending $200 million/year on broadcast rights, and then you could keep the gravy train rolling. That's not totally unreasonable, I guess. 20 $8 million-salary teams would be a pretty competitive league, as long as the extra money was being spent on high-priced foreigners and not just in jacking up the incomes of current $100k salary players.
     
  13. chapka

    chapka Member+

    May 18, 2004
    Haverford, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Good point--my math error.

    Still, even a smaller 5 year bump is a 5 year bump, and unless you can find a way to turn $200 million in salaries into $200 million in revenues, you end up with the same problem at the end.
     
  14. carnifex2005

    carnifex2005 Member+

    Jul 1, 2008
    Club:
    Vancouver Whitecaps
    Sign Messi and Ronaldo as DP's. Use the remainder to buy a pack of gum.
     
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  15. ImaPuppy

    ImaPuppy Member+

    Aug 10, 2009
    Using too many parentheses
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    American Samoa
    Increasing the salary cap would be an obvious top priority, as all the other benefits would be derived from it (TV dollars, sponsorships, new fans, etc.) The better the talent, the more successful the league (generally).
     
  16. chapka

    chapka Member+

    May 18, 2004
    Haverford, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    You're making two assumptions.

    1. That raising the salary cap by a sustainable amount would significantly increase talent levels. Since MLS rosters are mostly made up of domestic players, you'd be unlikely to get a linear increase in quality. There just aren't that many good US or green-card-holding prospects to lure away from other teams.

    2. That raising the talent level by a sustainable amount would significantly increase sponsorships, attendance, or TV ratings (which drive TV rights fees).

    Is the difference between a $4 million roster and a $5 million roster something the average sports fan, or the average non-MLS soccer fan, is really going to notice, especially when some of that money is going to higher wages for the same pool of domestic players?

    If what you care about is attendance and ratings, I suspect DP signings would be a better investment than raising the salary cap.
     
  17. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Nobody would buy out Chivas USA or NE Revolution?

    I am pleasantly surprise those were not the first ideas.


    BTW would the donation be tax free?
     
    RevsFanDan and CrewFan1000 repped this.
  18. Allez RSL

    Allez RSL Member+

    Jun 20, 2007
    Home
    1. Hopefully the bulk of the money would be spent on international players, and in luring some of the Americans back from Europe, although there aren't many of them. With an $8 million cap, most teams would probably invest in a DP-caliber player.

    2. It'd be nice to know the answer to this question, though. If someone's going to throw away a billion dollars, I'd be super interested to see how it goes. But yeah, there's no guarantee it results in an equivalent yearly increase in sponsorships/broadcast fees/etc.

    3. Hopefully a 2.5x increase in salary cap is enough to move the needle with the non-MLS soccer fans (again, assuming that it's done without significantly inflating salaries of current domestic crop of players). If it isn't, we should probably give up on MLS ever getting any more popular. This would be fine with me, by the way. I'm super satisfied with the league as it is.
     
  19. krudmonk

    krudmonk Member+

    Mar 7, 2007
    S.J. Sonora
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    uno billion dollares say european breakway superleague actually mls fareastern conference

    !
     
  20. Vander Decken IX

    Feb 13, 2011
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Send it to an investment that offers 1% annual interest, then every year, it could give you $10M instead of slowly draining your money to MLS.
     
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  21. CrewDust

    CrewDust Member

    May 6, 1999
    Columbus, Ohio
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    you should be able to get 6% on an annuity.
     
  22. gamekid2k

    gamekid2k Member

    Aug 2, 2010
    Dallas
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Anyway to calculate current MLS annual growth rate?
     
  23. sportingswan

    sportingswan Member

    Feb 9, 2013
    Club:
    Swansea City AFC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    A billion dollars, eh? Well, here's how I'd do things:
    • Budget $430 million for new stadia for DC, Chivas, and New England, (Approx. $143 million each). In DC's case, "embarrassment" is an understatement that the league's most successful team is without their own place, although the same could be said for Chivas and New England that they don't have their own venues.
    • Budget the remaining $670 million (Approx. $35.26 million for each team) to use as they see fit, but encourage the enrichment of youth academies for all teams and DP slots for smaller markets.
     
  24. asoc

    asoc Member+

    Sep 28, 2007
    Tacoma
    I would invest that money outside of Soccer. Something safe that will be guaranteed to earn some interest.
    Take the interest earned from that and put it into the league as allocation money divided evenly to all teams.
     
  25. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Maybe invest it in SUM, that seems to a profit making entity. :)
     

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