Ideas for MLS League Design [Superthread] III

http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/copa-libertadores-could-open-doors-mls

CONMEBOL president suggested that it could happen, but remember I am talking long term growth in a future US market that has 10-20 more strong investors and strong markets. At that point MLS as a business and US as a soccer market will be much more developed and will be much more appealing that it is now.

 

No one thought that Denilson would be a great player for FC Dallas, he was a guy who was just a name to try to encourage more people to pay attention to the club. Hopefully we are moving past that phase. About 10 years earlier, he was a legit prospect (probably the best in the world). He did not reach his potential, but scouting isn't an exact science. I would never claim it to be, but I think that it is clear to see that since 1998, we've seen a slow transition into what you can call 'professional development'. How much more can our player pool grow? Well we can make some reasonable guesses when you look at the number of players in our youth pool and their relative values. For instance Uruguay has a small fraction of the player pool we have, and yet if you were to add up the transfer value of their national team, it dwarfs ours by a large degree. It is quite clear that other nations are doing much more with much less, so it is reasonable to believe that if we invested more or at least invested smarter, than we can get much more.

We still have several black holes in US soccer development that will only be fixed with money. The first is the fact that club traveling soccer cost a lot of money due to our geography, so it makes it difficult for players of lower incomes to compete. If you needed to 'pay to play' in Football or Basketball then the NBA and NFL would be in a much weaker position than it is today. Also there is no where for kids to go after HS and before 1st team MLS. If college isn't the answer, where do you go? Make 30k a year playing 10 reserve games? This is certainly not going to attract top athletes. That is why I suggested a lot of teams, all with paid youth academies and development minor league teams. If we close these black holes up, we can at least start seeing how many Dempseys and Donovans are out there instead of trying to guess by evaluating the few that didn't fall through the cracks.

 

Dallas must have.

Else the notoriously cheap Hunt Sports Group spent a bunch of money just for laughs.

Ignoring - for a moment - something which is very hard to ignore, which is the very real differences between our athletes and theirs, our value system and theirs, their sports landscape and ours.

How big do you think India's player pool is? China's?

Can't agree (or, at the very least, that's an oversimplification). Just throwing money at a problem doesn't "fix" it. It doesn't work with education, it doesn't work with the war on drugs, it doesn't work with US soccer development.

Do you think kids don't pay to play youth football and basketball and some high school football and basketball?

 

I agree with this 100%. Those who advocate for a self-sustaining D2 in this country along the lines of other countries don't understand (or understate the significance) that this country does not have the two cornerstones of successful D2 leagues in other countries: Pro/rel and transfer fees.

Without either the potential for promotion or the financial windfall from selling players to the D1 league, the staples of D2leagues worldwide, they simply can't remain viable. No minor league in any other sport has thrived on its own in this country, and there is no reason to think that soccer is any different.

And professional player development worldwide is about throwing as much shit against the wall as you can, and keeping what sticks. There are only a very few examples of clubs that consistently produce teams full of professional players, and the vast majority of players in any league anywhere come from elsewhere. The lesson here for MLS should be, the more players you can field, the better your chances for developing your own first-teamers.

And, having more stable teams in more different markets, the result of the MLB model of minor-league clubs having their team's salaries paid for by the Big Club, would be a wonderful thing for soccer in this country.

It's a win-win on so many levels. And I'm not seeing a downside.

 

First of all, cut the HSG some slack. Not only did they front the first SSS privately but they didn't bail out when MLS looked hopeless. They signed Denilson for I think 900k after Becks was signed because they thought getting DPs was going to guarantee a bump in attendance or at least media exposure. But he was let go and who knows how the deal was actually structured and how much Denilson actually got paid. HSG signed GBS and Ferrieira, but DPs and both MVPs. GBS won the cup and Ferriera was runner up, so again, I think the Hunts get a pass for making a bad move on Denilson, they cut him and went out and found better players who succeeded and won titles. And they paid those players beyond the salary cap to do so.

Well I can answer the question about China - http://sportspath.typepad.com/sport...educed-from-500000-in-2000-to-just-50000.html

Their viewership of european leagues are incredibly high, but their participation numbers are lacking. I don't have any info about India, I read about the China situation years ago and just googled it. My guess is that there are plenty of people playing soccer in India, but because their professional league system has been so poor, that there is no real professional development opportunities for kids.

Throwing money at the problem is not the same as slow expansion growth and including development inciatives based on the best practices of current MLS clubs. Once we know what works the single entity will have incredible power to create these programs league-wide. I am not saying throw money, but as investors come in, they will take US soccer players (resources) away from the league (the over expansion arguement) I am suggesting that we can create programs to offset this issue. Unless you believe that US soccer pool is tapped out, that no matter what kind of strategies or investments we create, that this player pool is all the US/Canada will ever be able to produce. I do not believe this.

 

Wait, we don't have transfer fees? This should come as a shock to, y'know, every team in the league who has paid or recieved such a fee.

 

I should have been clearer: Transfer fees from the top flight clubs. MLS has resisted buying players from USL and NASL, as part of their business plan. Everywhere but here, that path is a cornerstone of revenue for smaller clubs. If it's happened here, and I can't think of an example off the top of my head, it's the exception rather than the rule.

 

Couldn't it be said that we haven't bought {NA/U}SL players because they haven't been good enough to warrant it?

 

It could. But MLS has stated from the beginning of the league's existence that they just won't pay transfer fees to domestic clubs as a matter of policy.

 

Can work be shown?

 

I'm not interested in googling for you. Don't believe me, I don't care. But it's true.

 

So the answer to my question "Can you show the work?" is "No, I can't".

Good to know

 

Sure. Now, feel free to pretend that absence of evidence is the same thing as evidence of absence.

 

As long as you feel smug suggesting that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but that it should be left to the skeptic to find the evidence.

I can out-Sagan you all day, buddy!

 

Honestly, I love the Sagan references. But whether you care to acknowledge it or not, MLS's policy is not to pay transfer fees to domestic minor-league clubs, Sagan or no Sagan.

Damn, this calls for some sort of Cosmos quip, but I'm lazy there, too.

 

Part of the reason the initial MLS/US(IS)L agreement wasn't renewed was exactly this type of dispute that you two are going back and forth on. MLS teams thought they were having to pay too much compensation to A-League teams for taking a player away from them (which would happen through various mechanisms) and A-League teams never felt it was enough. Calling them "transfer fees" might be stretching that which we normally think of as such, but it could just be semantics. Suffice to say, in the early days of MLS, lower-level teams could get compensated by MLS per the Agreement, but at some point MLS just said "You don't like it? We don't like it, either. So we're not going to do it. And we'll just sign your players if they're out of contract and that's that. Kthxbye."

 

Okay, here is something I just found, on the MLS website. While it does not specifically say that buying players from USL and NASL teams is prohibited, there is no provision for it in the exhaustive list of the permitted ways for teams to acquire players. I hope that you're reasonable enough to acknowledge the significance of not having any mention whatsoever of transfer fees buying minor-league players from their clubs.


II. PLAYER ACQUISITION MECHANISMS

MLS teams may acquire players and add them to their rosters via the following mechanisms:
(A) ALLOCATION RANKING
The allocation ranking is the mechanism used to determine which MLS club has first priority to acquire a U.S. National Team player who signs with MLS after playing abroad, or a former MLS player who returns to the League after having gone to a club abroad for a transfer fee. The allocation rankings may also be used in the event two or more clubs file a request for the same player on the same day when the discovery period opens in December. The allocations will be ranked in reverse order of finish for the 2011 season, taking playoff performance into account.
Once the club uses its allocation ranking to acquire a player, it drops to the bottom of the list. A ranking can be traded, provided that part of the compensation received in return is the other club’s ranking. At all times, each club is assigned one ranking. The rankings reset at the end of each MLS League season.
Allocation Money
Allocation money is a resource available to clubs in addition to their respective salary budgets. A club may receive allocation money for:

1. failure to qualify for the MLS Cup Playoffs;
2. the transfer of a player to a club outside of MLS for value;
3. expansion status;
4. qualification for the CONCACAF Champions League;
5. trading in up to two Off-Budget roster spots;
6. funds from purchased third designated player roster spots.

Each year the MLS Competition Committee determines the allocation amount to be made available to each club. Allocation money can be traded by clubs. Allocation money does not count against a club’s salary budget and can be used:

• To sign players new to MLS (that is, a player who did not play in MLS during the previous season).
• To re-sign an existing MLS player, subject to League approval.
• To “buy-down” a player’s salary budget charge below the League maximum of $350,000.
• In connection with the exercise of an option to purchase a player’s rights or the extension of a player’s contract for the second year provided the player was new to MLS in the immediately prior year.

NOTE: To protect the interests of MLS and its clubs during discussions with prospective players or clubs in other leagues, amounts of allocation money held by each club will not be shared publicly.
(B) DESIGNATED PLAYER
The Designated Player Rule allows clubs to acquire up to three players whose salaries exceed their budget charges, with the club bearing financial responsibility for the amount of compensation above each player’s budget charge. Designated Player slots may be used to acquire players new to MLS or to retain current MLS players, subject to League approval.
In 2012, a Designated Player over the age of 23** will carry a salary budget charge of $350,000, unless the player joins his club in the middle of the season, in which case his budget charge will be $175,000.
A Designated Player 20 years old or younger** counts as $150,000 against the club’s salary budget and a Designated Player 21-23 years old counts as $200,000 against the club’s salary budget.
Clubs have the option of “buying down” the budget charge of a Designated Player with allocation money. The reduced charge may not be less than $150,000.
The budget charge for the midseason signing of a young Designated Player (23 years old and younger) is $150,000 and this amount cannot be lowered with allocation funds.
Each club has two Designated Player slots and clubs are allowed to “purchase” a third Designated Player slot for a one-time fee of $250,000 that will be dispersed in the form of allocation money to all clubs that do not have three Designated Players. Clubs will not have to buy the third DP roster slot to accommodate Designated Players 23 years old and younger.
Designated Player slots are not tradable.
** Age of player is determined by year (not date) of birth.
(C) SUPERDRAFT
The 2012 MLS SuperDraft, held Jan. 12 in Kansas City, Mo., consisted of two rounds of 19 picks for a total of 38 player selections. A supplemental draft was held Jan. 17 via teleconference and consisted of four rounds of 19 picks each round.
The majority of draft prospects are NCAA college seniors who have exhausted their college eligibility. Generation adidas players and non-collegiate international players are also eligible for selection in the SuperDraft and supplemental draft. Clubs may nominate players for the League’s draft-eligible list, and only players from that list may be selected.
Generation adidas is a joint program between MLS and adidas that is dedicated to developing exceptional domestic talent in a professional environment. Each year, a handful of top domestic underclassmen and youth national team players are signed to the league and placed in the SuperDraft through this program. Generation adidas players also receive an educational stipend.
Draft Order: The Montreal Impact held the first overall selection in the 2012 MLS SuperDraft as expansion clubs are always given the top spot in the SuperDraft and the Supplemental Draft. The next eight selections went to clubs that did not qualify for the 2011 MLS Cup Playoffs beginning with the club with fewest regular season points (3 points per win, one point per tie). The remaining ten positions were ranked by fewest regular season points among the teams that were eliminated in the same round of the MLS Cup Playoffs.
Unless claimed on waivers, a player who was drafted by a particular team through the SuperDraft or supplemental draft and did not sign with the League, is placed on that team’s “College Protected List” until the second December 31 following the draft in question, after which the team loses the rights to the player.
(D) TRADES
Players, SuperDraft and Supplemental draft picks, allocation money, allocation rankings, and international player slots may all be exchanged in trades approved by the MLS League Office, provided all of the necessary rules regarding roster and salary budget compliance are met and the trade is completed during a valid trading period. No trades may occur after the Roster Freeze Deadline of September 15, 2012 at 5 p.m. ET.
(E) DISCOVERY SIGNINGS
Clubs may make discovery claims on players not yet under MLS contract who are not subject to the allocation ranking or lottery mechanisms.
Each club has the opportunity to make six discovery signings per season (expansion teams may make 10 discovery signings in their inaugural season). A club may have up to 10 discovery claims on unsigned players at any time and may remove or add players at any time. The last day for discovery player signings is September 15, 2012 – coinciding with the roster freeze date and trade deadline.
The six discovery signings can be used to fill senior roster spots only. If multiple clubs claim the same player using a discovery, the club that filed the claim first will have first rights to the player. Discovery claims expire following each season. If the League and player are unable to reach an agreement during the season, the club that first filed the discovery retains the right of first refusal in the event the player is later signed by the League.
NOTE: To protect interests of MLS clubs in scouting and negotiations with prospective players, the League office will not publicize the names of players on club discovery lists, nor specify if a discovery claim has been filed on a particular player.
(F) HOMEGROWN PLAYER SIGNINGS
A club may sign a player to his first professional contract without subjecting him to the MLS SuperDraft if the player has trained for at least one year in the club’s youth development program and has met the League’s Homegrown Player criteria. Players joining MLS through this mechanism are known as Homegrown Players.
There is no limit to the number of Homegrown Players a club may sign in a given year.
(G) RE-ENTRY PROCESS
The 2012 Re-Entry Process will commence after MLS Cup. The priority order for the Re-Entry Draft is reverse order of finish in 2012, taking into account playoff performance.
Available to all teams in Stage 1 of the Re-Entry draft will be:

1. Players who are at least 23 years old and have a minimum of three years experience in MLS whose options were not exercised by their clubs (available at option salary for 2013).
2. Players who are at least 25 years old with a minimum of four years of MLS experience who are out of contract and whose club does not wish to re-sign them at their previous salary (available for at least their 2012 salary).
3. Players who are at least 30 years old with a minimum of eight years of MLS experience who are out of contract and whose club does not wish to re-sign them (available for at least 105% of their 2012 salary).

Players who are not selected in Stage 1 of the Re-Entry Draft will be made available in Stage 2. Clubs selecting players in Stage 2 will negotiate a new salary with the player.
Players who remain unselected after Stage 2 will be available to any MLS club on a first come, first serve basis.
(H) WAIVERS
A team may place a player on waivers at any time during the regular season at which point he is made available to all other teams. The waiver claiming period shall commence on the first business day after the League delivers notice to teams and shall expire at 5 p.m. EST on the second business day after the Waiver Period Commencement Date. The claiming period is 48 hours.
The Waiver Draft order is determined via points per game once all teams have played at least three MLS League games. If the waiver takes place prior to all teams playing in at least three League games, priority shall be granted based upon the prior year’s performance, taking playoff performance first, with teams eliminated from playoff contention at the same stage separated according to their point totals through the end of the regular season. New expansion teams shall be at the bottom of the waiver order.
Once a team selects a player off waivers, that club is automatically moved to the bottom of the priority list for subsequent waiver selections in a given season, regardless of its points-per-game total. Players who may be placed on the MLS waiver wire are as follows:

1. A player waived by an MLS team in the current season;
2. A player who completed his college eligibility within the past season, who was not made available in the SuperDraft or Supplemental Draft;
3. A player who has remaining college eligibility (and was not made available in the SuperDraft or Supplemental Draft), but the League at its discretion and after taking into account exceptional circumstances determines the player may be offered an MLS contract;
4. A player who has played in MLS previously where his last MLS team does not wish to exercise their right of first refusal, except in the case of returning U.S. National Team players as stated above.
5. A player who was drafted in the SuperDraft or supplemental draft, and who after a trial with the club is not offered a contract by the first Monday of June.

(I) LOTTERY
Some players shall be assigned to MLS teams via the weighted Lottery process. Any team assigned a player through the lottery in any particular season shall not be assigned another lottery player that season unless and until all teams have received a lottery player or have agreed to waive their option to participate in a Lottery. The players made available through lotteries include:

1. Generation adidas players signed after the MLS SuperDraft;
2. Draft eligible players to whom an MLS contract was offered but who failed to sign with the League prior to the Draft.

The weighted lottery takes into consideration each team’s performance over its last 34 regular season games and the most recent postseason. The team with the worst record over its last 34 regular season games (dating back to previous season if necessary and taking playoff performance into account) will have the greatest probability of winning the lottery. Teams are not required to participate in a lottery. Players are assigned via the lottery system in order to prevent a player from potentially influencing his destination club with a strategic holdout.
(J) EXTREME HARDSHIP CALL-UPS
Teams may add players to their roster in cases of “extreme hardship” as follows: (1) a club with three goalkeepers on its 30-man roster, but has less than two available goalkeepers or (2) a team has less than 15 available players. Extreme hardship call-ups are made on a game-by-game basis.
(K)SEASON-ENDING INJURY REPLACEMENTS (Season Ending Injury List)
A team with a player lost to a season-ending injury can place the player on the Season Ending Injury List and replace that player on its roster, while remaining responsible for the full amount of the injured player’s salary. A player can be placed on the season-ending injury list once another player has been signed as a replacement (provided the team has budget space). International player limits still apply at the time a season-ending replacement is made (with the player being replaced not counting against those limits).
(L) SHORT-TERM INJURY REPLACEMENTS (Disabled List)
A player who has a short-term injury can be placed on the Disabled List once another player has been signed as a replacement (provided the team has budget space). The team will remain responsible for the full amount of the injured player’s salary on the salary budget. Note: the injured player will have to sit out a minimum of six MLS League matches before he can rejoin the team’s roster.
International player limits still apply at the time a short-term replacement is made (with the player being replaced not counting against those limits).
NOTE: No changes may be made to a team's active full roster during the period beginning on September 16, 2012 (day after Roster Freeze Date) through the day after MLS Cup. Nevertheless, a team may obtain players in accordance with the extreme hardship rules and procedures to replace players who are injured or otherwise legitimately unavailable after the Roster Freeze Date. Any other replacements after the Roster Freeze Date may only be made in exceptional circumstances in the League’s sole and absolute discretion.

 

Well, they had paid some USL teams a transfer fee, yes MLS LLC does not like it and if they feel the fee is too high they may veto the transfer fee (much like they would probably do for international transfer fees I assume).

I know some USL and NASL teams have sold a hand full to European leagues I remember the Rail hawks selling some dude to a Scandinavian D2 team.

Remember to sell a player you must have that player under contract for multiple years, lower D teams in the USA usually only sign players for 1 year at a time, meaning they walk away during the offseason if they get a better offer from MLS or any other league in the world.

Maybe in the future if NASL teams are stable they will sign players for 3-4 years and be able to sell some of them to MLS or Europe, Mexico, Central America, what ever. I bet Traffic would love that.

 

Just look at what they do rather than what's explicitly laid out in their rules. They don't, as a matter of course, appear to pay lower-division teams for lower-division players. You do, however, see lower-division players go to MLS, but most of them are out of contract because it's not a common occurrence that a lower-division player is on a multi-year contract.

You might want to check to see how Jon Busch got to MLS in the first place. I think he was with Richmond or Charleston or somebody and may have been bought, but with the Mad Cow, I may be mis-remembering. Clyde Simms might be another guy, but they both may have been out of contract, for all I know.

You also had USL to MLS "call ups" back in the early days, which were just temporary assignments and not transfers, and you had MLS players get "loaned" down to A-League teams. We once had Columbus send us Rob Smith for a game (true professional, but realized right after that game where his career was going and retired) and once had Chicago send us Manny Lagos, Greg Sutton and somebody else (not Aleksey Korol, the other part of the triumvirate of Korol-Kovalenko and Name Escapes Me) for a game when we were shorthanded one weekend.

I think Marcus Hahnemann may have been a transfer fee situation. I think. Again, top of my head.

 

Remember, the original point was that American minor-league clubs do not have the revenue stream that other leagues' D2 and lower teams have.

 

I do remember that. Partially because they have shut themselves off to that by not signing players to multi-year deals and "controlling" them. Then again, they can't very well do that with a short season and no real ability to "hold" someone there (to keep them from playing indoor or going to another team near where their spouse is transferred, whatever).

And, as mentioned earlier, there haven't been that many lower-division players good enough to sell anywhere. Few exceptions, obviously, but if you're that good, you bypass USL and NASL entirely from the get-go, usually.

If I ran a lower-division team in this country, I might be almost constantly looking for undervalued young players to develop and sell as a revenue source, but with the small staffs and diffused focus that a lower-division team has out of necessity in this country, that may not be realistic. And a revolving door of players may not be good for business from a public perception point of view, I don't know.

 

And, to be completely honest, how many minor-league pro soccer teams can say with any confidence whether they will exist for the length of a 3-4-year player contract? I would guess, not enough to make such contracts the rule rather than the exception.

 

Kandji was the only guy I remember MLS buying from D2. But I actually remember there being issues with NY doing so because at first Atlanta wanted something like 250k. He ended up being loaned and I think NY paid like 75k or something.

From my count, MLS paid more transfer fees between 1996-2000 as they burned through their start-up cash, then between 2001-2012. The only real transfers that are paid at this point are rolled into DP contracts (Castillo, Fernandez, Keane). How every you look at it, as long as MLS has a draft they are not going to need to rely heavily on transfers. If D2 can start convincing all the best 17-18 year olds to turn pro and go to the lower divisions, and MLS can no longer look to NCAA for quality players, then you might see a policy change. But at this point, how can you beat drafting Tim Ream for free and selling him 2 years later for 2.5M? Its too good to pass up.

 

This, of course, is an excellent point.

And kudos to 4door because I had forgotten about the Kandji thing. Well done. It does happen, but not often. For many reasons that we've just spelled out.

 

So there's no way to bring players in from other leagues? Good to know