VEVO5 catch-all thread on how to improve MLS

Are they really showcasing those big markets to casual fans if they reduce their spending and remove most stars?

Yes, Sounders or NYRB would win more because rosters would become more balanced. But probably no Clint Dempsey, no Thierry Henry, because it just wouldn't make sense to spend 50-80% of their salary budget on one player. Will there be a bunch of new casual fans rushing to buy Dax McCarty jerseys just because he's part of "New York Red Bulls, a perennial MLS contender"? I'm not sure MLS is that big of a deal. I suspect these casual fans might just spend their cash on another Carmelo Anthony or Christiano Ronaldo jersey, or even buy a jersey of that same Thierry Henry who would now be playing somewhere in Europe.

I think what you are saying would make a bit more sense for a league like the NBA or the EPL, a league that already has (many of) the world's best players and will have them one way or the other. Maybe if you move stars from San Antonio, OKC and Indiana and place them all on the LA Lakers, that wouldn't hurt that league. I don't know. I suspect that it would still hurt the league because the regular season would become so much more dull with fewer good teams, not to mention that these small teams would lose part of their home crowds. But maybe the Lakers' global brand would make up for that. It's at least conceivable.

But MLS is a different kind of fruit. It's an attendance based league. If you remove the limited star power, and in your words make it harder for people in small markets to believe that "they have a reasonable shot" to win... I don't believe you can make up for that.

Besides... not broken, don't fix. If they are going to scrap the current model, there better be overwhelming evidence that the new model will help instead of hurt.

 

I'm an LA Galaxy season ticket holder. Have been for years. Birchall was a starter for the Galaxy. Not sure about Columbus.

If you're seriously going to argue my point with me you're going to lose. If I wanted to I could name dozens of players in MLS who start who came from League 1 or lower and returned to League 1 or lower. Luke Rodgers just popped into my head. Where is he now? English Conference playing for Forest Green Rovers.

 

You're very stupid.

Yeah, I can play that game too.

Look around at the f****cking football world. Tell me one f***cking league that has collapsed because they don't have a salary cap.

I'm tired of responding to people like you who have half a f****** brain. Can't have FFP because clubs would spend 41% of revenues on non-player salaries and bankrupt themselves? YOU ARE A MORON.

 

How exactly to you get to here

from here "allowing big market teams to use their market advantage to be overall more successful in order to grow the league might be very unappealing to a fan of a small market team, conceptually the philosophy is pretty sound."

I suggest you read what I wrote again "While Vevo's mechanisms might be problematic."

 

Well, 'how I get there' seems obvious. But maybe I'm misunderstanding your argument, so clarify please.
Are you saying that teams would still be buying Clint Dempseys under Vevo's rules right now?
Or are you saying that stars aren't important and the league overall would be more popular and richer with LA, Seattle etc dominating, regardless of who plays for them?
Or are you saying that there are some different "mechanisms" that follow the same "philosophy" and that make more sense for MLS?

 

Not really. I said your post was stupid. You, I'm agnostic on.

Here's a quick question...in MLS, what percentage of revenues are spent on items OTHER THAN player salaries? Do you know the answer to that question? Once you google it and see that it's waaaaay higher than 40%, will you change your opinion on a cap of 60% of revenues being spent on player wages?

 

The difference is that MLS is a league establish for the explicit and exclusive benefit of its member clubs. You want me to name 20 teams in England that failed because there was no salary cap? Gladly.

The standard is different in England. The Premier League and the Football League has success that is largely removed from the success of Leeds, or Wimbledon, or Portsmouth, or Rushden and Diamonds, or, or, or...

 

I mostly posted in this thread because Triplet1 brings some well though out points of view, not because I necessarily believe in Vevo's ideas. I haven't commented on Vevo's mechanisms because others have pointed out the flaws. That said, I what I believe to be his overall philosophy - letting bigger teams better use their market power to drive interest in the league has merit. All one has to do is compare the pre-Beckham rule parity era to the disparity of spending that follows. The fact that his implementation undermines the philosophy is one of the reasons it is flawed. Pure parity is great as long as you have the best product in the world. But if if the leagues spends at the least common denominator, its growth will be severely stifled. On the other hand, if the bottom teams cannot compete are start going under trying to compete, the league will also be stifled.

 

Name one league that doesn't have a salary cap that also hasn't had one (or multiple) teams go bankrupt/into administration/etc ?

 

And really, this is the bottom line question for the thread. It isn't about caps or percentages or any of that. It's a question of how good can the top teams get before it starts to affect the viability of the bottom teams?

 

You just added a word (potential) to your previous statement. What do you mean by "best potential?"

 

Try the actual numbers (from Forbes):

2012 Revenue: $48 million
2012 Profit: $18.2 million

That's 29.8 in expenses. Not 21.8 or whatever other number you want to bullshit. It's the actual number.

Add to that, your 7.7m for revenue sharing. Then add your 9.6m for player expenses.

29.8 + 7.7 + 9.6 = 47.1 in expenses. That's 900K profit from 18.2 million.

 

I suspect those Forbes numbers include current revenue sharing and current player expenses. So we would have to figure those out and reduce the 29.8 mil number accordingly.

You are talking as if EPL owners is some philosophers panel, and they would just simply introduce parity if it was smart.

 

Correct. I did it for the salaries in the example I posted earlier. I took EBITDA, added back actual payroll, and subtracted his payroll cap. As for revenue sharing, I just netted his revenue sharing number out from EBIDTDA. If he eliminates shared gate receipts, yes, for Seattle you'd have to add shared gate receipts back in too, before subtracting his revenue sharing number, but it's nearly impossible to do that accurately. I'm not going there.

It really doesn't matter though. At the end of the day though Baysider's right, all of the formulas just get him too deep in the weeds.

In 2012, MLS spent about 20% of revenue on player payroll.

He caps player payroll at 20% of revenue.

There is no additional spending under his plan.

The only thing that changes is: (1) how much payroll each team gets to spend, i.e., who gets to spend it, and (2) how they spend it, i.e., the DP restrictions are gone.

Philosophically, people might actually agree with him on all or some parts of that, but posting the same numbers over and over is a barrier to that conversation IMO.

 

Not saying there aren`t problems in Soccer around the world. And since there are 7 billion people on the planet and soccer is by far the biggest sport, soccer obviously to some degree has the same problems countries around the world have. Infact I get annoyed. To make you understand that your country isn`t perfect either I suggest you take a look inhouse first. Some would argue that having minors play American Football is abuse of youth considering the injury & concussion problems in that sport. Not saying it doesn`t happen in soccer, willing to put a big wager the problem is much bigger in American football though..

Most people in here seem to equal football in Europe to world football, I assume European football is what you are thinking of? If it`s the soccer world in general the statement are meaningles IMO.
I don`t know any country as developed as the USA that accepts racial abuse in the stands. Sure there are idiots among the supporter demographics in any country, including the racist kind. Still, in Western Europe this is more or less becoming a problem of the past, much like slavery and segregation is in the US. Saying fans of football in europe or any sport in europe are more racist than the average american is of course meaningless.

Teams collapsing and going into administration: Ok. I`m starting to think the MLS fanatics are somehow disregarding what is happening in american pro sports, including the MLS. How many professional teams in professional leagues in Western Europe have collapsed and gone into administration? Probably a few the last 20 years. But as a percentage of total teams, it really isn`t that much. In fact, I`m pretty sure that the percentage of franchises in MLS that has either ceised to exist or has been bought up by the league is higher than in pretty much any Western European league system in the same period. Just because you call it other things than bankrupt or under administration doesn`t really change anything. And the tradition you have of moving franchises in underperforming cities to other cities. Down from the pidestal yankees.

Corruption.
Sure. That happens. Here there and everywhere. See the list at transparency international. The biggest problem in international football is FIFA where a bunch of carribian & african states are corrupt. In the big professional leagues around the world, corruption isn`t much of a problem. In general I feel corruption in football in a country correlates with corruption in that country in general.

Abusive youth development.
You got me there. Again, in democratic developed countries abuse of footballers isn`t tolerated. When Barcelona now faces ban from the transfer market for 2 windows (or was it 2 years) and risk losing Messi as a consequence for having minors from Africa at their academy, it`s obvious that abusive youth development isn`t accepted at all. I don`t think the africans at La Masia feel to abused btw. In Africa a lot of top european clubs have academies. The youth going there generally gets a better education and of course better training. Abuse isn`t what makes new Messi`s.

 

Don't mind Mr. Warmth, he does not always live up to his name.

Agreed, poor countries have worse problems and the US has it's own problems, particularly in the big revenue college sports (money and hypocrisy is a bad combination). But the problem with learning from Europe or Mexico or South America is that soccer has much different place in those societies than it does in the US. I think the knowledge that soccer teams in the US have a much worse history of failing than teams in Europe is really what's driving MLS's strategy. They've found a strategy that has produced slow but steady growth and a key part of this is all the teams work together. Maybe now is the time to take the training wheels off, but on the other hand, maybe the league would crash.

 

Except uuuuuuuhhh ....

.... you don't do that by drastically reducing their revenue and also making them turn over even more of it to the lower clubs.

IMO, these clubs have the best growth potential

That's not a problem, it's a smart approach that is proven within the landscape that the MLS exists.

Parity by its very nature isn't the same thing as a league employing parity measures to give teams a chance.

 

I also not believe in it. In my view you are right.

 

So... the definition of "Best growth potential" is the teams that, in your opinion, have the "best growth potential?"

I would argue that New England and Chivas USA have the most "growth potential" of any team in the league. Seattle and Portland are already bonkers popular. TFC too. How much more popular could Seattle or Portland realistically get with another million dollars or so of player payroll?

New England is a mediocre, poorly-run team with zero fan appeal, but they play in one of the best sports markets in the country, and the nearest major city is a demographic jackpot for MLS if they can tap into it. As for Chivas USA - a second team in southern California can absolutely be a success if not run like a freakin' joke.