MLS Offseason: Three Teams who can become contenders for 2020 https://lastwordonsoccer.com/2019/12/01/mls-offseason-three-teams-contenders-2020/ Is this the adidas LA Galaxy 2020 home kit? https://www.lagconfidential.com/2019/12/1/20990495/is-this-the-2020-la-galaxy-home-kit Columbus Crew: Don’t sleep on Caleb Porter progress https://mlsmultiplex.com/2019/12/01/columbus-crew-dont-sleep-caleb-porter-system/ Seattle Sounders: 2017 failure perfect for 2020 success https://mlsmultiplex.com/2019/12/01/seattle-sounders-2017-failure-perfect-2020-success/ I'm "definitely" considering MLS, Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez tells LA Times https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2019...ls-javier-chicharito-hernandez-tells-la-times Rumor: LAFC adding to Uruguayan contingent with Brian Lozano? https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2019/12/01/rumor-lafc-adding-uruguayan-contingent-brian-lozano
Not sure about the shoulder stripes, but the rest of it lines up with one of the new adidas 2020 templates.
https://theathletic.com/1424561/2019/12/02/how-wed-rewrite-mlss-maddeningly-complex-roster-rules/ For those of you with a subscription this is an excellent read. Love most of the ideas for what they like too see in the new CBA. -Salary Cap with spending floor at $9 million and ceiling at $20 million. -Get rid of TAM and GAM. -Keep three Dp's with each counting as two million toward cap -Total free agency These are the highlights of the article. I'm pretty much in the opinion that this is where the league is headed one day but don't think it will happen with this CBA. If they could just change the cap with a floor and a ceiling and still keep Dp's I think that would be a great start.
Do they say why they want to get rid of TAM and GAM? There is a tendency to see these as serving no purpose and just adding unnecessary complexity but that's a bad place to start from (Chesterton's fence and all). My expectation is that the rules they propose would dramatically alter the structure of rosters and significantly imbalance the league. Is that their goal? Do they think it wouldn't happen?
No, they address that. It is a long article (and worth the read), so it’s tough to quickly summarize the entire thing. In essence they argue that eliminating allocation money (and especially TAM) would allow for money to be “smoothed” out throughout the lineup. I happen to agree as it would give teams more freedom to fill out their roster as they please vs being forced to into a more top heavy roster. Here is their bullet point summary of the changes they suggest. I don’t have too many problems with any of this and I’d be happy as a clam if the new CBA looks anything like it. $9 million spending floor, $20 million spending ceiling. No more allocation money. Expand the maximum size of the first-team roster from 30 to 35. “Regular” roster of up to 25 players that count toward the salary budget. “Homegrown” roster of players that do not count toward the salary budget. No restriction on the number of homegrown players eligible to be signed, but the first-team roster would be capped at 35 eligible players. Up to three designated players that hit the budget at the maximum charge of $2 million apiece. Transfer and loan fees folded into budget charges. Maintain eight international slots. Institute full free agency. Let teams keep 100 percent of all earned transfer and loan fees. Eliminate discovery rights, the allocation process, etc. so that teams can compete with each other to sign players from other leagues. Eliminate homegrown territories. Raise the minimum salary.
Might be more fair to the players, but really doubtful it improves the quality of the product at all.
Well, in the near term, you still have the same domestic pool, so there’s only so much you can do, especially for teams that choose to spend near their suggested floor, which is pretty close to where the bottom spenders are now. However, if you introduce a $20 mln ceiling with a max $2 mln DP charge and maintain 3 slots as they suggest I could definitely see teams like LAG and TFC being able to improve their overall rosters pretty markedly. Especially their depth.
But the owners instituted TAM the way they did specifically because that wasn't their goal. I'm sure I could come up with any number of systems to achieve goals that aren't the league's actual goal too. I'd like to see a system developed that achieves the goals the league wants while making significant changes.
Well, the players are going to have at least some say in the matter and they have specifically called for the elimination of allocation funds and simplified roster rules, so, who knows, we might just see some of this. That said, simplified rules and more freedom of movement would definitely put some upward pressure on the wages, especially on roster spots 9-20 or so and you are right that the league would probably like to limit that. Anyway, I think you’re probably right that allocation money will remain in the next CBA. I’m still hoping it will be tweaked and we’ll see at least a few of these proposed changes like the elimination of homegrown territories and at least some of the transfer, homegrown roster, and player acquisition changes the authors suggest.
Does it mention where teams are going to get the money to pay for a cap up to $20 million and how MLS is going to keep some semblance of parity when the big market teams are spending twice that of the small market teams on non-DPs? i haven’t read the article, but based on the summary it sounds like another in a long line of “other people’s money” type article?
Total free agency? Teams compete to sign players? This is MLS. Single Entity. Designed to avoid bidding wars amongst its teams. Good luck with that one.
I think it is probably a bit high too, but their proposal would call for DPs to have a cap hit of $2 mln. So, if they were to sign 3, that would eat up $6 mln in cap space. That said, given that they do propose limiting the DP cap hit at all and also that HGs don’t count toward the cap (and further that HGs never count toward the cap as long as they are on the team) a $20 mln ceiling is probably pretty aggressive. Especially given that only two teams even approach that with DPs priced in the $5 to $7 mln range. I think $14 to $16 (with the $2 mln max cap hit for DPs) would be plenty. It would still give teams more flexibility, wouldn’t really limit big spending clubs like TFC and LAG and would still provide reasonable incentives for teams to invest in homegrown talent. That said, their argument is that research shows that parity doesn’t really break down until teams at the top are spending 250% or more than bottom spending teams. I’m not sure where they are getting that, but it is kinda born out by the fact that right now TFC is spending about 2.5 times what Houston is spending. BTW, the gap in between the biggest spenders in the top 4 European leagues is anywhere from 8 to 16 times. It’s even more than that in lesser leagues. All that said (however they do it) I’d love to see more flexibility and freedom for front offices along with first team wage investments increasing around 10 to 20% with regular increases over the life of the CBA. A 15% increase would see average payroll increase from around $11 mln per team to around $12.65 mln. If they absolutely have to keep allocation money, perhaps increase minimums, provide something like a 20 to 25% increase in the budget and tie increases in allocation budgets somehow to revenue increases as we are going to see a new TV contract in the middle of this CBA.