MLS and Players’ Union in CBA Negotiations

That's clearly not what he said.

I think Marshall's salary was a legacy of the time he started playing in MLS. In 2017 for instance, he was 33 and in the fourth year of a contract that was signed before TAM was a thing. Matt Hedges was making twice as much.

In general I agree that players being brought into the league tend to get paid more than league stalwarts. That goes for most companies too.

 

How many billion dollar big four franchises were there in 1995?

 

Chad Marshall had a very impressive MLS career. He also never played in a world cup match and only ever played in three world cup qualification matches. His highest transfermarkt value ever is $570k. To put that in persepctive, if NYCFC ranked their players based on transfermarkt values, Chad Marshall wouldn't make the gameday 18. So for whatever reason his high level of MLS play didn't translate into have a high transfer value or really being close to a regular national team player. If other teams aren't really interested in getting you, you won't make much money.

I don't think transfermarkt is gospel, but it puts numbers on things and is a useful baseline for assessing the desirability of different players.

When Ike Opara was 27 years old his transfermarkt value hadn't ever broken $300k. There are USL-C teams that have more valuable center backs. His transfermarkt value really spiked when he was 29 years old, and his current salary is $360k/year. In any sport "suddenly break out when you are 1 year away from 30" isn't going to be the ideal way to get paid.

Matt Hedges currently makes $575k and is a highly paid MLS defender. Steven Birnbaum makes $550k and is a highly paid MLS defender. I think every player but 1 or 2 who make more than Zusi/Besler came over on a free transfer and have salaries higher than would be expected since there was no transfer fee.

Because they have larger transfer fees? Aaron Long has a transfermarkt value of $3.99 million. So if you sign him to a four year $800k contract and pay the transfer fee, he is costing you $1.8 million a year, which is well, well above any of the defenders on your list. Every team would rather have Aaron Long on their roster than looking for scraps from Europe, but if you don't have Aaron Long, you need to get that player somehow. Either you throw a bunch of GAM/TAM at someone in MLS, or look abroad.

There are 9 international spots per team, and there are not 9 TAM players on every team. DPs and TAM players also get green card, making them domestic for the purposes of roster rules. The reason teams want to hire more foreign players is that they feel there are better options abroad than locally at a specific price point, which strongly suggests that domestic players are not underpaid compared to their international compatriots.

Dom Dwyer, who you believe is essentially a domestic player and has spent his professional career in MLS, makes $1.5 million a year. Do you think that he is underpaid and would have made more if he had gone to europe? Because I do not think he is underpaid. Julian Gressel is a very valuable player. Julian Gressel just signed a new contract that will increase his salary more than six-fold (to over $700k). His transfer is costing $1 million in MLS money, so it's likely he will cost DCU $1 million per year, which puts him near the top of the list you posted.

Brek Shea went abroad, to the Premier League, makes $225k/year. Going abroad didn't work wonders for him!

I have literally already stated on this page what my view of MLS salaries are.

So yes, I do believe that players would make more if there was no free agency, but I don't think that players who stay in MLS are significantly underpaid. What I disagreed with in your post was not that you said "MLS players would make more without free agency", but you said that they underpaid, and that the way to make more money is to go abroad and then come back. I simply do not believe that this is true, and Brek Shea/Josh Perez/a bunch of others have gone abroad and aren't making bank, while Dom Dwyer stayed in MLS and is making $1.5 million/year. It is true that highly paid players, especially defenders, tend to be old european players who come over on a free transfer, but that's because it's how the economics of acquiring players works, and doesn't mean that MLS is underpaying domestic players.

To get back to the CBA negotiations this thread is supposed to be about, there are two main sources of labor market friction in MLS right now that don't exist in some leagues. Players have much less freedom of movement within MLS, which will presumably lower the salaries of the players to some degree. There are also international roster spots, which prevents owners/MLS teams from bringing in as many foreign players as they would like, which is going to increase the salaries of domestic players. I could see the owners in the CBA trying to call it a wash by both giving players more freedom, but also making it easier to bring players in. I can't see them increasing the number of international spots, so the other factor holding owners back from bringing in players is transfer fees. If MLS wants to recalibrate a bit to be more focused on selling players, I could see them either exempting a young player from transfer fees, or giving teams a budget to buy younger players and not have it count against the cap. Anything which favors teams bringing in players from abroad will apply downwoard pressure on the value of domestic players, and could help the owners clawback salary "losses" they would incur due to free agency, while pushing the league in a direction they want to go.

 

I think he spent most of his pre-2017 career on the injured list.

Zusi made $688k in GC in 2019. How much is Michael Mancienne making?

 

Great stuff from McCarty on the #MLS CBA negotiations incl, “Obviously, we're still far apart on a few different issues, but to me, where we were at last negotiation and where we are in this negotiation is a lot more positive.” https://t.co/Y4bTPkJDoB

— MLS Box-To-Box (@MLS_Box2Box) January 24, 2020

McCarty provides a pretty good update on where things stand. Nothing real new, but things sound relatively positive.

 

Shea only played 21 games in 2012 for FC Dallas due to injury, and Stoke still payed £2.5 million for him. He struggled in 2013 with fitness following surgery. He was unlucky.

I definitely wouldn't use Shea as a poster boy for Americans struggling abroad.

 

Not sure if this was posted, but I thought it was pretty clever

...is that a charter flight? 🧐 https://t.co/k97GAWpzp5

— MLSPA (@MLSPA) January 23, 2020

 

That makes it even less likely that a team is going to give him a huge salary for a good season or two.

Again, this has a lot to do with how they got to where they are. When Mancienne joined MLS he had a transfer value of $1.43 million and came on a free transfer. MLS is spending more on players and (presumably) buying better players every year. This means players need to come from outside of the league, and is why they have TAM. But if you get a player whose play on the field dictates a $500k salary and they are under contract and 22 you are going to pay a lot in transfer fees. If they are 30 and on a free transfer you just give them $800k for two years and it could easily be the most cost effective way of getting a player.

In writing this I learned that apparently MLS free agency doesn't exist for players whose salaries could qualify for DP in both the years before and after they would become a free agents, which I didn't know before. https://www.thebluetestament.com/20...zas-unique-contract-situation-sporting-kc-mls Graham Zusi was making $782k/year in 2018, which is $100k more than in 2019. My position is that US players are not, on a whole, particularly underpaid in MLS, but at the same time the lack of free agency for many MLS players does hold down their salaries from what they would be if free agency existed. But this is probably especially acute for someone like Graham Zusi, who, as a player in his early 30s who was drafted by SKC over a decade ago, probably doesn't want to move abroad (and has stated he wants to stay in KC), and thus free agency would likely be more beneficial to him than someone who is 22.

I really hope they players get this taken out, and at least cut free agency down to 5-6 years in the league, and available for everyone no questions asked.

 

Remember that both Besler and Zusi's salaries have increased 5-fold since they were 25, so they can't be too unhappy with the current CBA.

No doubt this is at least partially related to both having made their professional debuts at 23.

Today's top players are making their debuts at 17 or 18, and so their peak years and peak salaries will last a lot longer (plus with longer careers they'll have a greater opportunity to play overseas).

 

Didn't say it was. But instead pointing the weakness of his argument. Take Andrew Gutman. Chicago didn't want to pay him what he wanted. So instead of him being able to sign with other clubs his only options to play first division foot were to either sign with Chicago or leave the country. It is not as if other teams wouldn't have loved to sign him or didn't rate him. Cincinnati paid Chicago $200K after he left. Since he was able to sign with Celtic it appears he had a European passport. Most players are so lucky and as such MLS screws them as much as possible.

Sure other leagues will try to pay players as little is possible. The difference is that with single entity MLS controls the price for the entire country. So yes the there is a reason MLS and European teams are raiding Argentina. Sure those teams would love to have more money an retain their stars. But they are not screwing Argentinian players so they can pay outsiders more like MLS.

I didn't claim the screwing US players was a recent thing. Even back in 2012 Darren ODea and Richard Eckersley both made more the Marshall ever did (as did Marquez and Demerit - but at least you could argue some type of marketing value for the latter). Single entity was set up to limit salaries from day one. Since foreign players with established leagues have dozens if not hundreds of first divisions options, it is pretty obvious to anyone with a modicum of economic knowledge which players get impacted the most. I'm not sure why you are arguing against the obvious.

 

You conflate the inability to make an offer based on the how the league was set up with lack of interest. When a large number of informed people say the Marshall was the best defender in the history of the league, you can bet there would have been a large amount of interest. There is a reason why transfermarkt is nothing more than a bunch of fans opinions.

For as long as MLS has been in existence people that didn't understand how single entity impacted salaries and didn't understand the backroom ways in which players actually get signed would argue MLS players were paid poorly because they were no good. Given the relatively small amount of players and the fact there were often marketing reasons for higher pay, it was harder to prove the uninformed were wrong. But with data sets like Optima, whoscored and a large amount foreign players in the league. It is clear as day.

International spots are set by the USSF. While MLS owners are in general in control of the USSF (I could paraphrase from a friend who explained in great detail the voting blocks) they cannot just arbitrarily change the rules for D1 soccer in the US. The players and youth blocks would push back.

 

I don't believe Gutman has an EU passport. The rules are a lot more relaxed in Scotland than England.

 

Joint statement with MLS on the status of CBA negotiations: pic.twitter.com/jmrwINBBkq

— MLSPA (@MLSPA) January 30, 2020

 

Lots of Twitter comments about poor MLS players earning as little as $56k.

But then an 18 year-old home-grown MLS player on the fringe of the first-team roster, is earning at least $56k more than the average 18 year-old football or basketball player.

 

Yes you can't compare them. Ben Mines is 19 years-old and making $57k plus expenses. That doesn't happen in NBA and NFL. I wonder what the average salary for a 23 year-old MLS player is.

 

But my point is that even at 19 year-old soccer player is far better off financially than his peers. So when people complain about the MLS minimum salary you have to put it in context.

The average basic salary of Atlanta United players aged 23 and above last season was $466,596.80. The median was exactly $300,000.00.

14/18 players over 23 made over $100k,10/18 of the players over 23 made more than $200k.

 

A vast number of 18/19 year old basketball and football players on scholarships, 85 for football, 13 for baseball in Division 1. Soccer has what, 11?

Sure, not a CBA issue, but relevant to comparing opportunities across the sports.

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...wages-40000-a-year-jurgen-klopp-a7358886.html

Yes, that talks about players that are typically under 17, but it isn't like even fringe youth players in leagues like the EPL necessarily make a whole ton more than some MLS youth players. Yes, they are more likely to give them a pay rise to above what an MLS player makes but the pay scale for a team like Liverpool is much different than MLS teams.

In Italy you have Sampdoria paying a 24 year old GK that came through their youth ranks 80k and an 18 year old Brazilian they bought this year the same. Parma has a 22 year old on 40k and a 19 year old forward on 80k. Torino has a 19 year old on 30k and another on 50k. The idea that teams in Europe universally pay big money for young players is really silly. I know that you were specifically talking domestic leagues but the overwhelming majority of people think that MLS vastly underpays young domestic talent and that really isn't true. Problem is people look at somewhere like England almost exclusively when they talk about these things.

 

And from what we've heard, the minimum salary doesn't seem to be a sticking point in the negotiations.

 

Marcus Rashford was making just under $100k a year when he was playing in United's first team.

Since then he's got a slight bump to just under $4 million.

 

Silly line of questioning since the CBA is about pay for playing soccer not comparing that to other professions. Nor does it make sense to pick an arbitrary age where the pay is materially different rather than a career. The amount of money paid to 18 year old soccer players is surely much higher than that of 18 year neurosurgeons, but I doubt very many people suggest playing soccer is a more lucrative career than neurosurgery.

But to respond to your question here is what it was in 2018. Of the 68 records in 2018 whoscored data (including duplicated records like Edwards who shows up under for in game for both Chicago and Montreal) that were listed as age 23, the 48 that showed up (about 1 in 4 MPLA 2018 records require effort I'm not willing to do to match spelling etc) made an average of $168K less whatever their agent gets plus some league bonuses for things like appearances and goals. The high being Gruezo at $731k.