News: Adidas extends Major League Soccer sponsorship for 6 years, $700 million

This is why people who thought the players should have been wasting what limited negotiating leverage they had to increase the salary cap didn't have a clue. The owners themselves were going to raise what the spent on players far in excess of what the players themselves could negotiate. Instead they were smart to get their toes in the door for free agency as well as negotiate the minimum to as high as possible.

Also anyone that thought LigaMx would be ahead of MLS for all that much longer also didn't realize what had already happened and what will very likely happen in the future. Soccer is more a weak link pulling everyone down than a star bringing everyone up. In the prior 5 years, the weak links were causing MLS teams to lose games. In the past year or two, the issue had as much or more to do with timing of games between the two than talent. At this point MLS is going to start bringing in even more top end talent than LigaMX and filling in the rest of the field with comparable if not superior talent. MLS already has a much more attractive environment and for many teams, already have more value.

 

Exactly. The owners will continue to drive spending up. It's the MLSPU's job to make sure all the players benefit.

Quibble: There is no "Salary Cap". MLS has a "Salary Budget" plus other spending mechanisms - but I know what you meant.

 

Just wait until the Players numbers come out. Galaxy have 2 current national team players from Mexico, 3 from US, 1 from Belgium and still are able to have Alessandrini, Pedro, Cole, Boateng and Rodgers on their roster. A few years ago you would be lucky to have 4 at their salaries on the team. Next year they might even be able to bring Gonzales back.

 

They make less money, but they don't necessarily perform worse. It becomes a concern if they are not good enough to hold their own on the field.

 

You've been uncharacteristically clueless about this from day 1. If they were concerned about that they would be screaming about all the GAM and TAM coming in. I haven't read or heard of a single complaint about owners paying a lot more for wages. Can you point to one? Instead the big complaint is paying higher wages to foreign players that perform worse on the field.

 

MLS has also suffered from the fact that our best teams don't always play in the CCL, Instead it's been the best team from the season before. Things change quickly in MLS, just look at Chicago and Colorado.

 

I'm thinking Atlanta did OK as well - anyone have an idea of how OK in terms of $$?

 

Even worse, because amount allocated to salaries was much more static, players on the best teams deserved more money so a lot of times teams were broken up after the cup to pay people. LA for example was forced to drop key cogs including Magee, Junihio, Sarvas, Gonzo and others each year to stay cap compliant and allow those players to get increases pay they deserved. As a result MLS teams like the Galaxy would go into competition with key players missing from the season before. Related to that was the fact that to win the MLS final you only needed to be hot at the end of the season. So a lot of teams would bring in reinforcements mid-season.

 

I don't think MLS has suffered from that in the least. Doing poorly in the CCL and the CCC before it has had almost no effect on MLS whatsoever.

It has provided ammunition for people who are predisposed to find something wrong with MLS, but MLS - itself - is pretty much unaffected by the CCL.

 

http://m.startribune.com/phones-a-bell-and-ol-xe9-ol-xe9-there-s-another-kind-of-soccer-training-at-the-blaine-sports-center/440225403/?section=/

Nice article on MLS sales program run in Blaine, MN.

 

Maybe I have been, I have been looking at it from a US sport/union mentality, and from my experience with employees in general.

From my experience I have rarely, if ever (?), met an employee who did not think they were worth more, or who wanted more..........ever. Even when those were not worth more, using industry median, they sure as hell all thought they were and wanted a hell of a lot more.

Now, in our bigger sports markets, they are the cream of the crop worldwide for the most part (hockey loses a few to Sweden and Russia), so they have no real comp to threaten there demands. In MLS there are a lot of threats.....this is why I have always been so leery. From our other sport markets, and from my own personal industry experience, I have simply always seen/dealt with people who value themselves highly. Maybe I am letting that cloud my thought process here, as the situations are very different, as you pointed out.

I just assume the old, I am worth more battle cry, but if the union and it's members are able to be this pragmatic then I am impressed. Hard thing to do and I salute leadership if that is the case.

Coming from u I am very willing to relook at it and take off the habitual glasses I probably have on. Still.........human nature is a strong pull for me. When the money and security wasn't there it made sense, but there is some real cash there now.

 

I think this is basically correct. The owners clearly want to pump more money into the league and even if the players can push for a short term boost with CBA negotiations it would probably only cancel out planned increases in following years. Players should focus on things like travel and free agency.

This may be a bridge too far for me. There is some good top end talent in LigaMX, and they really do seem to spend $12-15 million pretty well. A team like CD Cruz Azul doesn't have a single player with a €3.5 million transfermarkt value (https://www.transfermarkt.com/cd-cruz-azul/startseite/verein/3711/saison_id/2016) but their top 11 are all above €1.8 million and they have 22 players with values above €1 million. For MLS, most teams have between 3 and 7 players with transfermarkt values of €1 million or more (I think 7 is the most I saw). Some LigaMX teams have TAM-equivalent players who don't make the game day roster, and it will be a little while before teams have 18+ players making $500k/year.

This is true for most teams in most leagues. In any league with a salary cap (including NFL/NBA) teams who win championships find it hard to hold onto players. Teams that are better than the other teams typically have undervalued players, who will want more money once their contract is up. Even in soccer leagues, if a team suddenly overperforms their surprisng players get plucked by bigger teams. This isn't something that can be fixed, really. If they increase it 10-15% per year maybe players can be resigned, but other teams will be signing newer, better players, and in 2-3 years, when the salary budget is 30-40 higher, these resigned players might not be above average?

 

Hispanics can be white and hispanic at the same time. One, hispanic, is an ethnicity, and the other, white, is a race.

 

I wish they'd use "ethnic-European" instead of "white" but we shouldn't get into that.

 

I think you are right about the owners wanting to pump more money into the league and I'm sure that improving/increasing free agency will be a top priority for the players. However, if I'm the players, my biggest priority would be completely untying transfer costs from the salary budget (including allocation funds and the DP calculation), completely removing the league from covering/receiving transfer fees, allowing teams to keep all transfer fees, and allowing players to receive a portion of the transfer fees (as is the case just about every other league). I think such a move would create a number of positive benefits for the players and would also help significantly improve the overall quality of the league over time. It would also really signal that the league is truly serious about becoming one of the best in the world. Obviously, this would also have to go hand in hand with the league completely ceding roster control to the teams (which they appear to have mostly done anyway).

 

It's almost like people in Latin America may have ancestors from the Americas, Europe, Africa, and even Asia! Remarkable!


(My main area of study as an undergraduate was Latin America, so basic mistakes annoy me to no end. Especially when made by people who congratulate themselves on their correct thinking; it's easier to be patient with honest ignorance.)

 

I'm one of those and I don't care... well in Latin america we are about 90% mixed race. The Full gamut of shades in our skin.

 

Serious question. What race or ethnicity do Central and South Americans who don't speak Spanish or Portuguese as their first language count as?

 

Indio is their racial group, though almost all will identify with a specific tribe or historical group rather than under such a broad heading. But classifying them as ethnically Hispanic or Latino can make sense.

Unless you mean immigrants from elsewhere. I wouldn't call a first-generation Chinese immigrant to Chile Hispanic. (Their children or grandchildren would be, even if they're still genetically fully Han, Szechuan, or of other Chinese extraction.) I've met Mexican-Americans descended entirely from British ancestors, for example.

 

I mean specifically people from Belize, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.

 

I really don't know . I never studied ethnicities in those countries/territories.

 

"Worth" is an interesting word. Basically you are "worth" what someone will pay. If you know an employee has no option, you are going to pay what you can negotiate not what intrinsic value they provide you. If you know that same employee has an option to leave to your competitor you are going to pay more. If you know the productivity of your firm is going to take a hit because the guys without leverage are going to create problems because of frustrations with discrepancies in pay with those that do, you are going to increase their pay to get them productive again. The latter is why a lot of domestic MLS players are suddenly worth a whole lot more than they were a few years ago.

 

I pretty much discount the "transfermarkt" values as a measure of quality with regard to US based players. Take for example Jonathon Lewis. Here is the #3 pick of the draft, someone that NYCFC paid $250 GAM - (much more valuable than cash), a 20 year old that has worked his way in the starting line-up and his "transfermarkt" value is $50K.

But Mexico and other leagues aren't on Salary caps. If Seattle were in Mexico, after winning the cup they could buy what they could afford, which is a heck of a lot more than the MLS allotted amount of spending. Instead, they have to fit under the same cap as teams like New England - save for the amount of their three highest wage earners. So when teams in MLS win, it creates much bigger issues that others don't face.

 

As a favor to me, please use "salary budget" instead of "salary cap". While I think most people around here know what you mean, it seems to confuse the general public.

 

Its seems small but I always hear fans and people from other leagues say MLS cap is only about 4 million. People hear cap and they just think limit. We really should start adapting the verbiage "Budget" as most in the soccer community will understand that its a revolving figure.

Most MLS teams have "salary budgets" of 7 to 7.5 million. The top 7 teams are anywhere in the range of 10-22 million, the bottom teams are spending around 5 million. However when I'm googling or see comments in articles you always hear/see salary cap of 3-4 milion. If we all become accustomed to using the salary budget term, most writers who source big soccer and other soccer info will educate themselves and use the term when the write on the league.