CBA Thread IV: I Must Break You

You hate rich people, hate Americas, and hate America's strand of capitalism. Ergo players should get more money and free agency?

 

popular stereotype? you understand that while no single individual taken in isolation my be judged by a stereotype that stereotypes themselves are not created at random or without any basis in reality?

i agree that it is a sweeping statement but it is surely not an uneducated one. i was born and lived most of my life in america with a few brief and wonderful sojourns in europe. and america is rife with ignorance and greed and nationalistic hubris all of which are essential elements in the degradation of our nation in particular and civilization in general. because luckily (or unluckily depending on your perspective) we are very good at exporting our particular brand of "american exceptionalism" throughout the world.

 

uh. no. i am pretty sure while my predisposed sentiments towards the rich, america and corporate capitalism influence my opinion on this subject my original intention in making the statements was to illustrate how i found it confusing that I, even as somebody who questions these principles, find the lack of them in a moderated form in the structure and effective operation of the MLS and it's "teams" to be unsettling and others, apparently more predisposed to be either accepting or a fan of these principles, do not. it seemed an odd juxtaposition to me is all.

 

Enough. Why didn't I do this days ago?

*plonk*

 

Fair enough. I hear more of a personal critique about capitalism as a whole and less about MLS in contrast to capitalism.

 

A. It's run that way because it's a tried and tested sports model that generally works in the US and promotes something other leagues round the world have lost: parity. It also safeguards the league against what happened to the NASL.

B. The lower ratings alone don't speak favourably. The facts that last season saw record (albeit still not earthshattering) ratings for an MLS Playoff Game (LA vs Houston), the league is seeing more and more soccer-specific stadia built, more and more 'name' players arriving and increasing revenue suggests that actually, it is favourable. In Europe the signing of Beckham to a Finnish team would have largely increased revenues mainly for that team, with perhaps a marginal uplift for the others. Due to single-entity, the uplift in merchandise sales and attendances benefitted everybody significantly.

C. Not entirely sure what you're babbling about, but your suggestions simply can't be implemented the way you suggest for various reasons.

 

was kind of hoping someone would swoop in and rescue me with that info, but no - I just lifted it off another post here in bigsoccer and took away the old pre-contraction side. You can find the chart in various places by looking up a term like 'operator' in search, but a quick glance at a few different places it was posted didn't reveal the source document.

 

Like I said...I'm not going to derail this thread.

 

these forums do have a tendency to go a bit afield from time to time.


also on the USMNT v El Salvador game they just reported that Abbott has again made a statement late this afternoon reiterating that the league will not lock out the players and will start the season under the old CBA while they continue to work to reach a new CBA.

for what that's worth.

 

Reading his last few posts, I'm actually very sorry I engaged OleGunnar20 for so long.

The guy dislikes the league and the teams in it, and the country in which is stands, and yet has plenty of suggestions on how we can all "fix it" so he will approve. Unbelievable.

My apologies to the actual MLS supporters herein for letting his rantings get so much space in this thread.

 

A. how much enforced parity is too much parity? i think that is probably an individual preference. my preference is for less and thus i am only a casual observer of MLS and not a "fan".

B. you pointed to "lower ratings than poker" as support for your argument that the current model is the best and immutable. it is also possible that the ratings could be used to argue the current model needs to evolve. there is an argument for both sides.

C. you were saying what i prefer has no bearing on the league and how it can/should run. and while that is true for me individually it is not true of "the fans" in general. so my point was it is important what the fans actually do prefer and i suspect that i am not the only one with my particular preferences. and you are making quite an assumption that the league "cannot" operate in any other way. you are an expert? an I/O? the discussion isn't even worth having? you are a Calvinist and all things are predetermined by fate and thus there is no reason to question or think about alternatives to things in MLS and how it is run?

 

http://bocc.jocogov.org/dist3/Documents/KCSoccerFinalReport.pdf

It's on page 32 of the pdf file.

 

dislikes and not an avid fan of are not the same thing. dislikes some of the way the league functions and dislikes the entire concept of the league are not the same thing either.

i am a casual observer and have an interest in so far as i have an interest in all soccer and in particular regards to how the MLS can and does effect the development of talent in america and how that effects the USMNT.

and so because i raise questions and have not drank the kool-aid i am therefore unable to have an opinion? it is not a valuable question to ask whether or not the MLS might acheive the same or better results with a still S-E system that was a bit less MLS HQ centric and a bit more MLS Club centric? i think that would be a valuable question and interesting discussion for anybody to have no matter which side one comes down on.

 

ok. this is even more fascinating than the Portland HSV one. i keep looking at these proposals and seeing that the teams are expected to generate 1M to 3M in profits (according to both reports) with only averaging a 12K attendance. i just don't see how this ins't doable for every team in the league. again, caveat, each team's stadium/revenue situation is different. but these two reports seem to show that making a profit with an MLS team is far from a Herculean impossibility.

especially interesting is the following breakdown of youth soccer participation by metropolitan area:

does this bode well for NASL sides AC St Louis and NSC Minnesota Stars as candidates for the 20th expansion city after Montreal?

 

I made it fairly clear in my last post, not sure why you didn't see it.

 

A couple things to keep in mind when reading these documents

1) They're sales fliers. They're designed to give public officials cover when they decide to allocate public resources into building/upgrading stadiums for professional sports

2) MLS teams have shown an ability to draw 12k - but as has been pointed out, that doesn't mean they all get 12k paid attendance. These studies all assume that the tickets are all paid for.

These studies aren't meant to be completely deceptive - and there is a lot of good info, but they do require critical reading.

 

Here's your chance.

Why do you say the league is "screwing over" the players?

As I have pointed out, I'm pretty much on the players' side here. I'm receptive to hearing a clear, well-reasoned post that I can agree with.

 

also interesting from the KC report:

who says robert kraft is a cheapskate...

 

oh. i get it ... but it still is interesting. they seem to use very conservative averages/input numbers to make their predictions. it just gives another interesting perspective on how profitable mls clubs can be/are/might be (take your pick) even given some very conservative input assumptions.

this kc report is even more interesting than the Portland one ... it has lots of really good soccer/mls demographics in addition to just revenue/expense models.

 

This list is incomplete (perhaps there's a better version elsewhere), but this is what you get for 2009 with the numbers given:

Code:

[B]	Salary	Guaranteed
CHV	1803977	1895018
KCW	1806322	1961572
RSL	1828575	2060397
DAL	2023035	2323508
COL	2039729	2227871
SJE	2044455	2150101
HOU	2156258	2278195
NER	2247343	2397093
CLB	2607130	2935463
DCU	2699750	2904964
TOR	2709370	3118348
SEA	3087404	3270904
NYR	3176575	3564688
CHI	4613878	5053798
LAG	8119372	9313286[/B]

 

The deal for Beckham was potentially worth $250m, however, he is only guaranteed ~$5m in salary each year. The rest is all marketing, likeness rights, share of ticket sales, jersey sales, etc.

The $200m stadium was built by Red Bull, with their own money. That was not built or funded by the MLS. I believe RB has been pushing for additional DP slots and a higher cap. You should be patting them on the back.

Garber's raise, he deserves it, he's done a hell of a job for the owners.

I'm on the players side here an think they should be able to move between teams in the league freely, however, the crap you post is wrong and horribly annoying.

Find some facts or new thoughts to argue with, otherwise go troll in a different thread...

 

And it leaves out any salary of traded players teams are picking up. So at best, 2 of 15 teams might have been at 2 million or less, based on an incomplete list. Meanwhile the average and median, are both significantly above that.

And Jess, "about" does not mean +/- 20%

And you still claimed MLS is paying Beckham $250 million, which they aren't.

 

will there be an open vote for a title for Thread V?

are there any early nominations?

 

The Empire STRIKES Back?

 

yup and i'm also one injury away from not being able to work in my current job too. Thats just a fact of life. However, just like an MLS player, I can retrain go back to school, etc to continue in a new career and still live a normal life

if you are talking about worth to the league, then yes the average MLS player is only worth 10% of their EPL counterpart. A better comparison would be to find the average salary of the bottom 12 Championship clubs and top 12 League One clubs, that is about the average talent level in the MLS. Maybe just the League One numbers, I don't think any single MLS team could hang in the CCC.

Everytime you say beckhams $250m, you just sound like a moron. Many have stated that the majority of that deal is marketing, jersey, etc. However, he is worth every penny of his ~$5m salary each season.

A final point for the other leagues you are comparing the MLS to. Those leagues (outside of the AFL and WNBA) are the cream of the crop, best of the best, top of the line players. They have also all been around for many decades and don't operate in a Single Entity structure. The MLS is a 14yr old league, your comaprisons are not fair at all, which complete invalidates them. Notice how low the AFL and WNBA salaries are, they are either 2nd/3rd rate players (AFL) in a 2nd/3rd rate league or in a very young league that doesn't have a solid foundation (WNBA).