Don't get me wrong, as I love your enthusiasm, but how, pray tell, will the average MLS salary rise to that level when currently the last place EPL side gets as much media revenue as MLS as a league?
Actually the Eagles have been NFL Champions three times. They just have never been Super Bowl champions. WHICH IS WHAT I'VE HAVE HEARD ALL MY LIFE!! BUT NOT ANYMORE. I still think it's a fair criticism as it was for the Eagles.
2016/2017 EPL salaries have 5 team below $50million Euros. The bottom team, Hull is at 27 million Euros. http://financefootball.com/2016/11/08/premier-league-clubs-salaries-2016-2017/ 2017 TFC spent $23 million. https://www.denverpost.com/2017/04/25/mls-team-payrolls-2017/ MLS median was about $7 million, about 10% of EPL median of 75 million Euros (depending on exchange rate. In 2017, the exchange rate was about 1.1EURO PER $.
Back when I bet on soccer a lot, I made more money on MLS than any other league, by a long shot. There were different reasons for that, but MLS' parity is actually a benefit to bettors. Greater predictability, at least in soccer, tends to favor the bookmakers.
Rapids draftee Brian Iloski signs with Legia Warsaw http://macedonianfootball.com/american-macedonian-joins-legia/
You missed plenty. The "f the local connection" is a red herring, because having a well-capitalised owner serves the local interest. The ideal owner is one who is fulfilling a dream by owning a club; what's more, it is someone whose livelihood does not depend on his club being profitable, and so who is willing to spend whatever it takes to be competitive. And, in the case of England, there definitely are enough rich wanna-be owners to own all teams. Currently these people are deterred by (spurious) issues regarding "character". But their participation would be desireable, regardless of any issues of so-called "character". I as a Chelsea fan am perfectly aware that Abramovich is a criminal who participated in the seizing of a formerly public asset; but that doesn't stop me from enjoying the heck out of him as an owner. The fans of all other clubs should have this experience. Will every club have Chelsea-like success? Of course not; somebody's got to finish at the bottom of the table. But with properly capitalised ownership, all teams would have a legitimate shot at the title, and there would be no more entrenched elite tier. And, on the question of whether all teams will make money: the answer to that is also no. But that is the another advantage of having super-rich owners: they can subsidise their teams from their outside wealth. UEFA has unwisely brought in rules that prohibit this; instead, they should have rules that encourage this. The application of this approach in MLS is a little different, on account the league's single-entity structure. But, as the league matures on the trajectory of allowing the teams to spend ever more freely, the teams with the better ownerships (meaning: the ownerships that are most willing and most able to spend) will have an advantage. This will create the incentive for the teams with weaker ownerships to sell to richer people. And, as the prestige of the league grows, there will appear even in this country a set of super-rich people who want to run a club as a fulfillment of a dream. These people should be welcomed with open arms into MLS as investor-operators. The basic point is that to be against the participation in the sport of the richest possible ownership is nonsensical.
You're literally advocating for a model that demands all/most owners lose money even if their team is a perennial loser. And that fans feel the same passion for a team that is merely the plaything of some rich guy. This is arguably the most absurd thing I've read on this board, and I've been in the many P/R threads. At least we agree that Chelsea's owner is a criminal.
If every owner spent competitively, then no team would be a perennial loser. All those teams that have become accustomed to being content with avoiding relegation would go into each season having a realistic shot at winning the league. A wider range of teams would get in on Champions League play, which would reinforce the incentive to spend as a means to attain that reward. The rabid support enjoyed by Chelsea, Man United, Man City, Liverpool, and Arsenal proves that rich ownership is no barrier to passion. (Not that Arsenal spend any money. But that is a policy decision, not a matter of their being unable to spend.) So this is in fact the most sensible thing that you have read here. The idea that the model owner is a total douchebag is very instructive. Please remember that owners are not people whom one is meant to like or respect. Their vanity and ego and enormous wealth are being harnessed in order to benefit fans of a club (and the sport in general). These people are simply objects whom we as fans exploit in order to fund our passion. This is a healthy and appropriate relationship.
There are a limited number of mega-billionaires interested in owning a soccer team with no prospect of generating a profit. Many of those people already have one. And few are interested in having a contender who rarely actually wins championships. If anything, six major EPL teams seems artificially high and unlikely to be sustained.
There are in fact hundreds upon hundreds of such people. At present they are deterred from owning clubs in England by rules that restrict who may be in football ownership, rules that disqualify people with criminal convictions, people who have had bankruptcy in the past, or people whose wealth is just deemed somehow shady. Get rid of these rules, and you'd see tech billionaires and music-industry moguls rushing into football ownership, each one eager to outdo the rest with his prestige prize. If and when one of these super-rich dudes loses interest, there will be plenty who are eager to take his place. I am not talking about small-time lemonade-stand operators such as the type who ruined the USFL by getting in over their heads and being unable to withstand the ongoing costs. I am referring to the super-rich. Not allowing people of obscene wealth to own clubs is just cheating the fans of teams outside the current elite. Chelsea and Man City have set the correct example; both of them went from mid-table mediocrity to dominant power thanks to great owners. It remains to be seen whether the powers that be will be smart enough to allow this example to be followed.
This is great and all except you're forgetting the farce that is UEFA's Financial Fairplay. Which is designed specifically to PREVENT what you are advocating. It's sole purpose is to prevent more PSG's, Man City's and Chelsea's from happening again. It's designed with the sole intent to keep the traditional big clubs big, and the small clubs small. Oh, the fans of Malaga and Anzhi Machachkala (sp?)say hello!
You can also achieve that through a salary cap, without making the industry a money loser. Dubious, because at the moment CL funding and the increased funds made available through such global exposure (sponsorships, tours...) allows a select number of clubs to maintain a level of financial advantage. There was incentive for Abromovich and Mansour because the amount of teams competing for Top 4 was small, yet still cost them more than $1B each. Now for someone to come along and try the same would likely cost more because you're having to outspend 4-6 teams instead of 2-3. Which means that, yes, there will be perennial losers. Because every time a Leicester or Southampton tries to step up there will be someone richer or more celebrated trying to further entrench themselves who will counter every move made by the next would-be usurper. So while a free-for-all system allows the possibility of anyone buying their way to the top, the logistics of it make it more a mirage due to the other moving parts that are outside the control of the team trying to make a move. Which is why a salary cap oriented model will almost assuredly yield more of the balanced opportunity than a wild west model. I politely, but vehemently, disagree. I could care less about ego. Abromovich may well be a likeable guy for all I know. What I do know is he and others became overnight billionaires at the expense of the Russian people through a process that reinforced a corrupt political construct. So all that money he's spent on Chelsea is akin to blood money in my eyes. We obviously aren't going to agree on this so for my part I'll end here. Cheers.
A salary cap amounts to theft from the players. Considering my political ideology, I am a very strange person to be defending markets; but, when it comes to labour, workers in any field ought to be able to command whatever pay the market will bear. Furthermore, the industry cannot be a money loser, because a downturn in revenue would simply lead to a reduction in the salaries offered. So there's no reason to artificially limit what players can earn. They'll earn whatever the owners can afford to pay them, given the profitiability of the clubs at any given moment. A select number of clubs; but not necessarily the same clubs constantly. There's no reason to doubt that the set of winning clubs would change over time as more and more start spending competitively. (Elaborated below.) You describe the conditions correctly, yet come to an invalid conclusion. It's true that future big-spenders would have a tougher time than Abramovich and Mansour did. But, if you think this through, you'll see that the result as more super-rich owners come on board would be greater competition. Whereas Chelsea and Man City were able to dominate, future big-money owners would be evening the field out. In other words: when everyone is spending like Chelsea and Man City, then Chelsea and Man City no longer have the advantage, and anyone can win. Well, at least you ended on a point of agreement. The corrupt process that enriched Abramovich and other oligarchs at the expense of the Soviet (not only Russian) people is heinous; and the description of Abramovich's wealth as "blood money" is spot-on. (But let's remember that all wealth is equally dirty, and that there is no morally sound way to get rich.)
I offer this thought only to clarify my reasoning: Sporting leagues are insular markets, with unique co-dependencies among the teams. For me the free market rules are more about league vs league in capturing fans and viewers rather than, say, Milan vs Sampdoria because teams within a league are part of the same broader product, and as part of a competition you want as much fairness and balance as possible. The likes of Man U and Madrid are only as big as they are because they have leagues to win, otherwise it turns into a Harlem Globetrotters scenario or diluted, top-heavy situations like the Scottish Premiership. The strength of any competition is based on the depth and balance thereof, and if we're both contending the ideal is a scenario where a team/teams can't entrench themselves then arguably the best mechanism to manage that is by ensuring every team has as close to comparable resources as possible. I'm not suggesting it has to be a flat, hard cap, but certainly something to limit the ability of a giant to simply apply unlimited outside resources to spend their way to the title. This is why we differ on conclusions - I'm not seeing Wigan's or Malaga's resources simply as an independent entity but rather as part of 20 piece puzzles for their respective leagues, each with only one trophy to go around. So while you liken a salary cap as stealing money from the players, I see the absence of such as players and teams stealing money from the fans or from outside operations. The clubs may be individual brands, but they're market is special and is wholly defined by their league. Thus, my perspective will always come from the angle of "What will make the playing field the most balanced?" Just so you caught my gist. Cheers.