Do we have an unofficial deadline before the lack of agreement would impact the upcoming season? Are the respective parties meeting today or did they take the holiday off?
Bedoya said that MLSPA already submitted proposals to MLS owners deemed "very reasonable and we feel strongly about" February 29th seems to be the deadline. No news yet as of now if they're meeting today. https://www.angelsonparade.com/2020...-been-very-reasonable-philadelphia-union-2020
I just have a lurking sense that the players want to cancel some games just as a show of force if nothing else. There's a bunch of longtime players who know good and well that the value of the league has exploded on the backs of their labor, and that it is committed to being major league in every regard except how they, specifically, are compensated. And like, they're 1000% right and I get it. It is undeniably true that they have designed a growth machine carefully calibrated to give Robert Kraft billions and Jeff Larentowicz nothing. I will wholeheartedly support the players in any labor action. But they're going to lose, and they should think about their exit strategy carefully. MLS ownership will end soccer in this country before they will risk the Le'Veon Bell's of the world getting access to the real money.
There's no true deadline until they set a deadline, since they can choose to play without a new CBA. They have to actually conduct a vote to strike.
I am curious what made you think this? I am not saying you are wrong - I have no idea - but from my limited vantage things seemed more antagonistic in 2015 when they were doing this, and NYCFC and Orlando were both kicking off in front of 70,000 fans, a new TV deal was starting, so it really seemed like the players had more leverage. But I fully support the players and hope the are successful in getting their demands. Does anyone have solid evidence that MLS underpays players? In theory, independent of other factors, there should be significant labor market friction if the best way to increase your salary is to move abroad, and this friction could be used to hold down salaries. But there is another significant factor at play, and that is international roster spots. They seem to be worth between $50-$150k in GAM/TAM, depending on the transactions. I would imagine that international competition for signing players scales with their salaries, such that a domestic player whose free market value is $150k doesn't have a bunch of suitors, whereas someone who is worth $1 million does. So the more you make, the harder it would be for MLS to hold your salary down. And for international players, using up a roster spot for a TAM/DP is no big deal. Or maybe you sign a young guy who will blossom into a TAM level player, or sell them later on. The people the International Roster Spots really protect are the mid/low tier veterans. If you are going to sign a random role player for $150-$200k, like Jeff Larentowicz, then signing someone who isn't domestic will actually cost you an extra $50k for the roster spot, and that is between 1/3rd and 1/4th of their salary. And really the fact that international roster spots hold value and are all used strongly suggests that teams would have more international players - players they buy on the open market - if they could. If MLS was really good at holding domestic wages down there should be a preference for domestic players, and that doesn't seem to be the case. Julian Gressel, who is not a free agent, recently moved to DC United and saw his salary go from $143k/year to over $700k/year. If players think they aren't being paid what they are worth they can just not sign a contract and leave on a free transfer. There are also benefits for having happy players who don't feel like they are taken advantage of.
Just a vibe from the quotes I've seen. I might be completely wrong. A structure that very carefully denies them the opportunity to create multiple bidders for their services. You aren't wrong about the international slot stuff, but let's not lose the forest for the trees here. Controlling the salaries of the rank and file domestic player pool has been the north star of MLS rules from the very inception of the idea of the league.
I fully agree with this, and I think there should be no draft, no discovery rights, no homegrown player territories, any player can sign with any team at any time, with no restrictions. I do also think that aside from saving a few bucks, not letting the players have free agency is also a way for teams to have better control over where players work, making it easier to plan out rosters into the future. I think I would describe my opinion of player salaries as "Domestic MLS players make less than they would if they had free agency. But they are probably not underpaid internationally, because their salaries are boosted by the restrictions on bringing new players in the league". I would guess for many players the problems with (the lack of) free agency has less to do with money and more to do with controlling where you live/work. And one last point is that keeping domestic player salaries lower than they would be with free agency doesn't really save the owners money, it just allows them to spend a larger percentage of the salary budget on other players, presumably increasing league quality. Significantly increasing charter flights is a different story.
That would be after the first round of the CONCACAF champions league. I assume MLS clubs would forfeit (and get a fine); that would be a bummer.
Very much depends on the player. If you are have easy access to EU market, you are earning what the market will pay. But if you are like many US, Canadian, Caribbean players or if you have a spouse, girl friend or family tied to US MLS will use the fact that it (not individual teams within MLS) is your only option to pay domestic players at a much lower level than foreign players for the same level of performance. This is the opposite of what your analysis would expect since there is an additional cost of $75K T/GAM to sign a player without a green card, not to mention additional expenses for Visa, moving, scouting, plus additional risks of players (or their families) not adapting to the culture. Do a search and you will see posts of analysis of goals, keepers and defenders where this is so obvious even fools won't try to debate. Much easier to do if you have a German passport like Gressel and your agent can negotiate with any team the EPL, Championship, La Liga, League Un, or Serie A without restriction etc. Far more difficult if you can't. I think you would guess wrong. Without a doubt being able to have some say in where you work is important. But if all 30 teams were bidding to sign proven domestic players rather than having their pay set by the league, you'd no longer see drastic differences in pay between domestic players that returned from outside the league to those that never, left. So if you get a Mercedes for the price of the Ford you are not saving money since you will use the savings to buy something else. You have an interesting concept of finance.
Then how do you explain every single international slot being used, and them being worth $50k+? If MLS teams are able to underpay players compared to what they would get on the international market, you would expect the league to be dominated by domestic players, yet that pretty clearly isn't the case. Teams would sign more foreign players if they could, and are only limited by restrictions put in place by MLS. If your company gives you $100 for dinner and you order a cheaper entree and spend more money on drinks, your company isn't saving any money. I know the english system has restrictions, and going to an english speaking country is going to be easier for most americans, but plenty of middling US players have gone abroad without a passport. Germany/Belgium/Holland are all happy to sign US players. I don't know the specifics of each system, but that's where the players tend to go. Is there a drastic pay difference? Joshua Perez went to Fiorentina, came back to the US and makes....$75k a year. Keaton Parks is a promising defensive midfielder whose transfermarkt value is over $2 million. Returned to MLS after playing in europe and makes... $165k/year. Fanendo Adi made $1.9 million a year, Dom Dwyer makes $1.5 million a year. Gyasi Zardes makes $1.37 million/year, and BWP makes $1.3 million. If you look through MLS Salaries, it really doesn't appear that a bunch of americans are coming back and making more than those who stayed in MLS. https://mlsplayers.org/resources/salary-guide Bradley/Altidore are obviously overpaid, but they are outliers.
Picking out a few random points of data is useless. By this point most people understand how MLS owners have used single entity to underpay the local talent in the region. Unfortunately I don't think you understand what is going on and don't feel like going through the effort to learn. But I have a few minutes to kill so I'll re-post one of the things I suggested you search to help you and maybe you can answer your own questions. Here are the top 30 defenders per whoscored data in 2018 by rating (1 being low - note this excludes players under 1000 minutes in order to ignore back-ups or young players that might have had a good game): PlayerAgeCountry Total Compensation RankGraham Zusi 32USA 782,102 19Mohammed El-Mounir 26Libya 192,833 22Maxime Chanot 28Luxembourg 408,000 38Walker Zimmerman 25USA 235,000 39Michael Murillo 22Panama 88,754 48Bacary Sagna 35France 525,000 59Aaron Long 26USA 73,125 61Kemar Lawrence 26Jamaica 255,600 62Ike Opara 29USA 342,917 66Tim Parker 25USA 115,935 67Keegan Rosenberry 24USA 120,763 72Edgar Castillo 32USA 129,996 83Larrys Mabiala 31DR Congo 793,333 84Rod Fanni 36France 1,225,000 86Reggie Cannon 20USA 67,500 98Matt Hedges 28USA 525,004 99 Auro 22Brazil 272,504 101Steven Birnbaum 27USA 525,004 104Leandro Pirez 26Argentina 685,004 108Nick Lima 23USA 100,200 109Chad Marshall 34USA 341,250 113Anton Tinnerholm 27Sweden 434,925 118Matt Besler 31USA 783,250 119Lamine Sane 31Senegal 855,000 122Alvas Powell 24Jamaica 241,625 124Jonathan Mensah 28Ghana 868,996 125Alexander Callens 26Peru 564,000 145Jorge Villafana 29USA 617,500 153Francisco Calvo 26Costa Rica 522,600 161Michael Ciani 34France 620,000 175 Here are the top 30 by salary PlayerAgeCountry Total Compensation RankMichael Mancienne 30England 1,370,268 208Rod Fanni 36France 1,225,000 86Jorgen Skjelvik 27Norway 1,000,000 405Andreu Fontas 28Spain 1,000,000 343Claude Dielna 30France 909,861 238Jonathan Mensah 28Ghana 868,996 125Lamine Sane 31Senegal 855,000 122Gregory Van Der Wiel 30Netherlands 835,000 317Reto Ziegler 32Switzerland 800,000 278Larrys Mabiala 31DR Congo 793,333 84Matt Besler 31USA 783,250 119Graham Zusi 32USA 782,102 19Marcelo Silva 29Uruguay 726,625 225Ashley Cole 37England 722,500 253Liam Ridgewell 34England 700,000 265Rudy Camacho 27France 699,153 383Leandro Pirez 26Argentina 685,004 108Roman Torres 32Panama 645,000 517Tommy Smith 28New Zealand 640,000 270Jonathan Spector 32USA 636,942 473Kim Kee-Hee 29Korea Republic 632,004 199Michael Ciani 34France 620,000 175Jorge Villafana 29USA 617,500 153Kendall Waston 30Costa Rica 604,167 178Johan Kappelhof 28Netherlands 595,000 302Kelvin Leerdam 28Netherlands 575,000 231Brad Smith 24Australia 564,365 521Alexander Callens 26Peru 564,000 145Chris Mavinga 27DR Congo 563,333 309Guram Kashia 31Georgia 550,000 206 See if you can find the pattern. If you do, see if you can come up with a good hypothesis that explains the pattern.
The only pattern I see is that the Red Bulls are getting an amazing amount value out of their back line.
The plan is to have these franchises be billion-dollar assets in the future. Controlled labor costs being a critical part of that.
Always appreciate the condescension. I am going to guess you don't do research for a living, so as someone who does you should really think more deeply about your data sources. If you were to list the top 10 highest paid Brazilian players, and the 10 highest paid Canadian players, you could easily say that Brazilians are overpaid and Canadians are underpaid. That's what the data says, right? Well, no. Sure, the numbers for Brazil are higher, but you need to consider that the 10 best Brazilians are much, much better at soccer than the 10 best Canadians (or Americans). Numbers are just numbers and need context. In the NFL some teams try to load up on second round picks. Early first round draft picks actually get paid a lot, but second round picks have a significantly lower salary, but you still have a decent chance of finding a good player. You build your team through the draft and not free agency. Why? Because free agents tend to be proven, and if you want a good player you are going to pay a high wage. If you need to plug a whole with a proven commodity, you pay for free agents, but you build through picking up cheaper younger players. If you look the salaries of soccer players before and after being transferred into a big 5 league, you would come to the conclusion that every single other league in the world is hugely underpaying their players. Porto? Underpays. Brazilian leagues? Argentina? Underpays. MLS? underpays. DeAndre Yedlin made $92k his last season in MLS, now makes over $2 million post tax. The obvious answer is that in any given year, some players improve dramatically and will be paid much less in that year than their value (or until their contract ends or they sign a new deal). This is true for every single sports league, including those that have free agency. You play well, you sign a new contract, you get a pay raise. You can try to sign a bunch of prospects, loan them out, and let the ones which succeed play with the team. Chelsea does this a lot. But MLS has limited roster size, and transfer fees count against the cap, so you can't simply sign 5 inexpensive prospects at each position and hope for the best. Some less heralded players will do well, and then get raises. Others won't and will be out of the league. If you want to compete for the supporters shield and need to upgrade a position, it may require that you get a proven player, and that is going to cost money. From your list, from just last year, Aaron Long went from $73k to $800k in guaranteed salary. Tim Parker went from $115k to $752k in salary. They weren't heralded, they played very well, and now they are making good money. Graham Zusi and Matt Besler are both near the top, yet have never come close to having the transfermarkt values of Gregory Van Der Wiel or Lamine Sane. Stayed in MLS and still got paid. And to get even more technical, many of the highest paid defenders came over on free transfers, so their salaries are almost certainly higher than they would be if they needed a transfer fee. But sure, Reggie Cannon is 21 years old and makes $80k a year. You could point to this and say he is underpaid, or I could point to how much he will make next year and say he isn't, he's just young and has really outplayed his contract. The fact that international spots are all taken and have value means that MLS wants to have more international players than they currently do, which means that they believe that at a certain salary they can get better players from abroad than they can domestically. Maybe the people who are in charge of MLS are all wrong and you are correct, but I'm skeptical. What would be convincing data that players who stay in MLS are underpaid? You would need to control for talent level, age, and contract status. Take players who have had similar career trajectories (transfermarkt is probably the most quantitative easily accessible source), and then have signed contracts at similar times, and show that players who stay in MLS are paid significantly less than those who have gone abroad.
I get what you are saying. But his presentation of the whoscored data is an attempt to control for talent. I think you are off a bit there. 14/30 top defenders by that metric are from the USA, yet 4/30 of the top paid defenders are. Now, if you want to argue paychecks are a lagging indicator of talent (and it is), then that is a better argument. Though only 3 of those top 30 USA defenders (out of 14) are under 25 (Cannon, Lima, Rosenberry). And I think only 1/30 of the top 30 best paid were under 25. Not a huge discrepancy of underpaid youngsters. Though I'd note the top preformers have more in the 25-26 range and the top earners are overwhelmingly 27+.
But you would expect that a larger percentage of the top rated defenders are american because with current MLS roster rules, you can bounce americans between USL/MLS teams (Aaron Long played in USL as recently as 2016). If 5% of low level players significantly exceed expectations, and you have 200 americans bouncing around the lower tiers (or getting drafted) and 30 foreigners, you would expect to have many more surprisingly good americans, who will appear to be underpaid. On the list he posted, which is, again, just one year old, from my count 10 of the 30 players were making less than $250k a year, and are the most likely candidates for "underpaid". Of that ten Zimmerman went from $235k to $600k. Long went from $73k to $800k, Parker went from $115k to $752k, and all of whom would have made the list for 30 highest paid. Michael Murillo transferred out of MLS, Reggie Cannon is certain to get paid later this year. I would guess in another year or two most of the other people making less than $250k will see a significant salary bump. If you want to argue that Zimmerman, Long, and Parker are all currently underpaid I would be interested in hearing that argument (I don't actually know the answer), but this really seems to be the system working as it would in any other league. It is also worth noting that the specific argument was that players who stay see a significant pay cut compared to those who leave. There are two american defenders who are 32/33 years old. They have 36/47 caps. One joined the league from abroad in 2017, and the other is a lifelong MLS player. Their transfermarkt values in Dec 2017 were $1.04/1.13 million. Their career trajectories are about as close as you can get. And Jonathan Spector made $636k while Matt Bessler made $783k. This is obviously one data point, but I cant think of a better example. And I think this is entirely true. But this isn't just true in MLS or even just soccer, this is generally true in sports. Next year there will be young players who surprise us, who end up in the top 30 in whoscored and will be underpaid 24-26 year olds. And then a few years after that they will be well paid 30 year olds.
There are only 8 soccer clubs in the world worth $2 billion+ and I suspect the Glazers are the only owners who have ever made $billions from owning one.
So you are saying teams from Brazil and Argentina bring in inferior guys from Europe at much higher salaries than when they could sign much cheaper, younger, better players from their own country? I find the pretty surprising but I really don't have good salary information from those leagues. Chad Marshall is widely considered the best CB in the history of the league. Even, the year before he retired one young attacker surprisingly named him the most difficult defender he had to play against. Yet despite being so good for so long he never made $400K a year. Why are consistent proven performers (who have been through many several contracts) like Opara, Hedges, Birnbaum, Marshall making a fraction of what European guys that cycled through the league get. If teams were free to sign top defenders in their prime, why would they be paying over the hill foreign players more money instead? The reason international spots have the value they do is because the league gave the teams a huge bucket of money to sign foreign players. The value of funny money (GAM/TAM) used to pay foreign players the market rate is worth a small fraction of getting an underpaid domestic player. Look how much money of that is was traded for the likes of Nagbe, Gressel, Dwyer (who for all intents and purposes has become domestic now that he's married). Most middle school kids understand that if you only have one person to sell to, you are not going to get a very good price. I'm not sure why you are going to such lengths to pretend this isn't the case.