Salary Cap Discussion

Winning is a zero sum game. So having good teams creates poor ones. The reason for why you are puzzled is because don't seem to grasp the implications of MLS being completely opposite of Europe in league structure. In Europe the clubs are largely independent in the way the operate. Eibor and Huesca owners views don't impact how Barcelona and Real Madrid are run. In Europe poorly run clubs are dropped from the league. In contrast MLS is a collective where all clubs have the same vote and you keep your seat whether it is a well run club or whether it is run like the Rapids.

Since MLS is a collective, like other American Sports teams are not stratified like Europe. So one question being posed is whether you want MLS to look more like Eibor and Huesca or whether you want it to look more like Madrid and Barcelona. The overwhelming amount of fans prefer the latter. As JasonMa's posts demonstrate, there are also fans that argue for the former.

Now another question posed by Triplet and others is whether MLS should be highly stratified like Europe. Triplet has made some good arguments in his thread that MLS not only would be better doing so, but will be forced to do so if it wants reach its goals. Other fans of big Euro clubs agree as most people prefer watching clubs. My view is that the league would be best off eventually going to multiple tiers (league 1 and 2) but I think we are years away before those discussions become truly viable.

 

Clearly we're never going to see eye to eye here, but I just want to make a specific point.

You're complaining that as a "cost-saving" measure the Rapids hired, a guy who is in their Gallery of Honor, the U.S. Soccer Hall of Fame, has over 100 National Team caps, played in multiple World Cups, played in Liga MX, and has actively been coaching youth soccer in the area for years, as an Academy coach for U-14s, just because he was already employed as their announcer and somehow having him do both jobs looks "cheap"?

That doesn't seem, at all, a ridiculous point to you?

 

Well this is a ridiculously simplified take on the debate. In no way do I not want us to look like Barcelona or only just Eibor. And I think most people who align with my side of the debate would say the same. What we don't want is a league that looks like La Liga where you have 3-4 Barcelonas and 15 Eibors due to a league structure that allows money and not skill to be the primary driver of success. If the cost of that means it takes longer for any team to get to Barcelona level, but all teams get there together (or, more accurately, the spread between the top team and the bottom team is a reasonable gap and not the chasm of many European leagues) that's a cost I'm willing to pay.

 

The crew are an interesting case. They had the leagues worst ownership group at a time when the league was still not fully mature and as a result were able to obtain and retain a superior coach. The odds of something similar happening are getting longer by the year. The impact of injuries and the intrinsic randomness of soccer create both negative (Toronto) and positive (Crew) surprises each year, but the league is becoming more stratified.

From everything I can see the new Crew ownership wants to build a good product. Unlike bottom feeders like Kroenke and Kraft they are investing in top notch front office personnel and appear to want to build a good product. Whether they are successful or not on the field will depend on the vagaries of soccer, but from everything I've seen they will be a successful franchise.

 

I've been in that stadium many times. One of the issues is that is it as hot as hell. Neither the fans nor the players are going to be anywhere near as frenetic as those in more temperament environments. Not saying that it can't be done as Orlando isn't a picnic, but that almost every time I was in that stadium, I was paying attention to where the shadows were.

Simple questions but complicated answers. A big part of what you are seeing is due to decisions by the owners.
1) The Hunt's have never really effectively marketed the sport (When they operated KC - it almost invariably the worst attendance in the league).
2) You can't simply go by distance. Going to KC was a drive, but everything is spread out and it was an easy drive. Going 7 miles in LA or Chicago can easily take an hour. Dallas is somewhat between those extremes.
3) Hunt's have largely marketed to suburban fans and are located in wealthy, quickly growing enclave in a state where football is king.
From what I've read on the board's several moves to the suburbs have alienated them from some of their minority fans. There are a ton of Hispanic kids playing soccer in Dallas, but for whatever reason, they are not Dallas fans. They don't sign big names. They don't seem to do much advertising. So they get support, but not passionate support.

 

This is crux of our discussions. You follow the sport. You are a smart guy and you make good points. But you only see individual points and are not aware of the patterns the individual points make.

 

Your position would be fair if it mirrored reality, but it does not. MLS is not a few top heavy teams but a diverse league where most want to move forward and a rapidly decreasing amount that don't. The question is whether you keep the rest of the league tethered to a few anchors or whether you allow the rest of the league to move forward and leave the few anchors behind. Look at the teams playing at the end of the season - KC, Portland, Red Bulls didn't win on their wallets. Heck even Precourt's could still win.

Basically you know you are stuck with one of the leagues worst owners and as such you don't want to be one of the 3 Eibors in a league teams that want to move in the direction of Barcelonas. So you'd rather have league where everyone is an Eibor. Hopefully that ship has sailed. Columbus owners have clearly indicated they are no Precourts. So my suggestion to you would be to stop defending Kraft's of the league and instead get your fellow supporters to start pushing your owner to follow the rest of the league or sell.

 

No, I just see your individual points don't build a case for your big picture. They're a poor foundation to base your argument on.

I realize nobody will believe this because I am a Rapids fan, but I would feel the same way if I were a LAFC or ATL fan. To switch sports to the best analogy I can give you, as a fan of Washington, I worry about CFB splitting into have and have-nots even more so than it is now, even though Washington would almost certainly be among the haves in a league of any real size. Leaving Cal behind isn't a recipe for long-term success of the whole sport.

 

My basis leans towards utility - what tends tends to create the most value overall. I can accept and understand those that value the needs of those with the least. There are many with these values the live outside of Colorado. If you'd rather see the sport in US dropped to the least common denominator so no existing franchise gets left behind that is not unreasonable. However, if the US were structured like Europe, Colorado probably would spend most of their time in the second tier so it is not unreasonable for many people to feel this drives your bias.

What is not consistent is making an argument for Kraft as they should be top 10 and he has plenty resources to make it happen. I'm also waiting for your defense of having an auditor act as the TD? Is that part of the some plan other than running the franchise as cheap as the league will allow?

 

I'm not familiar enough with the Boston market to know what's reasonable to expect the Revs to support. Kraft should support up to the point where the investment makes sense (which I don't believe he's done in recent years). But that doesn't mean he's in a place to compete with TFC or ATL. But again I don't know the market, maybe he should be.

My defense was that he had no less, and possibly more, relevant experience than a number of successful TD's in the league when they got their jobs. Until he fails or succeeds we won't know if it was a good move. Early results weren't promising but the moves this offseason suggest someone who can learn from his mistakes (which, again, is rarer than it should be in sports in general).

The issue I have with your POV is that you seem to believe its only possible to succeed if you spend money. There's no "good" option that involves not spending the most you can to get the best you can. It seems like in your opinion taking a different strategy that might not be the most expensive one can not work, its just guaranteed failure. I don't believe that for a second. Just because some less flashy strategies have been failures doesn't mean all of those strategies are.

 

If it was on, I'd probably watch. I'd hate myself, but I would watch it. Hell, I watch the German 3rd all the time and this would be a huge step up. I know Carl Zeiss Jena and Halle much better than I should.
That said, the problem i see emerging in this discussion is that one side is saying they'd like to see MLS become an equal to the UEFA CL, where the weak sides are equivlant to clubs such as Ajax, but gosh durnit they do a nice job developing the kids...
As a fan of the league, I can say I would very much enjoy that.
I do not think anyone is saying that would suck.
What we are saying is that in this reality, such a jump in quality is not a matter of moving from F to D, but more like from S to A, or S to ~. If we unleash Atlanta, they don't become the equals of Barca by 2020. If they managed it well, they could become the equals of Cardiff. But who would be their Huesca?
What makes MLS different is parity. It's nice to watch a Colorado or Chicago side just about top the table, then with the same squad come out and fall on their face. It's a sign that the margins are very, very slim, and that is quite different from the rest of the world and is one of the things that makes MLS an intriguing league to follow. Unleash the top clubs, and they become mediocre giants in world footie, and why not just watch the Bmunchers romp to another title (you have no idea how fun it is that they're all the way back in 2nd place at the pause!)
But yeah, we can all agree that it would be nice is the bottom teams who seem rooted there (but aren't) got quite a bit smarter. For instance, wouldn't be nice if Orlando actually made a rivalry out of their rivalty with Atlanta? It would be great if every side was above average, but that may not be how the notion of average works.

 

Would you watch Levante vs Legañes?

Or Herta vs Wender Bremer?

Or New Castle vs West Ham?

I used to watch La Liga a lot (no Bein Sports anymore) I do wonder if La Liga would be better if they had 20 Real Sociedad teams over having the big 2/3 and then 5/6 "mediocre" teams then 5/7 not so good teams, with about 7-8 bad teams.


In many ways a Barca vs Huesca game is fun (Specially you are a Barcelona fan, not so much if you are a Hueca fan).

In other ways a Levante vs Leganes game can be fun.

I am not sure what "neutral" fans would prefer.


I like Barcelona, so I see Eleven Bravo point, but I am also a Chicago Fire fan and well that is like being a Huesca fan, so that would not be so fun.

 

First an apology for not responding sooner. I don't typcially throw in a random post and then walk.

Second, this is an amazingly thoughtful, dare I say intellecutual, thread. Let's hope that the people who earn their living in MLS are putting as much brainpower into it.

Third, an observation - that here in the US pro sports seem to thrive when they can have their cake and eat it too. One or to dominant and attractive clubs (LA Lakers, Boston Celtics, New England Patriots, NY Yankees, LA Galaxy (just kidding)), and a parity-based structure and playoff system that encourages the fans of other clubs to dream that they can knock off the big club and win a championship.

 

Long term, when the league is settled and not expanding/changing every year, I hope we see the budget blown apart or modified in some way. My concern is actually less about parity these days than it used to be (though my dear SKC would get left behind in a league where raw spending could overpower smart management).

I'm more thinking about new clubs, new ownerships, new academies hitting the scene. A lot of current rules very heavily favor HG players and young domestics. I think this level of incentive is important as the league is fully establishing itself. New teams and existing teams alike need to be fully and intensely incentivized to build, establish, maintain, and grow academy programs. That's more important for the domestic game as well as the national team. Both of those succeeding also means we can achieve a decent status as a selling league (a necessary step in the path to being a top league--having talent that can impact the world stage). Blowing off salary caps and spending limits means we lose a lot of the momentum to develop, right at a time when it's finally starting to stick.

Yeah, it would be great to have the top talent in the world here. Super neat. But jumping from here to there is unhealthy, unsustainable, and would ally all the top leagues around the world against us. Europe tends to mock MLS for a number of reasons, but my assumption the primary reason is the fear that we'll spend like Americans and suddenly be this upstart taking their favorite things away. I'd rather watch this country truly establish its value in the international soccer community beyond just being able to throw dollars around to do what we want.

 

Really good post. Though, to be fair, no one thinks of the US these days when they think of big spenders. Those are Russians, Saudis, Emeratees, and we're just on the cusp of Chinese. Fenway is doing a really nice job at Liverpool and might be changing the dynamic some, but most folks over here associate US ownership of a soccer team with the Glasers, Kroenke, Lerner, Kaplan and instead of thinking big spender think funding counts (but they consistently misspell it).

 

My POV is based on a similar belief to Anshutz. I looked at the demographics, the growth of soccer participation in country, the wealth of the country and saw a great opportunity. But taking advantage of that requires investment. Liewke understood this better than anyone and thank goodness for the league the LA, Toronto and the rest of the league followed him rather than Kraft and Kroenke. Now to your point, not everyone agreed. In the road from here to there, Triplet1, who is clearly a savvy well informed guy at one point argued for taking profits because he questioned the ability to successfully compete and to some extent he still does. He brought many good points, but since he was up Northern part of the country I don't think he really understood how entrenched the sport has become within certain parts of the country. He still could be right about the long term, but that is not the way I'd bet. Then again he does have the nitwits in the soccer house seemingly doing everything they can to undermine the sport.

The fact that you don't realize New England has huge potential speaks to your lack of understanding of the sports side of the business. If you look at Forbes list of top sports franchises 3 of the top 30 in the world are in the Boston market and Boston is also one of the top markets in the NHL. Mass had one of the largest registration of youth soccer in the US (at the turn of the decade the USYS registration in Mass was about 200,000 as compared to 300,000 in California). New England were league leaders in attendance in the beginning of the league. Despite Kraft skimping on everything to the point of the Patriot fawning press calling him the worst owner in the league, they still make money have decent attendance. If Liewke were running the club instead of Kraft I believe they'd be averaging over 30K at this point at a minimum and possibly be up there with Seattle and Atlanta. What you don't realize is that it is really easy to running business on the cheap. Cost are known and thus cutting costs will provide a certain return. Growing something requires risk but the rewards are multiples higher. Just like most will not understand statistics and QA issue like you, few fans will really understand how the business works.

 

Two different discussions. Salary cap create ensures a level of parity that doesn't exist in Europe. But even within a hard cap league like NFL some clubs are well run and other are not. So some clubs are consistently good and others are not. I'm certainly not advocating against a reasonable level of parity (though not necessarily to the level of NFL) which combined with the relatively high level of randomness inherent in the sport will keep it interesting.

What is at issue is there is division within MLS ownership between the non-spenders like Colorado and New England and the majority of owners that believe clubs need to invest to grow the league. A compromise between the two groups has been things like DP and discretionary TAM. Since soccer is largely a weak link sport (meaning the relative weakest players on the field impact the results more than the strongest, cheaply run clubs could compete quite successfully (Colorado were champions in 2010 and New England were in the finals in 2014). However now that the league spending has expanded to the point where the big spending clubs no longer have create weak links in order to bring in high quality top end players, the league is starting to stratify. Some like JasonMa suggest the way to solve the problem is to knee cap the teams that want to grow. Many other suggest instead the way forward is let the growing majority of the clubs continue to move the league forward to the point that under capitalized or unwilling owners Kraft and Kroenke are forced to bring on partners or sell. Watch what happens to the Crew when this happens.

 

No apology necessary as people post for entertainment not for there living. I'm probably worse than you anyway as I typically post multiple posts when I have some time. Also the people that run MLS are extremely smart business people who do an incredible job of cat herding needed to move a diverse group of super rich typeA's forward.

 

This is two diffrerent discussions. I admit I thought this had become a side issue to this thread, but it might be some other thread. One quibble, Colorado and Chicago actually do spend money. The clubs, however, are not well run and aren't competitive and therefore they don't bring in revenue matching expectations or other clubs. IO realize the argument has been made that the money they spend is foused on a couple players, and this is a good point, but whatever the source of the money, they are spending it, which tells us they are willing to spend money. Sadly it also tells us they don't have the right team building plan in place.
As an example, SKC is a small market for MLS, but it brings in something like the 8th highest revenue. That's a well run club. Chicago is a big three market with bottom 10 revenue, and forbes notes that it loses more money per year than any team outside of NYCFC. Denver may simply be too small to host yet another succesful pro sports club.
Even so, all of the bottom clubs outside of the Revs do have soccer specific stadiums. In 2005, this would have been seen as a miracle, but was also part of a "if you build it..." philosophy in MLS, which is now proving not to be true.
Do you really think Denver and Chicago, NE and then I guess SJ will be Chivased? I think they get at least a bit more time before that's even considered. Every sport league has poorly run clubs.

 

It is?

 

Stop right there. There's a difference between me saying "I'm not sure what's reasonable" in Boston and not realizing there's potential there. I don't speak to specifics without the factual data to back it up. So you can take your "holier-than-thou" attitude about what I do or don't understand and leave if that's going to be your response. My point was simply this. Saying that NE should be a top 10 team just because Kraft is rich is the wrong way to look at building a sustainable league. Boston is the 9th largest metro area in the league (10th once Miami joins), so saying they should be top 10 is probably fair. Saying they should be much more than that though? You're going to need to show why New England should be significantly bigger than Dallas or Philly.

This, thank you.

 

Apparently, fans also want their clubs to win a game now and then. Houton, Dallas, Colorado, Chicago and Columbus all had soccer specific stadiums in 2018, and averaged between3000 and 5000 empty seats per game.

 

So the writers of a 1989 movie starring Kevin Costner were wrong.

I think MLS stadium ownership was more about controlling costs and maximising sponsorship and game day revenue.