Saturday 8 Dec 2018

Finally, MLS a selling league! Wasn't the tune different before about selling players?

And I don't know how I feel about having more teams. Are they going to 32 or 40? That will be like 2 or even 3 leagues in 1 compared to other countries.

 

Garber makes good points. Personally , I'm not sure if the return on the academies will be sustainable in the future. What MLS clubs should do is work with other local academies and possibly pay them some fees. Sooner or later owners are going to look at the thing and decide, this is costing us $100 million so where is the return? Will we keep selling players to keep it running?

If that is the case and then we are developing players for other leagues to utilize and profit off of. This kind of defeats the initial purpose or premise. As it is, Christian Pulisic and Josh Sargent weren't even on MLS teams and they both came from local academies. Tyler Adams and Alphonso Davies aren't 20 years old yet and are both off to Germany. That is great for them and their careers but I don't see how this helps MLS clubs in the long run.

 

The land mass of the contiguous US is nearly twice Km² of the EU (8.080 to 4.239). The EU has 6.7% of the world population while the US has 4.3%. The US has more metro areas over both 2 million and 1 million people than the EU.

For reference, St. Louis would be the 3rd biggest metro in England, just ahead of Manchester. We're not sure if St. Louis will even make the cut for MLS.

The idea of limiting a US soccer league to the 18-20 of most European countries, or even the 28-32 of most US leagues, was never realistic. The idea of a league the size of the EPL in an area almost twice the size of the EU would never make sense.

 

http://www.espn.com/soccer/united-s...tions-jordan-morris-contract-what-has-he-done

Although I tend to agree that Morris hasn't earned his contract, Johnson sure sounds bitter in retirement. The league today is different then when Johnson was a player, and his crying foul, seems to only undermine his point, of him really wishing he got paid and sad that players now are.... just jealousy....

plus... I find his implying race an interesting addition to his sour grapes.

 

What was the race reference? But yeah, that was some rant(s).

 

I must admit that Morris' contract makes no sense. He really hasn't proved himself yet to be at that level. I can understand why that era of players [Johnson, Twellman, etc...] feel they were jobbed by the league.

 

He straight up says "I can tell you more stories that are similar with the minorities in this league. How you get a Mil a year with no World Cup under your belt and never played in Europe coming off a ACL injury #staywoke #weallwegot"

And part of the confusion is that nobody running around saying Morris is getting 1 mil a year has actually dug into his contract.

The contract appears to be heavily incentive based and even team friendly for the first couple years according to the guys who run S@H.

 

Just imagine what they would be getting paid if they were starting in the league now and were getting similar numbers...

 

What makes you think the return on academies won’t be sustainable as opposed to the rest of the world? (besides England where academy players rarely make it to the first team)

 

The rest of the word is a completely different place and much unlike the USA and Canada. I can't speak for England but if its anything like Italy when I lived there, I can't imagine how owners would want to continue spending money on the youth teams if they don't see the return. First of all, most players are loaned and sold to other teams for substantial transfer fees after they turn 19. I don't think that happens here. If anything, I don't see much of a market for youth players, other than maybe trading them for a draft pick. Traveling to different towns is also very light and many players make minimal salaries if any and are allowed to attend regular , public school while training for the youth teams. Very few players make it to the first team as you said and spending $100 million a year on youth teams, especially in most parts of Europe today, is just not feasible in the long run. Heck Palermo , a perennial Serie A franchise in the last 15 years was just sold for €10 Euro last week as it was €22 million in debt. To think their owner would spend $100 million on their youth team is ludicrous. If anything, he will have spent that money on potential (senior team) players as opposed to wasting it on the youth team. Now this is not talking about the top teams like Juventus, Inter , Milan or Roma but everyone else simply can't sustain such losses. I'm assuming the same is said for most clubs across Europe with the exception of the biggies. I'm pretty sure the situation is even worse throughout Latin America.

 

Missed that part on first read.

 

Well, almost all of the guys who played in the early years of MLS were underpaid. Sure, Donadoni made $1m/year and Campos had a big contract and Alexi Lalas made a ton of money off endorsements, but almost all the rank-and-file guys made considerably under $100,000. You can argue that was what the market would bear, and most of these guys were unknown, but no one was in it for the money.

Now that things are a lot better for player salaries, and in 10-20 years players will make even more, the one thing I hope is that the guys who are making serious coin will give back through the players union and set up a pension plan for the early pioneers. The guys who made $24,000 a year and drove a beater and lived with a host family for a couple of years before moving on to a "real" job at age 28.

I recall the current NBA players union rejected a motion to give bigger pensions to the pioneers in the league, guys who played in the 50s and 60s who are now quite old and never made much money. Disgraceful! These millionaires owe their existence and good fortune to the guys who came before them. I hope future MLS players will do the right thing.

 

That I get, but there are other issues, mainly that the number of trophies to go around is basically fixed. So more teams means more uncompetitive teams. We've moved beyond the question of whether you can sell soccer to most cities in this country, but can you sell losing soccer?

 

I don’t think Donadoni was making a million. He may have been through sponsors and endorsements but not on his MLS contract. Then again it’s not like any of us really knew or know how much these players are actually making. I mean yeah the league says it’s transparent in showing ya their salary cap figures but somehow , I don’t believe they are the actual numbers.

 

MLS is no longer a "parity league" like it was when the draft meant something. The talent gap between the better teams and the bottom feeders has gotten to the point where teams like the Fire, Rapids, Revs, and Quakes are going to have a very, very hard time catching up. And now that the league has separated into "haves" and "have-nots", the best players out of South America will only want to go to the better teams.

 

Actually he was. I had quite a few off the record conversations with various agents in those days, and more than one said it was the case. He only counted for $175,000 on the cap. Those guys were DPs before there was such a thing, but the league is way, way more transparent now than it used to be.

 

Yeah I thought so. MLS said he wasn't but I had a feeling he was. My friend Fabio Petruzzi was an average defender at the time for Roma and he was making $500,000 plus endorsements for making the UEFA Cup and the Italian Cup so I have to assume Donadoni, a national team player was being paid at least that if not more. I knew then he wouldn't go to MLS for peanuts.

 

If it's a style that's actually worth watching, which more and more teams are becoming, then sure it's something you can sell. Relegation would just make it worse on teams doing poorly.

 

Chicago and San Jose made the playoffs in 2017 and New England missed by 1 spot. That's 3 of your 4 "have-nots" being good just 1 season ago.

Colorado finished 2nd in the West in 2016.

We've had 6 straight different teams win the MLS Cup. It absolutely is a parity league, you just have to run your franchise well.

 

Colorado also has less points this decade than any other team, and if you include expansion teams from the year they started this decade they have less points than them too. One good year doesn't erase that the Rapids have been a disaster of a franchise since about 3 days after MLS Cup 2010.

 

SMH I have no patience for race talk like this. The league now is not comparable to the league when EJ was here. A lot has changed. Teams weren't paying $150 to enter then. The stuff he is talking about happened a DECADE ago.
His slavery comment is the most sad and ridiculous comment. To compare himself making hundreds of thousands of dollars and free medical care by his teams to people who were beaten, raped, killed, tortured and forced to labor in brutal conditions, and not free to leave if they wanted...
He needs to be called out big time for this.

Also, he says "took my country to a world cup"...??????? what? So i guess the other players and staff on the team did nothing. What a crazy comment.

 

What did those one-year wonders in a sea of misery in New England and Colorado have in common? Here's a hint: He used to carry around big stick. I think he called it "The Club of Death."

 

Did Teddy take a DP slot?

 

The league has change a freaking lot since those guys played. I bet Dr. J made less than MJ. I mean the league is bringing in way more money and isn't on the brink of collapse. The current salaries cannot be compared to what these guys were making. Things change.
Teams are now paying $150 million plus building hundred million dollar stadiums. Of course salaries are going to go up as the league matures. That is what the players fight for every CBA.
Anybody comparing today's MLS to a decade ago has lost their marbles.