You picked 2 teams in the top 5 with combined payrolls of $325 million. If you want to compare Toronto to teams in other leagues it's only fair to consider teams with similar payrolls.
Well, even the league uses both: https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2017...-stop-calling-it-salary-cap-its-salary-budget ^ the premise is about the fact that even though there is a "salary cap" there's clearly more there than that (the salary budget). That doesn't take away though, that there is indeed a cap. There cap on monies in a specific manner, meaning you have to go OUTSIDE and use the OTHER mechanisms in order to make it work. That is indeed a cap ... that's my point. The league has changed over verbiage for the most part, and the mechanisms all but make it moot ... BUT the clubs have to ensure that however they do their signings they fall at no more than that cap number. I'm not debating just to debate btw ... Yes, it was ... the landscape couldn't be more different though (regardless of one's pro/rel view) That's never something I stated though. My point has only been that D1 sanctioning HAS to be given by the USSF (by their own volition) if a league meets the standards. You don't have to compete with the MLS to meet the standards. ^ which is the point I was making. That's what I was calling out on my twitter post.
No, I compared two leagues. I said that MLS suffers as a televised product because it's so easy to watch. The post which replied to mine said that the rest of La Liga looks second-rate compared to Barca and Real Madrid. I said that while that's likely true--all things are relative--even the rest of the league looks better than what MLS puts out. Our best teams don't play nearly as well as their top teams minus the big two. I think if you want to do a straight payroll comparison, we would need to ignore the top Euro leagues altogether. Well, maybe not--outside the Premier League, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if an Eibar or SPAL or Angers had MLS-level payrolls.
Sure, even the teams sitting in the EPL relegation zone have better talent than most if not all of MLS. But I was mostly adding to your overall point. Namely: if we're talking about what American fans of European soccer are watching, we're talking about superclubs, not simply the EPL or La Liga. I would consider a whole league of Sevillas or Evertons to be the strongest league in the world, but even that might not be enough to attract the attention of people who want to see superclubs.
Indeed ... and oddly enough I've stated several times that a "cap" or "budget" of 25m could easily give us a bucket full of Evertons. Though, I contend that top to bottom roster that most MLS clubs could bring in better than they could ...
Michelin, like many other organizations, provides restaurant ratings. In contrast to the USSF, it has no regulatory responsibilities over the restaurants it rates. Given that SUM is wholly owned by MLS, I disagree. Which amounts to the same difference and illustrates just how the finances of the USSF and MLS are entwined due to the SUM contract, one way or the other. Not in its current structure whereby it's wholly owned by MLS and its board members are MLS owners. It's more than a theoretical conflict. Maybe more will be revealed through the latest NASL lawsuit, but I'd be hard pressed to agree that recusing oneself from USSF discussions on SUM implies that "all parties have been mindful of this and operated scrupulously." Stability and growth of MLS, more likely. Nothing like getting one's regulator onside.
He bought with his heart, based on his nostalgia for the Cosmos of the late '70's. If he'd gone into the decision as a businessman with a clear head...........it's doubtful he buys the Cosmos. Now this touches on another point: investment in American Professional Soccer. Some have opined & stated to every and anyone who will listen that opening the American Pyramid and establishing Promotion/Relegation will open the investment flood gates. I don't buy it. Look across the globe. Once you get past the 3-4 top teams in each First Division, how much investment is there really? The majority of clubs are community based endeavors, who operate on a strict budget. A show on Talk Sport over the weekend spoke about development in the UK. Many of the lower league clubs STRUGGLE to even operate an academy (on a $200K budget). Think about that. Further, look at Newcastle. Nothing is making Mike Ashley invest more money into the club, nor is he willing to listen to legitimate offers to buy the club from him (despite him publicly stating the club is for sale on numerous occasions). Pro/Rel hasn't helped Leeds United find an owner who will invest enough to get them back to the Premiere League (in the third/fourth largest city in England no less). American Billionaire Ellis Short has lost his love for Sunderland, and is now selling the club for a bargain basement price after running it into the ground and possibly facing consecutive relegations. If you've ever watched the FA Cup, or the DFB Pokal, or the Copa Del Rey when the lower division teams are playing at home....there are high school teams in this country who have way better facilities. Many English Clubs depend on the money earned from the FA Cup (Specifically from playing the glamour clubs on the road) to help sustain their existence for a few years. THe majority of clubs are lucky to produce one or two players every 5-10 years that they can sell to a club a division higher for a $100K-$200K to keep exisiting. The solidarity payments they get when that player moves to Southhampton and then Southampton sells that player to Liverpool for the English player premium aren't enough to propel that small club to the Premiere League, or League Two for that matter. MLS has Billionaire owners now who don't invest much when compared to their peers in the league. Hell Commisso and Silva would rather fund lawsuits instead of investing in their team's infrastructure. Sacramento is having a difficult time finding a well heeled investor who can insure their viability for 5 years if they are granted an MLS expansion team. I just find it very difficult to see how opening the pyramid will lead to a sudden flood of investment. Will a handful of teams spend money, yes. But this notion that a magic wand will be waved and cash will suddenly come pouring into American Soccer is a fairy tale. It wouldn't surprise me if there are Pay to Play youth clubs who bring in higher revenues then most of the lower league clubs in the world.
Lower division clubs had academies until the Premier traded TV money for the right to poach promising kids for peanuts. But your point still stands.
That wasn't my question. That's your prerogative. I think it paints a different picture of the relationship to one of USSF receiving profits directly from the MLS entity and its league operations. The actual relationship is indicative of the practical nature that gave rise to the existing structure. So the structure isn't moot then? In any case, it would largely depend on the current legal structure and the mechanism by which they stopped operating the league. The point was that SUM could continue doing what it's doing even if MLS itself didn't exist and the USSF would be none the worse for it financially. Maybe theoretical conflict was the wrong term to use. The intended point was that while there could theoretically be potential for abuse under the current set-up, there's no evidence to support that they're practically taking advantage of it. Even outside of appropriate parties recusing themselves from discussions, their actions wrt NASL point to a federation acting appropriately and indeed, at times going above and beyond what one would expect. While there are many examples of this, the failure to withdraw D2 status a year ago is a prime one. The unprecedented stability and growth we've seen in domestic US soccer has been by no means restricted to just MLS.
I know many a pro/rel advocate who would claim that this is simply the free market in action and that opportunity doesn't equal success. Yet if a USPSL club withdraws from the league one year, because they can't afford to rent time on Wisconsin's answer to Hackney Marsh's ugly twin, the same people act like Don Garber just tossed a bag of puppies into a wood-chipper.
Just wanted to clarify the bolded part, do you believe the "fans" should have no say on how a sport, and/or league is run?
---- In before Dan can delete this tweet and several others. Dan Loney @DanLoney36 Replying to @MotorikFC @i76express @AllezMotorikFC Accomplish what? Who in DC asked for a partial-birth rec league team with ugly scarves? 8:01 PM - 21 Feb 2018
In terms of how a league organizes its teams or if it implements pro/rel? If fans don’t like the way a sport is run they hold the ultimate power of the pocketbook. See how much the NFL’s ratings have dropped.
This is the mindset of many cities of comparable size to Omaha. Frankly, I also believe it should be the mindset of many cities of comparable size to Reno, NV as well. #OpenSoccer #ProRelForUSA That said, go bugeaters.
I'm real interested to see what they do. I will actually be back home in mid-May and am going to try and catch the home opener. Lincoln is smaller than Omaha, but it also doesn't have Div. I Men's soccer. I'm a little surprised--pleasantly so--that they're able to use the "Bugeaters" name. I would have assumed the University would have trademarked it (I have a "Nebraska Bugeaters" pseudo-retro t-shirt) but I guess not.
Gotta go. HTTK and Dan Loney are viciously trolling MotorikFC's tweets as we speak. I've apologized to Motorik FC's twitter account for dragging them into this. Guess I shouldn't have posted it on this particular thread. My bad.
No, he didn't. Unless you mean any tweets posted in frustration after being ruthlessly trolled by anti-Pro/Rel assholes for a large portion of today.
I find this Tweet offensive not just to the "anti pro/rel" mob but to American soccer fans and soccer clubs across America who unlike other sports have gone out of their way to be inclusive. Communities #ProRelForUSA folks want to empower African-American Immigrant Female LGBTQ Native American Working class Muslim Christian Jewish Hindu Atheist Latin-American Asian-American Inner city Rural Etc. Community anti-Pro/Rel folks want to protect White male billionaires
You mean like this: Dan Loney @DanLoney36 ******** you and your fake progressivism. And ******** your fake club. #ProRelForUSA fails at everything it touches, and you are damn sure no exception. 4:09 PM - 21 Feb 2018
I’m sure you’ve already seen and read this: https://www.si.com/soccer/2018/01/25/sum-soccer-united-marketing-garber-gulati-carter This is a Q&A about SUM, it’s creation, what it does, and it’s relationships and contracts.
Sorry, not playing your games. It's pretty clear that your USSF and Michelin comparison was a major fail. SUM is 100% owned by MLS; the SUM contract ties together tv rights for MLS and the USSF. So I disagree that it paints a different picture in the slightest. And nothing in that suggests that USSF and MLS aren't tied together financially through the SUM contract and that it is in the best financial interest of the USSF for MLS to succeed financially, thus creating a conflict of interest for the USSF. And let's be realistic here, NASL isn't in the slightest bit a threat to MLS, so is essentially irrelevant to MLS at this point, D2 status or no D2 status. Which is irrelevant as to whether there is a conflict of interest between MLS/SUM/USSF.
Yes, I've read it. Rather self-serving from Garber, as one would expect. For example, he harps on about the guaranteed payment for the USSF whilst failing to talk about how revenues are split beyond that point - information that came to light only because of the NASL lawsuit.
Maybe he should have completed his thought with a tweet like this instead: "Community anti-Pro/Rel folks want to protect White male billionaire owners." Other than that, I get what he's saying, and from my POV, that tweet is only offensive to those who already think everything said on #ProRelForUSA is offensive.