http://blog.washingtonpost.com/soccerinsider/2007/05/news_of_the_day.html per Goff's "Soccer Insider" blog: "The players' salary list comes out today" "the players union has decided to unveil the entire list on its Web site."
Major League Soccer Players Union website: http://www.mlsplayers.org/ no salary list link available there yet. edit: update to the very useful "resources" page: http://www.mlsplayers.org/resources.html
players http://www.mlsplayers.org/files/5_2_07_salary_info_alpha.pdf by club http://www.mlsplayers.org/files/5_2_07_salary_info_club.pdf
Here's a link to the salaries. http://www.mlsplayers.org/salary_info.html Not a link to the salaries list, but still interesting reading. Here's a link to the CBA. http://www.mlsplayers.org/files/collective_bargaining_agreement__final.pdf
At least we finally know Becks exact salary now. LA Beckham David M $ 5,500,000.08 $ 6,500,000.04 I think this one surprised me the most for some odd reason TFC Robinson Carl M $ 300,000.00 $ 315,000.00
Wow Cuahtemoc Blanco 2.6million...what a waste of money. Not worth it for an aging player that will not be able to handle to physical play of MLS. He will be a bust.
http://www.mlsplayers.org/salary_info.html ------------------- The documents linked below contain salary information for all MLS players as of the date shown. In the survey, all player salaries are broken down into two numbers. The first is the player's current base salary. The second is characterized as annual average guaranteed compensation. The annual average guaranteed compensation number includes a player's base salary and all signing and guaranteed bonuses annualized over the term of the player's contract, including option years. For example, if a player has a base salary of $50,000, has a two-year contract with two one-year options and received a $10,000 bonus when he signed, his average annual guaranteed compensation would be $52,500 (base salary plus signing bonus ($10,000), with the signing bonus divided by the number of years covered by the contract (4)). The average annual guaranteed compensation number also includes any annual marketing bonus to be received in the current year and any agent's fees annualized over the term of the contract. The average annual guaranteed compensation figure does not include performance bonuses because there is no guarantee that the player will hit those bonuses. These figures include compensation from each player's contract with MLS. They do not include any compensation from any contracts with individual teams or their affiliates. (Surveys through 5/2/07) ------------------------------
That is a lot for Blanco. Well let's see how it relates in ticket sales and exposure with the Mex community in Chicago. In regard to dealing with physical play, I've always seen him as a physical player. Let's just hope he takes MLS seriously rather than looking at it like some playground. IMHO, if MLS was going to pay that much it should've invested in up and coming Mex players.
this assumes that there are available up-and-coming players in Mexico who are eagar to play in MLS. DP's are here mostly for marketing. i'm not sure if there are any other players from Mexico (again, who are willing to come to MLS) who are as marketable to the US audience as Blanco is (or should be).
I am not sure how marketable Juan Plablo Angel is but for 1.5mil is a good deal. I think the Redbull got a better return for their money being that Angel is a striker. Glad Redbull did'nt over pay.
So, Pat Noonan and Jimmy Conrad took in the low $200K each to stay in MLS. Nate Jaqua and Brian Carroll took about half that. Claudio Suarez's, Markus Schopp's and Guille BS'd salaries are b-ogu-s. PS. Blanco will pay for himself. That's the easy part.
I'm so glad they finally have a workable Union site where all the info is out in the open. Kudos MLSPU.
Not a surprize, but the biggest disparity in those numbers has to be how UNDERPAID Landon Donovan is. He is by far the best player in the league, with the possible exception of Beckham. Come on, who would seriously rate Reyna higher than Donovan? I think Donovan is due for a big raise...to at least $2.5M a year.
TT had better stats than Landon and is making $350K. Ditto for Ruiz. Cooper had similar stats and is making $80K. $2.5M? Don't make me laugh. $210K last year.
shocker of shockers, but MLS salaries aren't based only on MLS performance and past stats in the league. yes, performance and stats in the league should be part of the equation, but clearly things like marketability and international and NT success plays a factor in setting these current salaries when contracts were signed x or y years ago for player a, b or c.
OK, let's see what Donovan had done in terms of marketability. For a guy who "wasn't in tune" during the last World Cup and missed the play-offs with his club team, it surely had a ceiling. BTW, if it were shirt sales, I am all for giving the guy a cut off the proceeds. Becks's getting his.
They had to pony up the extra money for a unionized IT guy. Where the heck did that 8 extra cents for Beckham come from?
The Rapids are paying Jovan Kirovski 200K?!?! That makes him the third highest paid player on the team behind Pablo and Vanney, and part of Vanney's contract is being paid for by Dallas IIRC.
Yeah... and the $156k for Cancela seems a bit wasted as well. One quick thought about Robinson though.... does the $300k+ actually qualify him as a DP?
the rumors are that it is around $2.2 million per team. but there are so many exceptions and salary-sharing costs among teams due to "trades" in the single-entity world of MLS that the team "salary cap" is more of a "suggestion" or "guideline" in my opinion. I think MLS is working to clean that up and get the "cap" to be a harder (and more-enforced) rule in the future, but i think 2007 (like a lot of previous years when big-name players were brought into the league) is a bit of a mess, salary structure-wise. DP salaries have (a large) part of their costs covered by individual I/O's and that money is outside the "cap restrictions", plus there are grandfathered in players (LD, EJ, Schopp I believe) for 2007.