How much of the problem is MLS? Why does MLS have so much power and how do we reduce it? Why did Garber and the league interfere in our coaching selection? I’ve always thought MLS stood for Marketing League Soccer, but maybe it just Mediocre League Soccer. The only thing Major about it is the owners bank accounts, the DPs salaries, and the bull$hit that comes out of Garber’s mouth. http://www.espnfc.us/video/espn-fc-tv/86/video/3228413/does-mls-play-a-role-in-usmnt-struggles It looks like Don lost his password sometime during the game on Tuesday. Responses to his last tweet aren’t very nice. Let’s go #USMNT! #Get3GetThru https://t.co/ch5qClzyhC— Don Garber (@thesoccerdon) October 10, 2017
How do you know Garber and the league interfered in the coaching selection? MLS and USSF are joined through SUM. At one point, Sunil was President of USSF and Kraft soccer but that apparently wasn't a conflict of interest somehow. MLS and USMNT have different agendas and it's always going to be that way.
I’d break this into 3 parts... getting rid of Klinsmann, selecting his successor, and how Arena ran the team. I don’t know how much Garber and the league were involved but here is my take on each part. I think it was clear mls wanted JK out. I’m guessing that it was pretty clear that a mls coach would be used giving the timing. I have no idea if they had any impact on Arena’s decisions. They may we’ll have not, but I’m skeptical (without any proof) as he seemed to be doing everything that mls wanted. In the end, I think it was very harmful to the league and it’s image. I agree that they have different agendas. I’d prefer MLS work to produce American players and align with the national team as much as can, but they are absolutely free to spend their $100s of millions however they want. I do have a problem with them doing things that harms the national team players and then act like the national team owes them something.
SUM is a big, big conflict of interest. The preferred relationship is cordial and supportive but totally independent. The brightest future of USMNT might very well involve the best American players never entering the MLS system. The brightest future of MLS might very well involve less reliance on and investment in American talent. But they're stuck running a three-legged race together (against opponents without the same problems) by SUM.
Suppose the NBA went to an NCAA coach and told him not to play a certain player because they wanted him to fall in the draft so they could pay him less? Suppose the coach said sure, no problem, I think I can beat Trinidad without him anyway and I can use the guy from Italy who is leaving soon for Europe anyway. See you at the next board meeting. Would that be legal?
MLS should not be where our top talent play. That's my thoughts. They should be playing in the top leagues in Europe. Challenging themselves. Emerging talent should play in MLS for a season or 2 or 3 and then get a nice move abroad,
The best academies in America are run by MLS teams. Based on all examples it seems likely that pro teams will run the best youth setups. That doesn't mean that the best players will or should sign with MLS teams, just that almost all of them will play for or against their youth teams. SUM was created to keep MLS afloat and to keep soccer related revenues off the league's books for CBA purposes. The Fed should directly sell its own rights now that the league is stable. MLS and other Pro teams should have a voice on the board, where they have 28% or so of the vote, but the Fed should see themselves as a regulator with independent, sometimes aligned, sometimes not, goals.
Interesting you bring up SUM. I agree. This twitter thread was making the rounds yesterday. A decent description of the murkiness around it. Essentially, this gives a descriptions of the priorities of our establishment. Here's something everyone needs to know about MLS/US Soccer/Gulati/Garber/etc. Welcome to the world of Soccer United Marketing (thread).— Ben Forman (@FenBorman) October 14, 2017 I want to make sure EVERY American soccer fan is on the same page about Soccer United Marketing (SUM). SUM, a for-profit entity, is referred to as "the marketing arm of Major League Soccer (MLS)" however they also are contracted to sell sponsorship and TV rights on behalf of not-for-profit US Soccer (USSF) as well as marketing Mexican National Team games played in the US, among other things. SUM is completely intertwined with MLS. - Don Garber, commissioner of MLS, is also CEO of SUM. - SUM and MLS share offices. - This is SUM's website: http://www.sumworld.com - see where it leads! - Ownership of MLS teams also have a stake in SUM. SUM is completely intertwined with US Soccer. - Sunil Gulati, president of USSF, has been (and could still be!) on the board of SUM. Gulati *could still own shares in SUM*. - Don Garber, CEO of SUM, is head of the professional council of USSF's board of directors. USSF sanctions MLS. This literally means *Don Garber regulates his own league, and has an external profit motive for SUM and its billionaire investors* - SUM sold the last TV deal for MLS to be packaged with US Soccer matches, so channels couldn't buy one without the other - SUM sells the rights to US Soccer sponsorship and TV, taking a cut for itself before it sends payment to US Soccer. SUM was valued this year at $2 billion. There is a multiple billion dollar company woven through American soccer that we know next to nothing about (they don't have a website) They have contracts with US Soccer that we have barely any details on And, they are filtering revenues from our men and women's national teams and clubs soccer into billionaires' pockets. We have people in leadership of US Soccer who have an external profit motive and duty toward billionaire investors as opposed to growing and regulating the game in a healthy way. Keep this in mind when we look at the structure of club soccer in the US. How MLS, a single entity closed league with franchises for teams has been given complete control which teams are allowed to join the highest tier of American soccer. How US Soccer does next to nothing to stop them. How MLS cries poor when it comes to paying players and that it can't have open competition and independent clubs. That it can't pay youth clubs training and solidarity payments when they develop players that become professional. When US Soccer can't seem to properly invest in the historic US Open Cup, a competition that gives visibility to lower league clubs not in MLS's ecosystem. I'm not saying we have to hate MLS or US Soccer. I am saying we should all have a VERY healthy distrust for those currently in power and where their interests lie. Then when you consider Sunil is not stepping down, does it not seem apparent it's in order to protect the above? This is essentially the establishment, the powers that be. So as to the relationship between MLS and the USSF, they're heavily linked by SUM and the most powerful involved in MLS and USSF are churning profits thru SUM and are stakeholders in SUM yet won't publicly release any details about it, how they do it or the financials of it. But as talked about here, when buying into MLS a big attraction is buying into SUM. Hence expansion fees have gone from 10M to 150M in a decade, which is also just money split up and paid as a dividend to all the owners. Soccer United Marketing (SUM) is the real spring of oil in this whole equation. When investors are staring mouths agape at MLS, they are really looking at SUM, the company that handles the media rights for American soccer. SUM sells off the rights it has for MLS to interested broadcasters all over the world. https://www.starsandstripesfc.com/2...jor-league-soccer-marketing-usa-mexico-canada So, what happens, if for argument's sake, the people running our landscape are concentrated on turning profit thru SUM instead of say, the development of the American player?
There should be marketing overlap to accommodate fans of both, but other than that one's business shouldn't revolve around the other. Ultimately, though, I think a strong domestic league that is culturally relevant on a level compared to the other big sports here is much more important for the long term health of U.S. soccer than relying on the NT to be the core of interest for collective U.S. fandom. IS MLS set up to achieve that necessary growth? I'm not sure, but I think it's done well to survive and grow in the manner it has. Some markets are flourishing in a manner that I suspect is just what we need to reach a new cultural level 30 years from now.
As an aside, "USSF has a $100 million surplus?" and "All but a couple MLS teams lose money?" are each other's answer. SUM allows them to move the money to whatever part of the books they like. It isn't just MLS that's a single entity. The game of soccer in the United States is a single entity. It's a cartel like the railroads of old. The irony of a guy dressing up like Teddy Roosevelt to cheer on the USMNT is enormous.
The problem as I see it is all the mechanisms/restrictions in place which hurt the American player are sold to us as being in place because it's needed to protect profit and they can't afford to cut out the restrictions. Yet they're able to sell us that because they essentially hide the profit in another vehicle and keep close wraps on it. And that other vehicle is what's so attractive to potential owners, hence the skyrocketing expansion fees which are yet another stream of profit right into their pockets. Why would owners buy into a league to the tune of 150M+ where few are profitable? Because that's not where the profit is, in operations, the profit is in SUM and franchise valuations. And that means the development of the American player is not the priority. Arena and Sunil can't even agree on that. The USSF should have the entire landscape as its priority. It does not. I generally think the system needed to get MLS on solid ground was needed but we've outgrown that system. But the profits are so substantial at this point they'll fight to keep it as is. Hence Arena saying no change is needed and Sunil isn't stepping down.
Agree 100%. And I would add, getting rid of Sunil doesn't get rid of this problem. SUM really needs to be broken up. Or alternatively, some sort of soccer entity needs to rise as a competitor to the cabal. Both of those things look pretty impossible from where we're sitting, frankly.
"Ultimately, though, I think a strong domestic league that is culturally relevant on a level compared to the other big sports here is much more important for the long term health of U.S. soccer than relying on the NT to be the core of interest for collective U.S. fandom." I I've always had the feeling that the big American sports machine harbored a phobia about the USMNT exploiting its cache - playing for the colors against foreign countries. It's like there is a fear the whole thing will get away from the oligarchs who want soccer to be cosa nostra like NFL/MLB etc. Sure, the MLS should be able to pursue their economic interests; however, that pursuit should not involve undermining USSF which should have the broader public's interest in mind.
Garber said a few weeks ago the player he wants most in MLS, even above Messi, is Pulisic. I bet he would if he could. For me, if Jurgen criticizing MLS is labelled as anti-MLS, then the idea he'd take one of the most elite U21 attackers globally and the face of our program away from BVB at 19, is anti-NT. He would hurt both Pulisic and the NT just to make a few marketing bucks off him.
The sponsors and networks "won't get fooled again"--we've just seen the high water mark for Garber's leveraging past USMNT glory to try to generate a big rights deal for MLS. With so many playoff teams, he's created an NBA-like regular season that means almost nothing. Ironic, because now this failure of the national team pushes the league more than ever to take the training wheels off. I've said this for years--MLS needs a CCL championship in the worst way. Anything to show proof positive that the league is actually improving not just vis a vis itself, but in relation to LigaMx and all those domestic eyeballs not watching MLS on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons. While everything said about SUM is true, the presumed senior partner in the relationship has always been the Nats. They have abdicated that throne bigtime. If MLS just took its ball and its James rumors and Dos Santos signings and everything else and went its own way, both parties would be better off. There is no reason to assume an MLS fan is a USMNT fan, or vice versa. But the difference now is--MLS controls this relationship for the next 3-4 years. Owns it completely. The USMNT doesn't even fire a shot in anger for nearly two YEARS. They are totally irrelevant to the soccer conversation in the country during that time. Garber's previously "soft" power on the board repping his billionaire clients is entering a power vacuum left by catastrophic failure. In terms of guidance and control, Don Garber and MLS will be more present than ever before in the future of US Soccer, like it or not. They're the only game in town and they know it.
Put it this way - Garber says the biggest potential signing for MLS would be Pulisic. Does anyone believe that is in the best interest of the US Team?
I didn’t know where to put this and thought this thread should be bumped... from EPB’s YA thread. Are there many people that think there is no reason for SKC to train abroad between their last game of the season and the end of his contract? Even if there is no (positive) reason and no obligation, why would they make that decision?
I don't know the ins and outs of the contract but if he were to get injured before 1/1 it might make a difference. This isn't uncommon.
Even worse... About to break out of the Grey room in record time! @theexitroom #minutes— Erik Palmer-Brown (@ErikBrown14) December 31, 2017 an Exit Room.
I've been told by a VERY good source this expansion incentive could be 10% of expansion fees. It seems very hard to believe so I and others will keep digging on this. In any event Garber's potential compensation might be the highest of any executive in world football. https://t.co/wEDC8WojFH— Kartik Krishnaiyer 🇺🇦🌻⚽️ (@kkfla737) April 18, 2018 This would be crazy if true.