I totally get what you are saying, but who are we to tell some kid for Santa Barbara to go play in Denmark for $200K, when the Galaxy offer him $1.2 Mil to stay in his beloved sunny SoCal? What you're talking about here is possibly a detriment to some players personal lives and bank accounts. If the player themselves really wants to go away to Europe, or voluntarily is willing to be paid less to be in the EPL or German D2 or whatever, that's fine, but the whole world of US Soccer isn't only about the USMNT, so I won't begrudge a player who wants to stay and may even do better financially staying.
Not sure what I would do, but if the money was better in MLS, I would stay, unless like the previous poster said it was some big name team like Man U or Barca. But it might be a better lifestyle and more lucrative playing for LAFC or NYFC or ATL United than a third rate team in England or Spain.
I’ve been a broken record that MLS is roughly equal to B2/Championship (neither approaching top 10 nor #30) so I don’t see a lot of reason to go to leagues equal to or worse than it. There’s still a lot of better teams/leagues where the level of play and comp is better.
You seem to think everyone is just going to rush to the better league, What if MLS is paying you double to stay in your home town and you love it there?
The reality of it is, unless you're one of the best American players, going overseas is, at best, a lateral move. At worse, it can derail your career when you go from being a starter on an MLS team to riding a bench in Italy or wherever. Or, as is becoming common, you get signed by a big team to provide depth in case of injuries, and end up being loaned out to some other team in a different league. MLS is a good enough league that there are really only a relatively small handful of leagues/teams in the world that are a clear step up for an American player. We've seen American players go to second-tier European leagues in places like Scotland and Denmark, and that didn't do much for their development as players.
Small handful? Nah, MLS/B2/Championship are around 20th IMO. Scotland and Denmark are below MLS but the same people who say leagues don’t matter are the first to crap on Scotland. Just be consistent. FFS, Mexico is definitely a better league and no one thinks they’re top 10. Replace the word MLS with Championship and the point remains the same.
I don't know, just a hypothetical, even if it's 10-20% more, money is money. being in a place you like is also of value.
But really what is it about? What do pro players live for? Is it about making great money long term and living some place you like, or is it going places you might not want to go, to try to improve your game to be able to play in the World Cup for 3-4-5 games maybe once or twice in your life? I think it might be a decent lifestyle being a star player in your own country, making 7 figures with endorsements on some MLS team for a decade.
Which mls players who didn’t earn their stripes in the majors make 7 figures? Long makes $900k/ur and he apparently is interested in attempting the leap to the majors. Here’s a article from last year with all the salaries. I didn’t see any 7 digit numbers as you described unless you’ve proven it already. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.th...ayer-salaries-major-league-soccer-sporting-kc
I don't know their salaries, but I'm sure players like Altidore or Bradley or Donovan made millions, where they very successful? Where did they play overseas. They may have gone for awhile, but seems like they spent most of their career here. Bill Hamid I'm sure makes decent money, he went to some team in Europe, I think Denmark, stayed for a year and played in only one game and returned. I can't even say he was a bust, he played in just one game, so how do they even know what they had, just watching practice?
Or at least good money, again, I'd go where the money is if possible, but I doubt I'd leave the USA for a pay cut, I was hearing that MLS salaries are improving making it a viable option for players, I never really looked it up, your list is interesting? I actually make more than half the league working in IT, LOL
Altidore and Bradley went overseas and then earned a huge payday here. Donovan started his career in the B1. Hamid makes $80k/year. This exercise proves my point: almost without exception (Morris?), one has to go overseas and prove oneself to earn a 7 figure salary in MLS!
Only the individual can answer that. And even then we've already seen how dreams can change over time. I remember a Dempsey interview where he stated his intention to stay in Europe for the rest of his career and a year later he's wearing a Seattle shirt. That's why I think it's kind of useless to focus on selling or destination league labels. You'll always have a bit of both. I'm cool with any club having a mentality that's more or less "keep if we can, sell if we must."
Yes, a small handful. Playing in the top tiers in England, Germany, Spain and France are all steps up. But someplace like Portugal, Sweden or even Italy? Meh. You can find teams here and there that stand out, but is going from, say, LAFC to Celtic really worth it to a player to disrupt his life and move thousands of miles away? And Mexico might be a better league, but there are too many negatives associated with living in that country (such as crime and a seriously messed up fan culture) that make playing in that league unattractive to American players. Think of it from your perspective- how much of a raise, and how much of a promotion, would it take to get you to uproot your life and move somewhere else? I don't think soccer players are much different than most people in that regard.
I live and work in the one of the most competitive cities in the world so I'm probably the wrong benchmark. Here's the 2019 salaries of the Gold Cup roster from MLS: M) Michael Bradley - $6,500,000 - left MLS F) Jozy Altidore - $6,332,250 - left MLS F) Gyasi Zardes - $1,471,667 - never left MLS D) Aaron Long - $800,000 - wants to leave MLS F) Paul Arriola - $707,000 - left MLS F) Jordan Morris - $619,600 - never left MLS D) Walker Zimmerman - $600,000 - wanted to leave MLS M) Cristian Roldan - $596,542 - wants to leave MLS M) Wil Trapp - $593,746 - wants to leave MLS GK) Sean Johnson - $400,000 GK) Zack Steffen - $260,000 - left MLS D) Nick Lima - $218,438 - [wants to leave MLS?] F) Jonathan Lewis - $121,000 M) Djordje Mihailovic - $111,000 D) Daniel Lovitz - $97,453 D) Reggie Cannon - $80,250 - [wants to leave MLS?] GK) Tyler Miller - $77,565 Only Zardes makes a 7 digit salary and never left MLS (Zardes!) It would be pretty easy for decent major league teams to double/triple the salaries of the other players. Ironically, leaving MLS to go to a better league makes it more likely that MLS will pay you 7 figures.
Disagree. I think most athletes and especially soccer players understand the nomadic nature of their profession.
When Bradley came back I believe MLS more than tripled what he was earning previously with Roma. Jozy Altidore got a big raise to come home. I could name others, but that's not really the point. The attached study by sports intelligence outlines average salaries across many of the top leagues in the world and provides averages for basically all of them. As soccer leagues go, MLS is right around 10th. I'd also note that those leagues' averages are far more impacted by the spending of the top teams than MLS. Man Utd spends about 8 times more than the bottom spending team in the EPL. However, in Spain, Germany and Italy the top teams spend 16, 20 and 19 times more than the lowest spends clubs. In France PSG outspends every club by nearly 3 times and outspends the lowest spending team by more than 26 times. Anyway, that is to say that even average spending teams in the MLS have reached spending parity with most leagues and even a decent chunk of teams in the top five leagues. Oh and the median wage bill went up another 10.45% this year and that is before midyear additions are factored in. That isn't to say they can compete with teams in the EPL or the the top half or so of the top 5 European leagues, however, they can certainly compete with every other league and in fact they can probably outspend just about every team in every other European league outside of the top two to three. Hell in Scotland, Livingston's average player salaries were under $46K per year last year. Houston, who was cheapest team in the MLS last year outspent every team in Scotland other than Rangers and Celtic (oh and they increased their spending by nearly $2 mln this year vs the end of last year). Bottomline is that I don't think there are nearly as many clubs as you think that can simply outspend MLS for domestic talent. So there is a strong probability that outside of big five leagues and a few teams in the other stronger European leagues, most of those teams can outspend MLS teams. BTW, I saw Denmark mentioned, so I just note that the average salary in that league was $158K. I'll also note, that you clearly aren't a fan of MLS, but the idea that it sitting down around 30th is just insane. Got news for you too, the Championship and B2 are better than that too. https://globalsportssalaries.com/GSSS 2018.pdf
Huh, I specifically said that MLS/b2/Championship are neither top 10 nor 30th. The discussion you jumped into was whether staying in MLS vs going abroad and the poster stated that MLS paid people who haven’t left MLS double what elite clubs do. That the opposite of what Bradley and Altidore did - they went overseas and then got MLS to vastly overpay for them. Great for them but bad for USMNT obviously. Finally, it best to use median rather than average salary.
The national team does better = more young people get into soccer = more fans for the clubs. I think that's always been the expected flux for countries where soccer is still in the growth phase.
The median salary in most other leagues likely be impacted far more than MLS as there is far less parity between clubs. The bottom half of most European clubs are nothing more than fodder and the teams suck.
I would guess the impact would be similar. The difference is that the disparity in salaries in European leagues is between clubs, and the disparity in MLS is between players at the same club.
Still, $200K and up is a way above average salary in general, if you like where you're living it's not a bad deal, plus as a more well known player like a USMNT member you can probably supplement the salary with appearances, endorsments, training etc. I know a former MLS player in my area just makes a living doing training sessions for multiple teams and coaching. Why do you show Arriola as left MLS? He's with DC United. Didn't he start in Mexico?