ESPN's Hush on MLS' Import/Export Model

Discussion in 'MLS: News & Analysis' started by Geneva, Feb 16, 2008.

  1. Geneva

    Geneva LA for Life

    Feb 5, 2003
    Southern Cal
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Many of those leaving are Americans - most of those coming are not.
     
  2. Testudo

    Testudo Member+

    Jan 29, 1999
    Arlington, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Re: The Balance of Trade -- Tracking MLS Imports and Exports

    Not shocking given the rule change regarding international slots.
     
  3. ugaaccountant

    ugaaccountant New Member

    Oct 26, 2003
    Re: The Balance of Trade -- Tracking MLS Imports and Exports

    Yet still lamentable
     
  4. Screech Powers

    Screech Powers New Member

    Dec 11, 2003
    Highlands Ranch, CO.
    I think it is funny that he uses the term "league's leading players" when talking about those leaving and the first player he mentions is Nate Jaqua. I for one am going to demand a refund on my tickets purchased for the upcoming season now that Nate Jaqua and Andy Dorman are out of the league!

    Also his talking about Benny Felihaber "choosing" to stay with Derby's reserves over MLS is poor journalism as well, as Felihaber is stuck with a club that is keeping his transfer price tag high rather than lose money on him.

    The funny thing is that all these articles that raise the red flags about MLS losing their players never seem to mention that many of them, especially the Americans, come back. Nat Borchers, Ramiro Corrales, Taylor Twellman, Wade Barrett, Ante Razov, Clint Mathis, and I am sure there are more that I am not remembering right now without doing any research.

    Old tired article...
     
  5. triplet1

    triplet1 BigSoccer Supporter

    Jul 25, 2006
    A worthwhile read. This about sums it up:

     
  6. Stan Collins

    Stan Collins Member+

    Feb 26, 1999
    Silver Spring, MD
    Two thoughts:

    1- I don't think he's wrong, though the examples are hit-or-miss as to whether MLS actually misses the guy, and listing the draft choices they didn't get miss the point, since MLS still gets more draft choices than it misses. However, MLS did benefit at one time from a reluctance on players' part to go try out in foreign countries other than England. Now, as guys are more willing to do it, and clubs are more willing to pay fees, keeping the medium tier player is getting harder.

    The league will still probably be better next year than it was in 2007, though increasing the number of foreigners is kind of a one-off way to achieve that. And since the trends that have begun in the last few years are likely only to get stronger, We will at some point have to think about keeping the quality-but-not-a-star middle player.

    2- It would be an extremely dumb policy, though, to design a payscale that automatically keeps all these guys, because in most circumstances that isn't going to be worthwhile.

    So how what do we do? I think MLS needs a payscale that is more flexible for guys on the way up through the playing ranks. We need that as an advertisement to guys who might consider MLS against second and third tier leagues as a springboard for greater things. (I'm not as concerned about mid-career players, because MLS will tend to either get fees for them, or else they'll be guys like Noonan who were good, but questionable cases for a high salary. Arguably the only mistake the Revs made was not selling Noonan for a modest fee earlier in the contract).

    I would do that by including escalators in the rookie contract. Supposing the minimum salary was 30k (it isn't, it will actually be going up from that, but it makes the math easier). You could restructure the contract so that:

    * The minimum for a second year player is 35, third year 40, and so on, or something like that. (Right now I believe it's 5% a year automatic raise. I'm saying you might want to raise that to something more like 10% in the early years.)
    * Any rookie who clears some performance hurdles, say 1,500 minutes or 8 goals+assists total, automatically goes up even more than that, say 50%, to 45k, with a similar clause for second year players but a slightly higher bar for achieving them (say 2000 minutes or 11 G+A).
    * I would include an automatic transfer clause in all rookie contracts valued at 10 times annual salary, which the club could only avert by bringing the player's salary up to less than 8 times the offer.

    The numbers aren't as important as the concept that MLS will be able to pitch to guys that might be open to starting their career in either place. This way, the league can pitch to the players that they'd advance quickly if they perform.

    This way, say a player signs on for 30k, and hits both performance hurdles. By his third year, he's automatically making 67.5k, even if the club doesn't want to renegotiate. That's still pretty cheap, but if any club comes along with a transfer offer of $675k or more, the league will have to escalate his pay to at least $125k to keep him.

    I think this is a much better idea than raising the rookie pay, knowing that 3/4ths of all rookies don't experience this kind of upward trajectory, so you'd be wasting a whole lot of money with "across the board" type deals.
     
  7. scott47a

    scott47a Member+

    Seattle Sounders FC; Arsenal FC
    Feb 6, 2007
    Austin, Texas
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Re: The Balance of Trade -- Tracking MLS Imports and Exports

    I actually think this is a good thing. The MLS was created, in part, to help American soccer players get training and opportunities. That so many are leaving seems to be proof it is working.
     
  8. scott47a

    scott47a Member+

    Seattle Sounders FC; Arsenal FC
    Feb 6, 2007
    Austin, Texas
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Re: The Balance of Trade -- Tracking MLS Imports and Exports

    Awesome.

    Also visual evidence of one problem -- MLS needs to start paying more attention to Africa and Asia.
     
  9. mchughes

    mchughes New Member

    Feb 19, 2007
    Provo, Utah
    Club:
    Real Salt Lake
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Re: The Balance of Trade -- Tracking MLS Imports and Exports

    i believe MlS is setting up an academy in Africa
     
  10. triplet1

    triplet1 BigSoccer Supporter

    Jul 25, 2006
    I think you are on the right track Stan, but I started the other thread on the balance of trade because I think its helpful to look at the players specifically who are leaving.

    To me, there are only a handful that it would have been nice to retain: Ngwenya, Johnson, Pickens, Mathis, Noonan and Perkins. Mathis and Noonan are obviously older, and I'm not sure I'd change league policy because of either. New England had Noonan's option and elected not to exercise it, asking him to take a pay cut. Either the Revs or Noonan's new team has miscalculated here, and we'll know soon enough which made the mistake.

    Ngwenya and the keepers would have been nice to, ahem, keep, but again, unless you are a family member of Nate Jaqua we are talking about three guys who were stilll young and made real contributions to their teams. It just doesn't seem like that big a deal, but still, if the changes you suggest would help MLS to retain players like them, I'd be for it.

    Johnson is the least contested by the media and, for me, the most difficult because he is a player people might actually pay to see in MLS. It may be a losing battle to keep him and other national team players now plying their trade in Europe in MLS, but I would like the league to develop a policy specifically aimed at repatriating some of these guys -- essentially make them free agents and perhaps have a variation of the DP slot set aside for them.

    Gnashing of teeth about loosing Noonan may be helpful, but the league feels the loss of players like Dempsey, Johnson, Adu and soon perhaps Altidore and Edu, a lot more IMO. Moving to Euorpe may be an inevitable part of their development, but figuring out a way to bring some of them home for something more than a retirement lap should also be a consideration for the league IMO. That will be a lot more expensive.
     
  11. lawrenceterp

    lawrenceterp Moderator
    Staff Member

    Sep 2, 2006
    Virginia
    I think this is the first time in a while that the outgoing talent has been about equal to the incoming talent. So yes this is a cause for concern but I think the overall picture is much brighter then the picture he's painting in this article. We still have a month to go for incoming players. We also will almost definitely do well in the summer as most of the teams will not want to give up impact players midseason. I still think overall that the incoming players are better then the outgoing players in each window, and I don't think that upward trend is stopping. This is just one data point in a long series.
     
  12. Shadow10

    Shadow10 New Member

    Dec 11, 2007
    Excellent idea. To get the hot players coming out of college MLS needs to show them that there is a way up (more money) or out (transfer to Europe) if they produce. Economically MLS cannot compete but if they sell their strenghts - immediate chance to play, familiar culture, chance to advance career - they will retain more top players.
    Come on, I know that Noonan is as slow as paint drying but he's not old. He is only one year older than Jaqua and Ngwenya and four years younger than Mathis. Other than than I basicly agree with your point (although as a Revs and Noonan fan I hate to see him go).
     
  13. csufguy

    csufguy BigSoccer Yellow Card

    Jan 25, 2004
    LA
    Re: The Balance of Trade -- Tracking MLS Imports and Exports

    The departure of American talent looks to be directly correlated with the addition of the extra foreign slot for MLS teams. The teamss realize they can get the same if not better players overseas for cheaper. This will only negatively affect the American athlete if they start signing for USL teams(eg Stephen deRoux and Chris Brown).

    What can be seen is that most of the Americans are signing overseas in 'competitive leagues'. This season the outflow of Americans is larger by comparison, but it in no way should dimish the talent pool in MLS. Many of these players departing will gain valuable experience and return to the MLS veterans that can lead their individual teams(See Vanney, Donovan, Razov, and etc.).
     
  14. gmboy95

    gmboy95 Member

    Jan 11, 2007
    Norton, Ma.
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I think it is incredible naive to beleive that MLS can somehow compete with any of these established european leagues for one reason....MONEY, and CUSTOMERS!!!....we can bitch all we want about salaries in MLS, but until we can have more soccer specific stadiums that are filled up nightly, and TV contracts tnat are not basically give-aways, it will be a simple math problem.

    I think MLS is basically doing the smart thing and building slowly and with fiscal sanity. This league is at the very least 20 years away from being a serious competitor for even the dutch league
     
  15. triplet1

    triplet1 BigSoccer Supporter

    Jul 25, 2006
    Okay, I grant he slower than older, but the Revs had him locked up. All the Revs had to do in order to keep him is to pay him the option price they negotiated. They miscalculated that he wouldn't have other options, and frankly, had they not been one of the teams leading the fight to keep the cap increase so modest they would have easily been able to pay him the option price. (Indeed, they probably will end up with enough cap room to have done it under the new cap in any event.)
     
  16. rocker

    rocker New Member

    Dec 15, 2006
    Re: The Balance of Trade -- Tracking MLS Imports and Exports

    the only way you could determine a direct correlation would be to compare it to previous years and see if there's a change. Until someone comes up with that data I don't think we can say the roster change is directly correlated to the the departure of Americans.
     
  17. Shadow10

    Shadow10 New Member

    Dec 11, 2007
    I know, please don't remind me.:(

    As far as raising the cap your right too. MLS needs to raise it, not astronomically, but significantly. They need to take the money from the expansion and put it back into the product by raising salaries, increasing the pot to buy players, improving foreign scouting, and developing young players. Now is not the time to be cheap (as the Revs seem to be) but to leverage recent advances.
     
  18. triplet1

    triplet1 BigSoccer Supporter

    Jul 25, 2006

    I agree, but I also understand their desire to put the expansion money against earlier losses. Stan's proposals seem reasonable to me, however, and I think the league could fund them.
     
  19. Autogolazo

    Autogolazo BigSoccer Supporter

    Feb 19, 2000
    Bombay Beach, CA
    If the Dutch league were standing still. But it isn't.

    The question isn't "is MLS improving?", but rather, "is MLS improving at a faster rate than our chief rivals and competitors?"

    Biggest eyeballs competitor of them all: The Mexican League

    Biggest talent competitors for our sorts of talent: Scandinavia (outgoing), Middle East (guys in their 30s)

    Money-wise, I would venture a guess that our salary cap is not expanding at a rate equivalent to the average purchasing power of the Mexican League, the Scandinavian leagues, or the Middle East.

    Comparing MLS to its previous self in terms of talent is useless, just as it would be in business.

    If our budgets and thus talent level increases 10% each year (minus inflation), but those of our competitors gets 20% bigger each year, we're still falling behind.
     
  20. Jonny Bishop

    Jonny Bishop Member

    Sep 18, 2004
    Tacoma
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It may be possible that neither team miscalculated. Because of the salary cap in MLS, a player's worth is subject to a great deal of distortion. The european clubs are asking themself "is the player worth this amount of money to the organization?" The MLS clubs are asking themselves "is the player worth this percentage of our available cap space?"

    The difference is subtle but important.
     
  21. triplet1

    triplet1 BigSoccer Supporter

    Jul 25, 2006

    Exactly right.

    Look at attendance in the Eredivisie in 1989-90, for example, because it is instructive:

    PSV 24,294
    Ajax 17,000
    Feyenoord 13,176
    Vitesse 9,029
    FC Groningen 8,735
    FC Utrecht 7,765
    Roda JC 7,500
    Willem II 7,441
    FC Den Haag 6,559
    NEC 6,118
    8 more from 5,765 to 1,971


    And following a boom in stadium construction, look at this season:


    Ajax 48,748
    Feyenoord 43,938
    PSV 33,456
    SC Heerenveen 25,156
    FC Utrecht 19,994
    FC Groningen 19,305
    Vitesse 18,639
    AZ Alkmaar 16,400
    NAC Breda 15,234
    Roda JC 13,997
    8 others between 13,150 and 2,886


    Teams like Ajax and Feyenoord were drawing MLS like attendance numbers less than 20 years ago. They have each increased game day average attendance by 30,000, and a number of other teams have had very significant increases too.

    It underscores your point that leagues like the Eredivisie haven't been standing still, but it also shows what can be achieved.

    Link: http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attn.htm
     
  22. JoeW

    JoeW New Member

    Apr 19, 2001
    Northern Virginia, USA
    Re: The Balance of Trade -- Tracking MLS Imports and Exports

    I disagree. Arguez was a valued player for DC United but still raw (ie: a Gen Ad first round pick coming off his first year in MLS). Hertha Berlin saw a chance to take a flier on him so spent $350k to purchase him from DCU. That had nothing to do with an increase in SI slots. Troy Perkins jumped at the opportunity to play in Europe and triple his salary. DCU was not pursuing a GK to replace Perkins (and certainly not a foreign one--they first tried to trade for Cannon, then got Wells).

    Now you can argue that this examples are atypical and only deal with DCU. But United is the poster child this off-season for acquisition of foreign talent: Niell, Peralta, Gallardo, Caravallo, and Martinez--1 DP, 4 players almost certain to start and the 5th contending for a starting spot with Zach Well. Yet while DCU has seen a lot of players leave the team this off-season, none did so because of foreign acquisitions.

    Basically, what MLS did was eliminate the distinction between YI and SI and then add one more spot. Given that another MLS team was added and the rules were changed allowing more Americans to play for TFC, effectively the league (even with the additional SI slots) added about 8-10 senior roster spots for American citizens or green card holders within the league.

    What's happening is this: other leagues are getting savvy that Americans can play soccer and are comparatively cheap on the world (at least European) market.
     
  23. Shadow10

    Shadow10 New Member

    Dec 11, 2007
    While I can't argue with your basic point let me add a different view point. I don't this MLS can or is trying to compete with Europe in the short term. The difference in money that Europe has versus what MLS has is just too large. In the long run, however, it may be more about demographics. Western Europe is not growing in population and I believe that the money being pumped into soccer their is unsustainable. There are just far too many teams given the population. In America we are still increasing our population and much of that growth is from soccer loving Hispanics.
    Therefore, I think, that MLS needs gain credibility among this audience. Success in SuperLiga, the Champions League and (in the future) Copa Libertadores will go a long way in attaining this credibility.
    So, in the short term, MLS needs to focus on incrementally improving every year, while keeping the balance sheet at or around $0. After that I think that long term will take care of itself.
     
  24. Geneva

    Geneva LA for Life

    Feb 5, 2003
    Southern Cal
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Re: The Balance of Trade -- Tracking MLS Imports and Exports

    I can see this argument. Two things - I guess time will tell whether the guys who are coming in to replace Americans are better or just cheaper. As an MLS fan, i want the quality of play to improve. Second, I enjoy watching the American players in MLS & don't like to lose them if it's a matter of money.

    The players only have a few years to make a living playing soccer, and I certainly don't blame them for getting as much money as possible.
     

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