CBA Updates & Discussion

Remember, that Abbott didn't say the salary cap would increase, merely the amount given to players.. Having some experience working with worker's pay, the salary often is around 50-60% of a business' cost to emply one person. You also have to consider 401k (pension plan), health insurance, etc. MLS may be increasing worker's benefits, alongside the salary itself.

 

401k pension plan? Do the players have that? I thought that was what they were fighting for....

 

Wait, what? I was only a kid, but I was at that game. What exactly was wrong there?

 

GBS won an MLS Cup in Columbus, just to name a recent one.

 

Well the head coach at the time, Laurie Calloway and his new wife Marci of Cafe Marcella in Los Gatos told me the league was only interested in making NY and LA their flagship franchises and wouldn't let San Jose have anything. IE allocated or marquee players or whatever they called them back then.....

After the sellout of the SJ Clash vs DC United inaugural game, Alan Rothenberg stated sarcastically that in now way he wanted a " rinky dink town like San Jose outshine LA".....its a wonder how he ever had interest in buying the club..........

 

this is not looking good...it SUCKS.

 

We are sooooooo screwed.

If these numbskulls can't find a compromise, the league will die. Any sort of strike or work stoppage will flat kill the league. Morons.

go quakes!

- Mark

 

Goff's open letter to Uncle Phil...good read.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/soccerinsider/2010/02/dear_mr_anschutz.html#more

 

Thanks Lew for being a cheap bastard.

 

My impression from reading SBI is that the debate is not so much over money as it is over free agency/single-entity related issues. The annual salary raise is a little less than the last CBA but still decent, but the players really want to get more free agency-type rights. I think this will be a difficult sell considering how much the league wants to keep single entity, they aren't going to want to chip away over that. Maybe the union should just settle for a little more cash and give up on chipping away at single-entity for now?

On the other side of the coin, it doesn't seem to me that giving up some free agency type rights by MLS owners will hurt the league's finances that bad if there is still a salary cap. The cap should prevent teams from nuking everyone's financials NASL-style if the owners granted the union's free agency demands. I could be wrong on this because I don't know the details... if the cap is too high then granting free agency rights would hurt the league's survival chances.

 

Rhetoric...it always comes down to money.

 

Right. And if the league were to be destroyed by this failure to compromise, the recriminations would go on for years between the side saying the owners were wrong and the other side saying the players were wrong. It would be like arguing the benefits of AEG with a Scum fan.

 

Where does it mention Lew in that article? Do you have some window into the discussions between owner/investors?

 

The increase in spending is pretty conservative as the $60M is spread over the 5 years of the next CBA contract. That amounts to about $30K a year per player.

That $30K, as I understand it, is not evenly spread out over the 5 years. It is less in the first year and grows by the fifth year to total about $150K over the 5 years. This allows the cap to grow from around 2.4M in 2010 to 2.9M in 2014.

 

I didn't see Lew mentioned either but the man clearly lacks a winning attitude when it comes to this team...which could ultimately be our undoing. Player acquisitions, marketing, and the snails pace of this stadium effort, have all been poor, I would give our ownership/FO an overall D- for quality, thus far...

...but I seriously doubt we'll see a player strike...too much hangs in the balance w/ new stadiums coming online, new teams, etc.

 

Where did that come from? Yes thanks Lew for bringing our team back when no one else wanted to, thanks for working so hard to put together funding for a stadium because our backward city can't/won't contribute money to the stadium like most other cities, thanks for putting together a FO that has listened to most of the fans complaints and fixed them over the last 3 years, thanks for finally getting JD to spend some cash and fill actual holes this off season and offering to buy a DP if JD and Frank want it...

 

Agreed. Single entity is not going anywhere, the sooner the players get that through their skulls the sooner we can get back to playing soccer. Single entity is one of the things keeping this operating in the red league afloat still. MLS would have long folded without it, and would still be in grave danger in this economy of folding without it. Not to mention single entity is one of the ways MLS gets around the trust issues that non-single entity leagues other than MLB have to deal with. The owners will not be giving it up.

 

Wow..... Hook, line and sinker.

 

No it's called reality. Only 3 teams are currently operating in the black.

 

Major league baseball is a legal monopoly, the NFL prospers in part through revenue sharing and a hard salary cap, and MLS has a single-entity system.

But sooner rather than later, MLS's financial structure--a limited-liability system in which investors own a portion of the league rather than an individual club--needs to be eliminated.

Over the league's first decade, the single-entity structure worked because of the generosity and patience of a pair of patrons: Philip Anschutz and Lamar Hunt. Their parent companies combine to own both of MLS's soccer-specific stadiums and nine of its 10 teams. (Robert Kraft owns the other.) Anschutz Entertainment Group also owns the American television rights for both MIS and the World Cup, leasing air time from ABC/ESPN and selling the ads itself. It's no wonder that American soccer fans call Anschutz, "Uncle Phil."

New stadiums will make MLS a profitable enterprise, (Build it Lew!) which has been one obstacle to finding new investors. The other is the single-entity system.

Anschutz and Hunt don't mind chipping in to help the league as a whole because they are emotionally invested in the growth of American soccer. But not many billionaires are, and if MLS is to expand, it needs new investors. With the league beginning to prove itself a capable long-term investment, it is time to drop the safety net (single Entity) and involve other potentially interested parties.


Like I said... Hook line and sinker.

 

How old is that article? "Both of its Soccer Specific Stadiums?", "nine of its 10 teams"? If anything I think that article has been proven dead wrong. There have been plenty of millionaires, and indeed billionaires, willing to buy into MLS's single entity sturcture, so many that we're soon to be up to 18 teams and Hunt and AEG are divested of their interests in all but 4 teams combined (including Lew). And the SSS's have been built left and right in most MLS cities now (and we're one of the next ones if this damned recession would end). If anything history has proven that article to be a load of bull.

 

Same reason that back in World War II we used to talk about a guy named "Uncle Adolph."

 

I will go out and say the 2010 season does not start until after the WC. I have zero "inside" knowledge of the MLS CBA negotiations.

IMO the breech that exists between the two sides is to severe to closed in 4 weeks. Listening to player reps and the MLS the issue is "binding" players. Think of Ralston, Hartman, Kjestan and so many others. So long as an entity has rights to an individual without compensation to that individual, there will be conflict.

The players allowed this as the options outside of the USA were limited. With the MLS rising in league stature, the players need the ability to move without leaving home. The guys going to Scandinavia, Denmark, Eastern Europe are proof that something is wrong with the structure.

I will be on the side of the individual as long as someone can own them without paying them. I hope the players stay out until the MLS allows players who have completed their contract to leave. No idea if and when that will happen but my bet it is not for 4 weeks at least.