QUESTION Re: 3rd slot. $250,000 to buy one. Got it. But does a team need to buy it every year? Or is it a one time buy-in price? Like, you pay $250,000 and you get a 3rd DP slot forever?
This also doesn't leave very much time for teams to find a player before the deadline, if this was a total surprise to the teams... hopefully they knew it was coming down the pipe and some teams have players lined up.
It did say there's no expiration date on the DP slots, so if you bought it, it's yours for AT LEAST the life of the player on your squad it would seem. this is fantastic. They add to the slots and subracted from the hit the teams take on the cap. Finally, some movement upwards. Well, with Chicago being able to "last minute" and agreement with Collins John, and Seattle already having Nkufo lined up for after the WC ... it would appear that SOMETHING was known.
That would actually be the better move, you are right. Gives all teams a chance to have a DP guy that may both help on the field and putting people in the stands, without breaking a teams budget on putting other good players out there. If you want more than one, than you have to make some tougher choices, which is how it should be. But it is good to have SOMETHING. So I'll give them credit for that, most certainly.
Awesome news. I agree with the (seemingly majority) consensus that DP #1 should be cap-exempt, but this way is solid. Big news for the Red Bulls, obviously.
LA used essentially 2 DPs last year (or for the 2nd half of last year anyway) and they were in serious competition for the supporters shield and were a couple PKs away from winning the cup. Teams can drop $650,000 of their salary budget on two players and still compete. They just can't fill their back line with old slow guys who make too much money (like LA did in 2007/08).
This is interesting - So I would assume that means that Beckham only counts for 167.5k this year (if he ends up even playing), which opens up even more salary cap space for the Galaxy.
Well @ least this gives NY the firepower they need to sign Henry. I really think teams are going to use the 2 DP slots to their fullest..especially KC, Hou, and SJ(once they get their stadiums built)
Huge step for the league. For a league that lacks big-time story lines, this should add a lot of intrigue. I would be interested to find out how many owners feel like this is too risky. MLS is really putting a lot more money on the field with this rule and with the new CBA.
3rd using all kinds of allocation money is doable. I've never been entirely clear on where allocation money comes from though. Does it renew annually, etc?
I am really happy with this. From a personal rooting standpoint, concacaf champins league results are most important to me and I think 3 DP caliber players may be able to get us past the mexican teams if we plan the rest of the team properly.
Not a chance. LA will most certainly use that spot. You can book it. They were probably the biggest one pushing for it in the first place, along with NY.
I think the big market clubs will use them, titles and names brings butts to the stadium and eyes to the tube. for the Galaxy I would not mind trying to bring in Palermo from Boca. We need a striker like Gordon who does not have an allergy to scoring goals. We have quite a few players we could drop to make it happen.
I understand the cap hit is now $335K, but does that also mean that the max salary for a non-DP is $335K? Or can you pay someone, say, $350K and not have him be a DP? (So that you can go out and sign two DPs without having to purchase a 3rd slot.)
Man im really excited. It sucks that we have to wait til the Euro window opens but the rumors of who is going to sign who will fly.
I don't think the risk is how much the teams will spend with two DPs, but the precedent the whole DP idea sets. If teams are signing DPs and they work out, in the sense of winning games and putting more fans in the stands, then you've done two things: 1.) put pressure on the teams who don't have them to sign them so they can keep up; and 2.) encouraged the league to create more DP slots. If one works, two is better, and three is better than that, etc. This is fine, as long as you're creating enough extra revenue from it all. The fear is that, although the DPs might create better soccer and even sell more tickets, that won't be enough to cover their cost. I'd love it if Red Bull signed Thierry Henry, for instance, but they can't put more than 25,000 fans in the stadium (in the current configuration, anyway), and they have to pay for his contract somehow. Maybe that's a bad example because Red Bull might be perfectly happy to run the team at a loss as long as the team is a good advertisement for their swill, but you still see the potential problem.