Before MLS allowed clubs to sell shirt sponsorships on the front of jerseys, clubs had secondary sponsorships on their backs, shorts, and on their sleeves. I think that Garber should allow MLS teams to begin to sell secondary sponsorships and to allow clubs to use a percentage of this revenue as team salary allocations. While it may be difficult for MLS fans to demand owners increase spending on their clubs in this economy, I don't think it is unreasonable to give owners the option to increase spending by opening up a new revenue stream (secondary sponsorships). I think this could be a good bridge between now and the end of the CBA when more salary budgets can be allowed. I know that some clubs have yet to find sponsors for the front of their jerseys, and I'm sure people will comment that the jerseys will start to look like Nascar or the Mexican league, but I for one would welcome more sponsorships if it meant clubs having the money to sign better players and keep quality players from leaving.
And it will unbalance the league. A sponsorship in media markets like NY and LA will command significantly more than in Columbus and Salt Lake City.
Well right now LA/NY outspend clubs like Chicago by a factor of X5 so there really isn't spending balance now. Also, Vancouver metro are is about 2M people and they have a 4M shirt sponsorship, Chicago metro is about 9M and they don't have a shirt sponsor and when they did it was for less than 4M and they are almost 5X the size of Vancouver's media market.
It's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure I see the need to tie more spending to shirt sales? I mean if the goal is to let teams spend more of their own money on payroll, why not just let them all spend it, whether the money comes from shirt sponsors, club seat sales or snow cones. Are you trying to incentivize clubs to go out and get higher shirt deals?
No, I want to give owners an additional tool to use to improve their team that does not come from their pockets, the league's pockets, or the fan's pockets. The DP rule was a tool for owners to spend beyond the league's salary budget. The league already has in place an allocation system allows clubs to spend beyond that budget as well. Why not just expand that allocation system to include secondary sponsorships? These sponsorships as of now are unsold, so if a club does find a secondary sponsor and thus finds new revenue, why not allow them to use it how they see fit to improve their roster? As a fan of MLS I always think that the major issue with the league is not quality, it is depth. This allocation expansion could help. It won't allow clubs to sign any more superstars. But it will allow them to get depth or resign players who are maybe looking to smaller euro leagues for higher paychecks. It won't effect everyone, some teams won't be able or may not want to sell additional sponsorships. But if Seattle can get Company X to throw a logo on the back of their shirts and that gives them another 1M, and it allows them to resign Rosales and find 2-3 more guys like him...as an MLS fan, I think that is a very good thing. It won't be for everyone, but it could work for some, and if it allows teams to bring in or keep talent than it helps the league.
I like the idea. If big market v small market is a problem, which it might be, the small markets could be reciprocated by having a certain % of revenue gained from shirt sponsors go into a pot which is split among every team. Basic revenue sharing, just like is done with tv deals, although it'd have to be altered for this situation.
Being in Columbus and Salt Lake City will always put you in an unbalanced situation. Players will always be drawn to the bigger or flashier markets as will sponsors. That's just the way things are, and always have been. Absolutely not. It's one thing to have a cash call and salary kitty, but when you start sharing very team specific revenues you're treading the wrong waters. Houston has zero right to any money that SKC is able to generate with a sponsorship on their kit because of their efforts. Hell no. I mean, at least with the cash calls coming from ticket revenues the low drawing/less popular clubs are held in check by their own lack of support/popularity. Sure, they get the help in salary monies from Seattle/LA and the like but it's offset by their own inability to draw so they're having to make the cash call with less revenue. This though ? It would be straight stealing.
While I support the idea, wouldn't it be simpler to just allow teams to "buy" an extra allocation with their own funds, no matter how they generate that money?
I agree with you. To me, there are three bedrock elements of revenue sharing: (a) national TV money gets shared equally, (b) national sponsorships, such as uniforms, gets shared equally, and (c) gate receipts are shared at some percentage between 30 - 40% for the visitor. I wouldn't be too quick to expand it further than that; there still has to be incentive and reward for local operators to improve IMO. But to the OPs point, as long as the amount is capped, I would support some adjustment so teams could just buy allocations. In fact, I'd prefer that to the third DP slot.
The only way I can support this is Football League-style: one sponsor on the chest, one on the back. MLS has an identity crisis, it has to compete directly with American Sports (that have no sponsors) and the EPL (which have classy, simple white sponsor wordmarks on the chest*). Going full-Mexico and overloading every available square inch of jersey in an attempt to beat the salary cap is only going to turn both groups away. And no, the added exitement that NASCAR fans find in watching ads streak across their screens is not going to counteract that. *At least the participants in games watched by American fans do
It's not the end of the world, but I just think MLS is getting needlessly complicated with these rules. But first, let's again review the roster charges. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it the cap applies to the first 20 players (although teams only have to have 18 in these slots, so they can re-direct the dollars from slots 19 and 20 if they leave them empty.) In addition, there are ten more slots for a 30 man (or 28 man) roster. Garber said that total roster cost is $3.5 - $4 million. To pay for that, the league has a regular annual capital call of $3.1 million and a percentage of gate receipts (variously reported at 30% or 33%) In other words, it looks like every owner is effectively paying for their own roster now, they just run payroll through the league to buttress the "single entity" construct. MLS could, if it wanted, raise the capital call to $4 million or $5 million and increase the salary budgets accordingly. After all, the owners are footing the bill anyway. MLS has chosen not to do that because, I suspect, some owners object and don't want to be forced into more expensive rosters. Fair enough. But rather than just awarding allocations or trading allocations or forever adding and modifying the DP structure, why not let those teams that want to simply buy allocations -- say up to 10% of the total salary cost not just cap number on the 20 players, but on the payroll cost of all 30 players. For example, if total payroll is $4 million per team for the 30 man roster, let teams that want to write a check for up to $400,000 to be added to their payroll as they see fit. They could use the extra cash on one player, two players, spread it over 30 players, or apply it to transfer fee cap charges. It would be up to them. Again, I think teams are paying for their payrolls now, but letting some voluntarily spend a bit more doesn't seem the end of the world to me, and it might help teams with transfer fee cap charges or young players graduating from Gen Ad to have the flexibility.
As far as 'branding' goes for MLS, this makes sense for 2 reasons. 1) MLS has been using secondary sponsorships for over a decade, long then primary sponsorships on the front of shirts. The Fire had Honda as a sponsor on their back, sleeve, and shorts once and so did LA Galaxy with Budweiser. This isn't about changing creating a new sponsorship policy, we are just adjusting our current policy to allow clubs to sell the sponsorship space that they have sold for years along with the new sponsorship space. 2) MLS is different than other sports because we will never have the commercial breaks those other US sports will. Sponsorship is essential, and that is why we are different. Fears about the design is reasonable, but that is something MLS can quality control. Right now Barcelona has essentially what I am suggesting with 2 sponsors. And in a way NY Red Bulls have essentially the same design right now. On the front is one the Red Bull Logo and on the back is the Red Bull name, it may also represent the team identity but from a design perspective it is the same. Any idea that MLS would be 'selling out' by doing this is absolutely ridiculous. MLS is a corporation, selling franchises to billionaires, that play in corporate sponsored stadiums, with corporate logos on the jerseys, and we even have a team (Red Bull) named after a corporation. We aren't sell outs, we sold out...from day one. That ship has sailed, now the question is 'how much should we sell out in regards to what it will give us back'. I can't imagine a single Sounders fan that wouldn't want 3-4 more Rosales-level players in exchange for a Bing logo on the back of their jersey. For me, and any fan of the actual product on the field, the most important thing is the game and the quality of the game I can watch my team play. If the Fire can sign a few more good players or keep guys like Pappa from leaving for a bigger pay day, then I would happily welcome back the Honda secondary sponsorship. I didn't mind it in the past, and I wouldn't mind it now as long as it means my team can get better.