Not so much. Just because you have the money doesn't mean you can actually afford to spend it in a certain way. You know that. Of course, the more important part of that is the second half of the statement that (at least I've been adding) the Sounders and only a couple of others were willing to pay whether they could afford to or not. For example Kraft could afford it, obviously. The last thing Kraft is going to do is spend on the Revs though.
Saw this ad on the mlssoccer.com Is this a new sponsorship deal for Dempsey, or had it been in place before his Seattle signing? (edit: this has been in place since October 2012 -- http://forums.watchuseek.com/f71/de...-limited-edition-game-timer-watch-749271.html and no, Dempsey is not the first American DP in MLS to be a brand ambassador for a watch company: http://www.watchtime.com/wristwatch...donovan-joins-seiko-as-u-s-brand-ambassador/#)
Looks like those Dempsey numbers of 7 or 8 mil are way over blown, according to the new MLS players union Salary list Base $4,913,004.00 Guarnteed - $5,038,566.50 Unless it's bloated in the later years. http://www.mlsplayers.org/files/August 1, 2013 Salary Information - By Club.pdf
Well.. Wahl's article did mention that the Sounders were contributing $22 million and MLS $10 million on a 4 year contract. His guaranteed contract x4 could be rounded to $22 million.
Except he's really only on a 3.5 year contract right (less really as we're more then half way through), which if it stays the same would be ~17 million outlay. So it either must go up a lot as the years progress, or that number was just wrong.
http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/artic...-happy-have-paved-way-clint-dempsey-signing-n Seattle Sounders' Shalrie Joseph happy to have paved way for Clint Dempsey by signing new deal
So that 4.9M Base (and 5.03M guaranteed compensation) are the full year numbers (and Dempsey will only get paid for some x of 12 months by MLS this year)? (Does x=5 since it is already August?)
So.. If he signed a 3.5 year contract, wouldn't that mean for the purpose of the numbers on that site that his contract would be treated as a four year? Which would make his contract roughly $5.7 million?
Haven't heard this one yet (audio unavailable until 7). Someone who heard it posted they thought it was pretty neutral. I'll be interested to hear.
Pick a player you know who signed mid season in years past. Go look at the first numbers available from the players union site. They publish that list multiple times a year. Then compare it to the same time but in the following year. Sure salaries go up a little year to year, but I believe you will see there is a significant difference. So, no, I don't believe those are full year numbers.
I don't believe that is correct.. Alvaro Fernandez was a mid-season signing in 2010 and his 2010 numbers have his salary at 300k. In 2011 he was making the same.
I believe Dempsey's contract is backloaded since based on full compensation he would supposedly would make 8m year The salary charts are based on annual salary. Seattle is paying dempsey 2.5m for the remainder of the season.
Marco Di Vaio, Sherjill MacDonald, Boniek Garcia, Jerry Bengston, Tim Cahill, and Kenny Miller all signed last summer and, like Fernandez, have almost identical salary numbers. Only person I saw with a big increase was Higuain.
I've also seen that ad on MLS before. I actually emailed it to a friend a few months ago because something is off about Dempsey. It looks like his head is photo shopped. His head seems exagerrated like an NBA Jam character.
I'm not being cavalier or flippant about it. I'm just saying that sometimes that in business you do money-losing things today because you feel like the payoff will come down the road. Let's say that one night Robert Kraft goes to bed and is visited by the Ghost of New England Revolution Past (who looks like Beppe Galderisi), the Ghost of New England Revolution Present (who looks like Juan Agudelo) and the Ghost of New England Revolution Future, and the next morning, he wakes up and decides to do everything differently with his MLS team. He's going to invest in the team and make it one that people will travel down to suburban Providence to watch. Can he go out and spend that sort of bread on one player or multiple players, irrespective of whether the team's revenues today support it? Hell yeah. But as you point out, he doesn't want to do that today. Still, he could if he changed his apparent views on how to successfully build the New England Revolution, which are quite different than those of the owners of the Usual Suspects. But there's no reason why "only LA, New York, and Seattle" (talk about "which one of these things is not like the others") can afford to pay stupid money for players.
Earlier in the week he was in doubt to play vs Toronto, and had Martins not gone down early he probably wouldn't have had more than a token appearance today. And besides, you really think MLS decides what games to put on NBCS?
Why should it be? What they change the schedule game just to accommodate the Sounders? You think DC & Philly fans would rather watch some other player on some other team play 20 minuets off the bench rather then watch there team's entire game? As if the Sounders have some divine right to be on whenever they want & everyone has to move mountains to accommodate what's best for the Sounders. You know there are people who support teams in this league who couldn’t give the tiniest of sh*t's if Clint Dempsey went to Seattle or not