Paying for and counting against are two separate things. There is nothing in the document that states that Federation Players don't count against the cap. Then again, there's nothing that says they do (or some portion thereof). It only says they're "underwritten by the federation". Underwritten doesn't indicate that their salaries are exempt for the Cap. Ignoring Canada/Mexico for the moment, I can't imagine the NWSL setting up a system where Portland gets $315k for 13-15 players plus 5 allocated players where Washington has to stretch the $315 across 18-20 players. That just doesn't make any sense.
None of the allocated player salary counts against the cap. In year's past, there was basically a normalized number of allocations per team. If you had fewer than that, you got cap relief. If you had more than that, you had cap charges. That is not in the roster rules this year (don't recall last year). That said, it is Washington's own fault they have only a couple of allocations. Similarly, Portland has traded and drafted well to get a bunch. Flip side is that as soon as we get expansion again, Portland is going to lose key players as you can only protect so many allocations.
Don't forget that any player who signed for the minimum contract for 2016, if they had their option picked up are still payed the original 2016 minimum contract, not the new 2017 minimum. So that helps with fitting under the cap somewhat. Also, teams that didn't have a certain minimum number of allocated players in the past were reported to have been given some amount of salary cap relief in previous years to help them sign additional players, so I expect the same applies this year as well.
Team Salary Cap Regulations Team Salary Cap In computing the Salary Cap, it is assumed that it is spread across a minimum of 18 Players (if a Team is carrying additional Players because of Roster Relief due or Goalkeeper Replacement, these Players are also included) based on adjustments for Federation Players. Therefore, if a Team is carrying less than 18 Players, minimum salary Player spots are added to the Team’s budget for the purpose of calculating the total TSC (i.e. a Team cannot spread the TSC over 11 Players). Team Salary Cap: $315,000.
You're asking exactly the same question I am. (I even did the same math you did -- if you pay 19 players the minimum, that leaves $30K for Player 20.) The rules just say "based on adjustments for Federation Players." That could mean anything. What I've learned so far refutes the idea (maybe) that Portland has an unfair advantage over Washington. The cap is adjusted based on HOW MANY Federation Players you have. (And bear in mind -- that's U.S. and Canadian, so the Spirit actually have two, same as Seattle, Sky Blue and Boston.) But that doesn't tell me what the actual adjustment is. In MLS, a Designated Player has a specific cap hit. I forget what it is -- let's say $300K just for sake of discussion. The cap hit for that DP is $300K whether he's being paid $350K or $3.5 million. If it's set up the same way in NWSL, so a Federation Player would have a cap hit (it would HAVE to be the minimum of $15K), we still have the same problem Andy mentioned. Now if that $315,000 is based on a particular number of Federation Players who are totally exempt from the cap, that's very different. Let's say you have a cap of $315,000 for your remaining 13-15 players if you have five Federation Players, and then for every Federation Player you don't have, they add $20K to your cap. (Or subtract $20K if you have a sixth Federation Player, which would apply only to Portland, which still has Sinclair in addition to the five Americans.) So under that system, the cap would be: POR: $295K for 12-14 players CHI/KC/HOU: $335K for 14-16 players NC/ORL: $355K for 15-17 players WAS/SKY/SEA/BOS: $375K for 16-18 players I did a hypothetical breakdown for the last of these categories: 2 players at $41,700 (max) 1 player at $30,000 2 players at $25,000 3 players at $20,000 1 player at $16,600 9 players at $15,000 (min) Portland could do this: 1 player at $41,700 1 player at $30,000 3 players at $25,000 2 players at $20,000 1 player at $18,300 6 players at $15,000 And one more note: I've been informed that the USWNT's CBA doesn't really have legal authority over the NWSL. In theory, the NWSL owners could say, "Up yours, we're paying someone $50,000." But I don't think any NWSL owner wants that fight.
There's a difference between an unfair advantage and an advantage. Portland has acquired its allocated players by initial selection when they were not allocated ... Long; subsequent acquisition when not yet allocated, if I recall correctly ... Horan; college draft ... Sonnett; trade, if I recall correctly ... Klingenberg; and initial allocation ... Heath. Some of these means of acquisition also may have involved trades that put Portland in a position to acquire the players in the way they did. Portland has been able to hold on to its players in part because of the way it treats them, in other words due to good management. On the other hand, Washington appears to have lost player at least in part because of the way it treated them, in other words due to bad management. So, Portland may have an advantage, but I don't see anything unfair about it.
That is as clear as mud. a) I thought roster sizes could be as high as 20, without so-called roster relief. Why do they use 18 in this section? b) Adding imaginary players with minimum salaries is not for the purpose of calculating the total TSC (team salary cap); I think it is meant for calculating the team TOTAL SALARY, which is what you compare to the TSC (the cap) to see if the team is over or under the cap. c) Why not just say the salaries of Federation players are excluded for calculating team total salary, used to compare to the cap. OR say exactly how it works, without using the vague term "adjustments." d) I would have used simple declarative sentences and bullets to describe this rule. If I wrote it it would look like this: The Maximum Roster Size is 20. The Team Salary Cap (TSC) is based on the maximum roster size. The TSC is $315,000 for 2017. For comparison to the TSC, the Team Salary is calculated as follows: Player salaries used are the salaries for 2017 only. In the case of multi-year contracts, the salary for 2017 only applies. Add up the salaries of all the non-Federation players; the sum = NonFed $. For this calculation, each Federation player is assumed to count $5,000; Fed$ = $5,000 x (no. of Fed players). [ I made this up. the number could be $0.00, or there could be some other federation player adjustment]. Calculate a Roster Size Adjustment (RSA): RSA = 20 - (no. players on the roster). Include the following in the Team Salary calculation RSA $ = RSA x (league minimum salary). For comparison to the TSC, the Team Salary = NonFed $ plus Fed $ plus RSA $. Additional calculations, will be required if Roster Relief has been granted by the League, or if, on a case by case basis, the League determines them necessary. ................sometimes, it takes more words and/or more space on a page to simplify or to clarify an idea.......
And yes, the Spirit had a few offseason moves for which "Oops!" is appropriate. They got rid of Krieger for very little in part because they figured she might not be a Federation Player this season, and they didn't want her to count against the cap. Oops! That said, they had to let her go somehow because there are only so many bridges across the Potomac, and between her and team management, they were all in danger of burning down. How much of that is her fault and how much is the team's, we'll never know -- too many conversations will be kept private, with good reason. But it's not zero on either side.
The reason I bring this up again is that circumstances have changed. @Blaze20, can the name of the 'Western New York Flash' sub-forum be changed to 'North Carolina Courage.' This seems to be the simplest change to reflect the current NWSL league in BigSoccer. The format and visual presentation of the BigSoccer forums has changed. When the NWSL forum page is loaded, you can no longer see that the most recent post in the WNY sub-forum is to a thread named 'NC Courage 2017.' The Lifetime deal was announced. IMO this may mean that an additional group of Woso internet surfers will be looking for the NC Courage, as well as the rest of the teams. The NC Courage appear to have a viable supporter's group in North Carolina - see my post in the 2017 attendance thread, representing another new group of team followers. The WNY Flash are in a totally different league: the UWS.
They are working on restoring that functionality (as well as highlighting when forums have a new post). Not sure when they'll actually get it implemented, though. I don't think Blaze has any control over that. The simplest change that Blaze can do is move the NC Courage threads out of the WNY subform and into the main NWSL forum (which I do think is better than the current setup). Any other change has to come from the admins and Andy made sure that that's not gonna happen.
I'm hearing they'll do that by noon ET to get it out of the way before the Historic Major Really Big Announcement Of The USA, Canada And Mexico That Everyone Already Knows What It Is at 2.
I'm pretty sure that was their statement to save face. Unless Ellis outright Engen'd Krieger, there was nothing indicating she wouldn't be allocated in the upcoming year. She gets called into all the camps and does see playing time as a sub. They can't just magically not allocate her and keep having her come in. As you said, too many bridges burned. They wanted her gone because she didn't see eye to eye with the owner/coach and was a "problem" in the locker room because she was willing to stand up not having to worry about her spot on the team. And obviously with all of the other trades or players outright leaving the league, a good number of the team seemed to side with Krieger. There was also something later released of them looking to get the top allocation draft spot with the idea Sullivan would skip her senior year. She tore her ACL 3 weeks after that trade.
Yeah, I don't understand the "allocation ranking" thing at all. I do know they'll move heaven and earth to get Sullivan, who has been around the SoccerPlex for years. I wouldn't be so sure that everyone else who left the Spirit was on Krieger's "side" of things. I'm sure she had more friends among the players that she did among the staff, but she wouldn't have had 100% support among the players, nor would she be blameless in the fights with management. The flip side to saying a number of other players left is this -- there wasn't exactly a bidding war to get her from the Spirit. All that said -- I thought she played really well last year and said all the right things in public. These are all complex people. I don't pretend to understand them completely.
Where she ended up I think was more so to her demands (not buying her not knowing about the trade). Pride didnt have a whole lot to offer and at one point it was mentioned both Seattle and Portland were interested. I don't buy for a second neither of those teams couldn't offer more than 2nd spot in allocation (I know it's not the current name but I hate the new one and can never remember the letters). She wanted Orlando. With how things worked Hagan seemed like someone they could have gotten. But if Spirit didn't want to pay max salary for Krieger I doubt they wanted to pay 30k for Hagan either. I would love if salaries/club expenses were public. I doubt Spirit is near the cap.
From today's media conference call: Duffy: all players' compensation (incl those on older contracts) have been raised to meet new salary requirements #nwsl— Backline Soccer (@BacklineSoccer) April 12, 2017
Sky Blue will have a pub bus, too: Legends/Football Factory appears to be a BIG TIME Soccer Bar - https://www.legendsff.com/ http://www.skybluefc.com/tickets/nyc-bus-trip-to-sky-blue-fc-home-opener/
As the season kicks off, we just posted our interview with U.S. Dept. of State Sports Envoy & former USWNT / current Washington Spirit player Joanna Lohman. She's a great guest, and in the discussion Joanna touches on her rise through the sport and her awesome advocacy work as she finds creative ways to leverage her platform as a soccer pro. We'd be honored if you'd take a listen (and share!): SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/diplosport/diplosport-podcast-134-joanna-lohman iTunes: http://apple.co/2bnO1ro