My POV on the league subsidizing this deal with equity and sponsors money going into Messi's comp is that it's a negative step. A step toward being the WWE rather than the NFL/NBA/MLB/NHL. It undermines competitive balance to give Miami the benefit of getting a player with league assets that other teams wouldn't otherwise have access to in a league with a strict salary cap mechanism like MLS. If the Mas brothers want to give him a stake in the club, that's their business. Its a whole different story when the league is offering up equity in the larger organization and facilitating sponsors providing cash and other assets. And f_ck Miami for not having in the line earlier than August, if not holding off until next year.
The league and its fans have no reason to think they are any better than they are. If Messi came to DC United I'd laugh everyday while still acknowledging the clown car quality of it all.
I just heard that the team with 3 DPs that's getting Messi will also likely get Sergio Busquets to come too, who currently makes €12M. Who is going to be the GM there? Gorilla Monsoon?
LA Galaxy is pissed because they didn't realize that 2023 was the year that you could ignore all of MLS' "rules."
The funny side note is that Messi will be playing a reconditioned high school field in a part of Florida that is a swamp. At age 38, running around in the June through August heat, staring up at the pink and black "temporary" seats. Thinking to himself, I won the World Cup and then settled for this? Priceless. Now, if one of the codicils is that Ron DeSantis has to clean Messi's jock with his tongue after every match, I'm on board.
I know many of you won't agree but I think MLS now has the right number of teams - or ALMOST - to split into MLS1 and MLS2 with internal pro/rel and do two leagues with home/away games regardless of where the teams are. This would be the decisive step to make a big jump of quality (and the fall to spring calendar with a winter pause)
Imagine DC being relegated. How many fans are showing up to matches when we can't get 16k for normal MLS matchups. 10k? 8k? I'll be honest with you, I would not stick with DC United through relegation seasons. I would probably come back on promotion but I ain't taking my time to see DC play the Albuquerque Sharts
Until someone puts forth a plan that compensates for the change in the risk model to the owners who have paid $2-300M or more to buy in or the legacy owners who have pumped in tens of millions over the last 27 ys keeping the league afloat. Anshutz owned a quarter of the teams at one point? And even then, why would anyone choose to change their risk model? The idea that the USSF would just tell MLS you've got pro/rel now would never make it through the courts either. While pro/rel people talk about punishing and rewarding teams for failure and excellence, the American model of sporting success revolves around the individual having the talent and putting in the work to get to the top. And I'd say this system is pretty effective at rewarding the best individuals when you look at the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL. Each has some sort of lower league or league structure that showcases or funnels the better individuals to the top. You can say that pro/rel punishes the poor owners and rewards the better owners but there are no better examples of how that's not so true than Leicester City and Norwich. Did the Leicester owners really deserve to be punished with relegation? On paper yes, they made poor personnel decisions, but on balance, there are worse owners in the EPL next season. Should Norwich be rewarded for their yo-yo approach to the promotion? They 100% execute a money driven strategy and if they happen to stick in the EPL for another year, its a massive bonus, but they don't really build a stronger club to stay up instead prioritizing profit, They've only been in the EPL for 7 of the last 25 ys and only once did they string together consecutive seasons (3) 11/12 to 13/14. The European model of per/rel, which almost everyone in favor of pro/rel cites, isn't the best approach IMO. I think the LigaMX model, which suspended relegation, took an "average" of a club's last 3 years to determine which clubs go down is far more equitable to new clubs who need time to get up to the top divisions standard or a club who had a bad/down year. Prices get cut substantially and the stadiums are only partially full until the fair weather fans come back with promotion.
My gripe with this particular deal is that my understanding is that Messi is getting equity in MLS and profit sharing from two of the league's biggest sponsors. In a league with a very strict and limiting salary cap structure. Those are assets that aren't available to any other club in the league to lure in players. The whole thing with how Zlatan got half of an AEG owned club in Sweden was also massive crap. It's one thing if the league introduces a club to a player of this magnitude, but it's a whole different thing when the league and its sponsors are kicking in real assets toward closing the deal. I know they aren't (re: Columbus/Precourt), but they should be impartial. This for me damages the league's credibility and takes it a step toward being an entertainment entity like WWE or American Gladiators rather than a sports league like the NFL or MLB.
Absolutely. And furthermore, there are those of us who simply have no interest whatsoever to watch a retirement league.
In a single entity system, it's easy do decide how punitive relegation actually is, and how much churn there actually is. Knowing this league, it would come with a Lexus for every player and $5M in Garberbux. In the unlikely event MLS tried something like this, it would start as nothing more than a scheduling model. All else being equal, would you really stop watching DC because, for half a season, they're playing against the worst 15 teams in MLS rather than the best 15 teams in MLS?
While you raise valid points, the analogy to other US leagues is inapposite. Those leagues are the pinnacle of professional sports worldwide, MLS certainly is not. An interesting thought exercise is how the NFL would respond if some hypothetical foreign US football prodigy was a free agent and could choose between the NFL and some other hypothetical foreign destination. Here, Messi is a marketing opportunity for a second tier league in a sport where having one great player on a team doesn't necessarily change the trajectory of competition league wide, e.g. Zlatan at LAG, Henry at RBNY.
For the league this seems like a real no-brainer. You do whatever you have to do to get the best player in the world into the league. If Apple figures out that no one is watching the league now but having him in the league will give you a huge boost of revenue from new subscriptions all over the world why wouldn't you offer some percentage if that's what it takes to close the deal? Same same with adidas and merch sales. The future franchise thing...who knows what that's really worth? Apparently re-sale tickets have already jumped by huge multiples for their matches and we still don't really know when he will start playing for them. The increase in interest in the league and ancillary $$$, sponsorships, etc is going to be enormous. I still think he's going to struggle quite a lot like almost every old-timer from Europe does when they get here. They don't realize the travel issues, weather, lower quality facilities, lower quality teammates will have such a big impact. Sure Messi will score some amazing goals traipsing through MLS defenses. But probably fewer than the Eurosnobs think. Will a new Jesse Marsch welcome him to the league like Beckham got? The league already has no credibility so I don't see how this matters.
It is good to be the king. Seriously, on the international scene, nobody takes MLS all that seriously anyway. What credibility does MLS have to lose?
My guess is that Inter Miami is about to start negotiating to use the Miami Dolphin's NFL stadium for the remainder of the season. If Inter Miami can't work a deal with the Dolphins, they'll probably start negotiating with the Orange Bowl.
If Mr Posh Spice can make that deal happen everyone will have to take him seriously. Definitely will be a deal with the devil if ever there was one.....