MLS are morons for tripling Landon's salary when he woulda come home for much less.. It seems Garber 'warming up' to the legacy of the NASL has had some (unforeseen?), nasty consequences.. I wonder if market budgets were cut to make up for this lunacy..
Point of comparison: May 21, 1979 issue of Sports Illustrated notes Giorgio Chinaglia was on a three-year, $840,000 contract ($280,000 annually).
Which, in today's dollars is $750,000 annually. http://minneapolisfed.org/Research/data/us/calc/index.cfm Sachin
Which is not a point of comparison. In the 70's, the best footballers didn't make multi-million dollar salaries. In part, prior to Bosman, most leagues restricted how many foreigners you could start. So that naturally held the market down. Clubs tended to be viewed as community charity--folks didn't look at how to market ManU to Asia. You didn't have a champion's league and a lot of TV money. So the top players made substantially less in the 70's than they do today. It's not even close. That's why Cosmos could sign: Rijbergen, Marinho, Romero, Bogecivic--all National team players in their prime. That's why the Chicago Sting could practically import an entire team of Bundesliga starters (Granitza, etc.) to play in Chicago.
Eddie's wage makes sense if he ends up being transferred within the next 12-18 months for $5-7M. But - assuming this is a 4-year extension - he can wait it out too and leave in 4 years on a free with MLS having overpaid him by a couple of mil at least. I agree that Donovan's deal is above market.
no one knew crap about what others made except through hear say now the players know and we know it's a major chip taken away from the league and given back to the players
Pat Noonan makes $75,000? That's garbage. Who could blame guys like him (productive, relatively young Americans) that go overseas?
The article mentions "four developmental players earn only $11,700 apiece and three others are at $16,500". Weren't developmental player salaries supposed to be going up this season?
I checked a few articles and it looks like you're right. "$850/mo" for developmental players was the number bandied about last season. And $850/mo * 12 = $10,200/yr So, apparently the poorest paid developmental players saw their wages go up 15% from last year. Still, the league should do something about raising the lowest wages some more. Calling yourself "Major League" sounds a bit hollow when some of your players are barely paid above minimum wage.
True, but how many of them come anywhere close to playing play in a MLB game while they're making single A wages?
I wouldn't be surprised if Developmental players were on a 9-month or month-to-month contract. $11,700/9 = $1300 a month.
Clearly Landon would not have come home for much less, because if so he would have. You think they just handed him a blank check and told him to fill out the numbers? I've never understood this fascination with begrudging athletes the money they make. What the hell is wrong with Donovan making $975,000 or Johnson making $875,000? Is it going to bankrupt the league? No. The same people who yell and scream about how out of line their salaries are compared to Pat Noonan's are the same ones who insist that we must use the draft to prevent players like Pat Noonan from competitive shopping their wares around the league? How did Johnson get his money? Because he has a choice of signing on for extra years in order to net the league a transfer. How did Donovan get the money? Because he could have parked his ass at Leverkusen and made just as much. How come Noonan doesn't make much money? Because at no time during his ascent as a player has he had any options other than to play for the New England Revolution for whatever they were offering. But don't worry, if he continues to play as he has, he'll get his soon enough. This is why players with college eligibility remaining get more money from MLS than College seniors.
Eddie "big balla" Johnson representin Now that our boy is makin some paper, it's time for him to step up his game and cop the absolute necessities: Iced out watch: Bentley Continental rollin on 20s: Pimp cup: Dude needs to step up his game if he's gonna be reppin MLS...don't be a pansy like LD, show everyone that he's the MAN. Not just some everyday soccer player
You're assuming these are full time workers, when the whole point of developmental spots are that they are not (they have day jobs, usually). The reason they have developmental spots at all is precisely because they don't have to pay them very much. Increase those salaries and you diminish the reason for having developmental slots in the first place. I mean clearly the developmental players should be as close to getting paid their true free market value as any group of players in the league. They generally aren't drafted, or are drafted so low that it's the same thing. Therefore they get to participate in an open competition for their services which players like Chad Marshall never reallly had. Their ability as players matters little since so few play important roles for teams, so there really shouldn't be wide variation in their pay. They tend to be on year to year contracts, so they don't get tied up in a contract they signed years ago. I think we need to consider that developmental players make $11,700 because that's just about what most of them are worth to an MLS team and not much more. The ones that are worth more generally get pay raises (like Troy Perkins and Bobby Boswell) soon after that fact is discovered. My guess is that if the league mandated all developmental players had to make $25,000, instead of all of the developmental players getting pay raises, you'd see some getting raises and some getting released.