guys it doesn't hurt to sell a few stars. why do you think the mexican mnt is so weak right now? all of their players are domestic and they don't develop to the max. leagues like the mls and mfl are great for young players and established guys who aren't world class, but what happens to a guy who has the potential of a zidane when he plays up against luis hernandez and cobi jones week in and week out. sure he learns a lot and develops to a certain stage but there comes a time when he stunts. until mls reaches the level of the epl or la liga, it will be bad for us soccer if they trap our brightest stars here until they get arthritis. i know mcbride is beyond that age, but who says they want pull the same ************ with a taylor twellman, kyle martino, or kelly gray somewhere down the line when a major offer comes their way.
EXACTLY! We haven't seen any of those have we? $1 million for Mathis is not a major offer. $500k for Mastro is not a major offer. We have yet to see a major offer for one of our stars that MLS has turned down.
Yes it does. Have you seen the MetroStars with and without Clint Mathis? As for your concerns about player development, remeber this: when a European team is serious about developing a star player, it will offer serious cash.
plus, if i remember correctly, the offer for Mathis was pre-WC. MLS was gambling Mathis would have a good/great WC and his transfer would go up afterwards. as it turned out he had an average WC (however you want to define it), AND AT THE SAME TIME the transfer market plunged a la the Nasdaq, something not anticipated. the gamble didn't pay off.
Jim, frankly I don't think your conclusions are well thought out, based on what was written. 1st- You don't know what 'significant' raise means. So telling TT to reject the offer without even knowing the terms seems like you've already got a bit of bias against MLS. What if significant is $150K/year? Does that change your perception? 2nd- If TT had so many options available to him that $24K looked good to him last year, what does that say about the market that MLS is supposedly screwing him from? Suddenly, coaches in other leagues are going to evaluate his value as incredibly higher? 3rd - If TT continues to do well and MLS starts getting multiple million dollar offers, TT has a basis for renegoiating his contract again at that point, even if MLS doesn't want to sell him. Until then, he needs to continue to show his value. I imagine that for TT to sign the original 24K contract he got some sort of verbal assurance that he could get decent raises should be perform very well. Now the league seems to be doing just that. And they can continue to do that. 4th - The whole concept of employees getting underpaid while the business is loosing money escapes me. Who exactly should take it in the shorts? Money is already flowing out of investors pockets, and you prefer to ask them to increase the outflow? That's quite ballsy. Maybe you would volunteer to increase your payments to MLS to help offset the added costs? Even if you answer yes, would anybody besides the hardcores here on BS answer yes?
due time, Jim thinks that MLS should accept every offer that they get. I've seen it time and time again. They've stated many times that it will not be their policy. How many fans would the league lose if everytime we developed a star player, we turned around and sold him. Doesn't make any sense.
See, lurking in here is an important semantic point, and that is that there's a HUGE difference between what one of these players is worth to a European club and what they're worth to MLS. Because they mean more to MLS than just output on the field. Which is why it's tough for MLS to justify the higher transfer prices that they're hoping for. A European club likely doesn't give a rat's ass about the marketing potential of a player for the league and the overall state of the game in the United States, so that value is lost on them. Later, COZ
Some decent points, but no American from MLS has gone to Europe to make any kind of major impact. Hejduk was a bench warmer in the Bundesliga, now he plays for a mid-table Swiss team. Sanneh is a decent player on a mid to lower table Bundesliga team and he's probably done the best out of all the ex-MLSers. Still he's maddenly inconsistent. JMM went to the EPL, scored some goals and then disappeared. Lewis never broke through at mid table Fulham and is now in the English First(2nd) Division. Razov went to the Spanish Second Division and scored a bunch of goals and then priced himself out of a move to a La Liga side. One of our best players(Donovan) is a whiny b!+ch who doesn't want to live up to a contract that he signed and wants nothing to do with the club that owns it. Would you be willing to give top dollar for an American player with this kind of track record? Reyna and JOB are the only Americans we have that have played consistently at a high level, and NEITHER of them played in MLS. Mathis is leaving on a free transfer after this year, and I'm sure MLS is going to be missing that $1.5-2 million they could have got for him pre-WC. I want to see players reach their full potential and unfortunately that doesn't happen in MLS. The league will not die if Mathis goes to Europe, and they could use that money wisely to focus in on more youth prospects to try and find the next star.
He went from Turkey(Galatasaraay) to Liverpool where he was a bench warmer. Souness then ended up at Blackburn (he was at Galatasaraay with Friedel) and swung the deal to get Friedel.
Brad came to MLS for the last part of the '96 season (9 Games), played the entire '97 season, then went to Liverpool. Played horribly, then off to Galatasary, and now back to Blackburn.
No, that's wrong: 1995?-'96: Galatasary (Tur) 1996- '97: Columbus Crew (MLS) 1998-2000: Liverpool (EPL) 2000-01: Blackburn Rovers (Eng. 1) 2001-Present: Blackburn Rovers (EPL)
that would be news to me, greg... that i believe mls should accept any offer, as i've never stated that... be careful, you are quickly becoming an apologist, and that's not a good thing and yes, the league has constanty stated that it is trying to do like the mexican football league and kill itself through incest... you can't get good money for players until you prove that you can develop good players (kinda like a salesman, you develop a name for selling lemons and people aren't going to give you big bucks for anything... develop a name as somone who provides quality merchandise and people will gladly pay for it) the league would lose around 2 (zero plus one plus one) fans a year if the league sold a couple of players a year sports are built around the concept of players coming and going... it's a business... fans are fans of specific players, but for the most part fans are fans of certain teams... sure they will buy the paraphanelia for the top guy, but it's their team that they care about... so if a top guy leaves, a new one is born we have a wealth of talent, we just need to develop it don't fear change... stagnation and incest are terrible things go check out some mexican forums and listen to people bitch about players that won't go abroad makes complete sense to me, but i'm looking at the league as a business, as a means of increasing the level of soccer in this country, and for enjoyment
but that's just it, coz there is no higher level that mls should be placing on these players... they are only worth what they do on the field... the don't pull fans in by their "names" raise the level of play in the league... sell the player if possible, reinvest the money into the league (players, marketing, whatever) if the league seems to think that such and such is worth too much because they can market him... market someone else, it's not like someone else isn't there that's almost at the same level we don't have a league full of stars, we have a league with plenty of quality players, some prospects, and some gap-fillers prospects are being found left and right so don't worry about the marketing aspect, someone's star will shine in mls... it's a given
twellman had an offer from 1860 that would have paid him quite a bit more than what mls pays... 9/11 (remember that?) happened... ya take look at things.... mls says renegotiate at the end of each season (or the deal they offer him)... he figures he can do it he did, mls is caught with it's hands tied... he literally carried a team on his back to the title game i'm rather interested in hearing how kraft lost money by being the rev owner... he didn't, he took a loss on the records under the revolution, but in running the revs he made money by feeding himself under different names (or stuffing different pockets, depending on how you want to look at it) he controls all the revenue streams there... of course he made money... never forget that the 3 big guys can write off losses for tax purposes... they are bringing in bigtime cash in other ventures plus... anschutz is trying to put together a gigantic system of concert venues... and sss in the major markets greatly assist him in this endeavor kraft owns gillette, hunt has a sweet deal with arrowhead and also has an sss in columbus these guys aren't hurting as bad as you think and one has his eyes set on something even larger... (besides, player salaries are one of the smaller areas that teams lose money from at the moment) and i have stated before that 100k a season with no additional years would be fine by me... as i don't see mls selling him (and if he wants to be the best he can be, he needs to get out of mls)
Ok, I'll humor you. Let's completely ignore the number of fans attracted by star players. Let's suppose that selling Mathis after the World Cup would have guaranteed MLS $1 million in pure profit. Let's look at what that money could have bought... 1.1 years of Tony Sanneh's salary (not including transfer fee) 1.5 years of Joe-Max Moore's salary 2.5 years of Greg Berhalter's salary 4 more years of Steve Jolley and Mike Petke 15% of Claudio Reyna's transfer fee (not including salary) If I wanted to improve the league, I'd keep Mathis.
1 million dollars is over 40 taylor twellman's (assuming $24k/year) something to think about i'll take mls using that money to get a few young prospects (people you mentioned aren't young or prospects)
But as you said before, Taylor Twellman was acquired for an artificially low price. I've got to say, I think this "young prospects" idea is a no-hoper. Lower-tier European teams already pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in transfer fees for decent young prospects. They're already doing their best to bring in talent, as is MLS. You could spent $1 million more to scrape the bottom of the barrel, but in all probability, the best you'll find are a few more Junior Agogos.
not really sure how much you think mathis, wolff, beasley, convey, etc. cost when they first came to the league alecko's deal is for $50-60k, if it takes that much to keep our best youth (or slightly more $$)... than that's worth it and even easier to do hell... ruiz, reyes, garcia, o'brien, vaca didn't cost that much... get a couple more of them
But as I said, MLS is already signing virtually all the best young US players. If you give them $1 million more, who else would they get? (My guess is that the money would quickly be spent fighting to keep players like Kartes, Akwari, Glinton, Yi, and Salyer in the league ... for the most part, these guys end up here, anyway.) As for foreign players, I'm a bit puzzled by your reasoning... Re: Ruiz, Reyes, and Garcia They've all been stars on their respective national teams for a few years now. They're not young prospects. Re: Vaca and O'Brien Their signings were a bit of a coup. If you could find more of these guys at your nearest Wal-Mart, MLS would already have signed them. Obviously, MLS has had some successful foreign pick-ups. It's also had plenty of bad ones, as well as players who failed their trials. You can't consider one without the other.
well, in attracting stars and young talents from the region... mls can offer life in the united states, which is worth a great deal it can also offer the u.s. dollar and a higher level of competition... they aren't necessarily paid large sums of money to play in their current (or former) leagues as for occurrences like o'brien... a fluke, but they are there to be found