I dont care what Twellman days about SKC, the reports are that Ronaldo will be making $200million a year, making him the highest paid player in history. There's a better chance of me flapping my arms and flying to Tahiti than there is of Kansas City offering him anything even remotely close.
For some context on the sheer inability of North American sports to support contracts of this size, the largest NA contracts by AAV are the most recent NBA Max Contracts (Karl-Anthony Towns and Devin Booker). Those contracts are for $56M per season. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_sports_contracts
If a rich dude wants to pay it, it can be paid. Also, that’s where the supplementation of commercial deals comes in. Ronaldo can sell stuff literally around the world. Karl-Anthony Towns could walk past me on the street and my initial thought would be, “damn, that dude is tall”. I bet if whatever deal SKC offered was offered by Miami or LA (either) instead, Ronaldo would be having a longer think about this. Also, we’re still doing discovery rights? Seriously? It’s a joke.
It’s just a clown show. He turns 38 in February. Will his presence suddenly make the Saudi Arabian league better? Such a signing would be entirely about the marketing and flash, not the substance, because there really wouldn’t be much substance. Not $75M worth, anyway.
This is just me spitballing, but the only thing I can imagine is the Saudis hope it will get some more eyes on their league (same reason weve signed superstars in MLS) and maybe some other big names will start to see it as a viable place to go play if they see that Ronaldo was happy enough playing/living there for a while. It really is 100% marketing any way you look at it. Sending the message that this isnt just a place where a decent player may come play because we overpay....its a place where a superstar who doesnt need this money and could just as easily go hang out in Miami or Los Angeles and probably still make like 15 - 20 mil a year.....is still willing and happy to be at. Doesnt really matter to me either way. I dont actually care to see this big of stars in our league, at least not until our rosters are more balanced quality/talent wise and we gradually get to the point where such a player doesnt consume all the oxygen in the locker room. Maybe Mbappe and Haaland can come to MLS in 10 -15 years after weve hopefully grown a bit in profile. Until then, im good with Cucho and Zelarayan level guys being the higher end of talent, and would like to get to a point where eventually even the lower end players are TAM level (like 500-600k guys) relatively soon.
Is that why SKC has been so cheap basically theyre entire existance? Saving up for the big CR7 bid?? If things fall through with Al Nassr and they pick him up which is completely feasible, ill take Daniel Salloi off their hands. Thanks
My sources indicate that Ronaldo was actually closer to going to a new team located in Las Vegas. Google “Ronaldo Las Vegas” for more info.
Now that's definitely believable. Could see him getting Beckham style treatment where he stars for the new team for one season, retires and then gets some percentage ownership in the club and then he's an investor in the billion dollar development around the new soccer stadium including the new Ronaldo branded CR7 Casino/Resort where he has a huge penthouse suite.
Saudi Arabia wants to host the World Cup in 2030. They plan to have the city of Neom up and running by then (google Neom). They bought Newcastle for marketing purposes, like Qatar did with PSG. Saudi is trying to change it’s perception in the west. It’s also why Lionel Messi is a paid ambassador for them, like a ton of people (Zidane, Pep, etc) were for Qatar. This makes total sense for Saudi Arabia, the country and government. As far as MLS goes, this would’ve been huge for MLS, bigger than Beckham. To say otherwise is simply wrong. Just imagine how many Apple TV+ subscriptions would’ve been sold, not just in the US, but worldwide.
Be careful not to confuse opinion with fact. So after a quarter century of futility, THIS is the thing that would be the silver bullet as regards the league's crappy TV ratings? Uh-huh. For a 38 year old player who might last, what, one season? Two, max? Assuming he doesn't get injured and actually, know you, comes here to play instead of of just collect a mammoth paycheck. Whatever.
Considering TV ratings for MLS are irrelevant now, since we’ll never know them, I don’t care. If you think some people won’t get subs to watch Ronaldo, then I don’t know what to tell you. People don’t tune in to watch quality play (they watch European leagues for that), they don’t tune in to watch players like Josh Williams or Lucas Zelarayan, they don’t tune in to see young players like Aiden Morris. They tune in to watch either their local teams or world superstars. Remember when Zlatan came here and everyone said he was washed, coming off an injury, retirement league, etc…. Well, didn’t he have something like 50 goals in 50 games? If he can do that, Ronaldo can. You can literally add up all the ‘star power’ or whatever you wanna call it for every single player in MLS, and whatever that number is, it’s 1% of the drawing power of Ronaldo, even now. Apple has worldwide distribution, don’t forget that. Don’t underestimate how many people in the middle east or asia love Ronaldo.
I think it could be argued that Ronaldo would be worth $75 million a year to MLS. Maybe. I DON'T think it would be worth $75 million a year for a single MLS club. Not even close.
For years now I've been saying basically the same thing about Beckham. Whatever his salary was - and it was big but not gargantuan by world standards - that was paid by Anschutz Sports. If they felt he was worth it - and I don't know how you'd quantify that - fine by me. But as we all know, it didn't stop there; he was given the right to buy an MLS team for $25 million, which was a discount but not a ridiculous one. By the time he was in a position to execute that particular option, the asset itself was worth over $300 million. Put another way, MLS itself essentially gave the guy at least $275 million. That's money that would have gone into the league's pocket if they sold it on the open market. And for what? There are some cities where Stupid Spice never played a single game, but the owners in those cities gave up their share of that money nonetheless. Now you can argue that Beckham raised the profile of the league to one extent or another and you'd be right. The only debate is whether whatever he did was worth that kind of money. I m not sure, for example, that you could make any kind of a case that his esteemed presence in MLS did jack squat for the Columbus Crew, but I suppose that's taking a parochial attitude. The real question is whether Ronaldo could make the same kind of impact, whatever it was. Personally, I don't think it's even remotely possible. Ronaldo is a god for soccer fans, for sure. But Beckham is a superstar of the world with glamour dripping off of him like the morning dew. People who've never seen a ball kicked in anger know who he is, who his wife is and all the rest. People want to say that Ronaldo would give MLS some kind of ""credibility", but I don't see it. Does him playing in Saudi Arabia make you have new respect for desert soccer, or for just how much stupid money those oil guys have? Bottom line, Ronnie simply isn't worth the money.
I agree. Maybe its just me too, but I feel like some people who are really big soccer fans in America (no matter what league(s) youe into)...think the biggest stars around the world are bigger names than they actually are. Beckham is literally the only exception and still is to this day because his public persona transcended sports and was mainstream pop culture. Messi and Ronaldo are genuine superstars in most parts of the world, just as relevant as the biggest music artists and actors. Not here though. They barely move the dial in America. Zlatan is a soccer superstar (maybe just a notch below Ronaldo and Messi but up there) I would say. He even got a little mainstream media attention when he came to the Galaxy. Did it really change anything for the league or that team in any significant way though besides temporarily seeing an uptick in jersey sales of that specific player and maybe a few thousand more butts in seats when he first came? I would think bringing in a player like Chicharito or Vela probably has more lasting effect because it may bring in an existing passionate soccer fan that lives in your area, who just never gave your team a chance before, and maybe ropes them in, permanently...maybe. Because if they were mostly just watching Liga MX before, getting on the MLS bandwagon isnt too large of a drop in self-respect lol. Im particularly aware of the time when Beckham came here because I was just getting into soccer back then. I was never super into sports at all in my life. Maybe casually paid attention to the big stories in the 90s as a younger kid, like Michael Jordan and later Lebron in the early 2000s just because they were the hot thing at the time. Ive never been an athlete and didnt really even seriously learn the sport of soccer until I started watching professional games as an adult. That time was around 2006 I think. I started casually watching some Premier League games. 2007 I started watching MLS casually wanting to pay attention to my local team (Crew) and I think thats also when Beckham came. I dont remember actually caring about him that much though. I liked that he was drawing international attention to the thing that I was building my interest in but he didnt matter to me. I just wanted to see my local team thrive and win, regardless of the names on the jerseys. I kind of think thats what sells the team ultimately to casuals as well as general non-fans. When I talk to non-soccer fans that I know, about the Crew, the primary thing they ask me is something like, "Hey hows your Crew doing? Are they good this year?" When ive had to say "no were having a crappy season" theyre like "damn that sucks" and thats the end of the conversation. When i say something like "yeah were hot right now, top of the East" or whatever, I get something like "Man maybe I should come down to a game some time". I honestly think just putting a fun, exciting, more winning than not, product on the field is the main recipe for attracting long term fans. Superstar signings are just quick hits and the high wears off soon enough. Thats why im fine with just keeping up with the Jones mostly which I think under the Haslams we do now. We get the pieces we need to be competitive and a high tier team in this league. Honestly most of what needs to change in MLS is at the league office level.
I can't believe that, in 2022, there are educated people who still think non-European teams signing guys like Ronaldo, Messi, Zlatan, or Mbappe are soccer decisions.
Show of hands, who here is planning on subscribing to whatever streaming service carries the Saudi Premier League?
at $18 a month, nah https://worldsoccertalk.com/tv/how-...-pro-league-from-usa-20221231-WST-414004.html