2024 Leagues Cup

América, Monterrey, Chivas, and Tigres all get assigned a "home" venue where they will host through the listed stage for each team.

 

All I’m hearing is no games in Mexico which likely won’t placate the Liga MX clubs for very long, and shouldn’t.

 

Any evidence they were asking for games in Mexico? The Liga MX clubs knew they weren't getting games in Mexico when they co-created this tournament. They did complain about the travel demands, which the plan to give four teams "home" venues partially addresses.

 

This is a commercial decision more than anything. Not an honest attempt to balance the format. The hope is to keep the big Mexican clubs involved until the later stages.

The rest of Liga MX (14 teams) still has to travel and be the away team every single time they play a MLS opponent.

So they fine-tuned travel a bit, still not a winner in my book. Nope, this is still a contrived, unbalanced “event” that has no business qualifying teams to the regional flagship competition (CCC).

 

Green team, original MLS green team, green team

Also DSG Park will host the Marcelo Balboa derby for the first time, last played (competitively) in 1998 when the Rapids beat Leon in Mexico 1-0, but then lost the second leg at home 4-0.

 

https://prosoccerwire.usatoday.com/2024/01/31/leagues-cup-2024-mls-liga-mx-format/

They've also changed groups into East and West to help with travel.
Personally I would like to see teams travel to Mexico and Canada but sometime in the future after San Diego comes into the league. With no more byes needed and 16 first round groups, there are plenty of possibilities.

 

So am I understanding correctly that for Group 2, for example, Chivas is the "home" team for both games, but will play those games as PayPal Park? The Quakes will get 1 "home" game (v. LAG) and 1 "away" game, both at PayPal Park? The LAG will play both their away games at PayPal Park?

 

Chivas will be assigned a hub, a US stadium which will be their home field through the group stage and round of 32.

Hub stadium to be determined. It could be an MLS stadium (PayPal Park), it could be somewhere else (San Diego?). Idea is they won't have to travel outside their hub (at least until the round of 16).

 

Got it. It will be interesting to see where these 4 Liga MX teams get assigned.

 

So where would they sell the most amount of tickets? Chicago seems like a city that could be in play, no? This group is the best of the first round. If they play two games in Chicago and the California classico back in Stanford stadium, you might be looking at over 150K in attendance for three games.

 

Maybe MLS could start a new mechanism next year since TAM & GAM are changing. Since teams that win trophies have a tough time keeping a roster together, they could start giving teams that win a trophy 2 million towards the roster for the next season. You have five trophies but two are for international tournaments. So each year 2 million for MLS Cup, Supporters Shield & US Open Cup. Then the same for any team that wins CCC or Leauges Cup but the money can bonly can be spent for the next session and if you don't use it... oh well.

 

I doubt we will ever see games in Mexico. The Leagues Cup will become defunct before that happens. One way to balance things a bit more would be to give at least half of the Liga MX clubs a “home hub” of sorts. But probably unlikely. This event blatantly prioritises monetisation over sporting integrity.

Not a problem per se, but it shouldn’t be a path to the CCC. The other regional qualifying tournaments, those directly organised by Concacaf, have a balanced format. Even the Caribbean.

 

What do you mean by “since GAM & TAM are changing”?

The amount of each that every team gets does change next year, as it did in 2023, as defined by the CBA. With TAM declining modestly and GAM rising at a faster rate than that decline. In 2025, TAM will drop by $175K over the the 2024 number, to $2,225,000 per team, while GAM rises $345K over the previous year’s number to $2,930,000. Of course, the base roster budget also goes up over the 2024 number, by $480K. Plus, MLS already provides every team that qualifies for the CCC and similar tournaments “at least” $200K each in additional allocation money. That’s the minimum. CBA wording leaves it up to league discretion to supply more.

anyway, every club in MLS will have a net $825K in additional salary budget and allocation money to spend in 2025 versus this season. Teams who qualify for tournaments will have over $1M, and that number could be higher. Those numbers climb dramatically for 2026 and 2027, and not just for a few teams, but all teams. From the league’s perspective, their response to a proposal that they provide teams in tournaments with additional resources so that they can maintain their rosters could hostels be: “We already are. In fact, we’re doing it for all teams.”

 

That's CONCACAF doing. They didn't want Liga MX/MLS to have their own tournament that made more money than the Continental tournament.

 

MLS teams that win trophies have a difficult time keeping rosters together due to players getting bonuses and/or raises. All that counts against the cap the following season. That's why most of the time you can't keep a team together due to salary raises. Players get moved, traded or simply not renewed. I believe this was mentioned a while back in the Athletic, IIRC, or some other site.

 

The path to the Club World Cup, especially the (lucrative) expanded version coming up, will ensure the CCC is never overshadowed by a Superliga, Leagues Cup, or Campeones Cup. Concacaf didn’t have to designate the Leagues Cup as a “CCC qualifying event” to make it clear where it ranks in the Concacaf club game.

Not to mention the sporting appeal of a format that is, you know, balanced and fair. It is usually here that you complain about the early start of the CCC in the calendar year and I would say you have a point. Why Concacaf insist on cramming the entire competition into the first half of the year is beyond me. No other confederation does that except the tiny OFC. How about playing the semis and final (over two legs, please) after the summer break?

 

Looking forward to this! Will be a highlight of the soccer year for me if it’s anything like the 2023 version.

 

I think that historically teams have had a hard time keeping rosters together for numerous reasons. Columbus is very likely in a better salary budget situation this year than they were in 2023 simply because they off-loaded some moderately compensated bench players this off season and Benzbatchenko is smart about taking advantage of things like U-22, Young DP, Homegrown, Gen Adidas, etc rules that lower or eliminate individual player's salary budget impact. Miami is taking a different approach.

Also, just to clarify, there are bonuses and there are bonuses. You're taking about individual player performance bonuses that are built into their contracts. In addition, teams and players earn bonus money from the league; players for dressing or start in games, even more if they do so and their team wins, for making the playoffs and advancing, for winning tournaments. RWB Mohamed Farsi was on a supplemental minimum contract last year and must have about doubled his salary with all that extra bonus money. He's supplemental, so his salary is off-budget anyway. Regardless, none of that bonus cash affects the cap.

By the way, it's not just bonuses that go into the equation:

Simple!

Anyway, not to beat a dead horse, but it's going to become easier for teams to retain these rosters as the salary budget balloons by 30% over the next few years. TAM will go down slightly, but will still exceed $2M for every club. But GAM and the base salary budget will rise considerably, meaning that every team will have roughly $3M more to spend on players than they do today. And that's just to share among the no more than 20 senior roster players who count toward the cap.

 

You're comparing apples & oranges. You're saying "overshadowed" @STR1 was saying "makes more money". I'm guessing by making it a CCC qualification event CONCACAF is getting some amount of the money from the Leagues Cup in exchange. Because, in the end, that's what CONCACAF cares about.

As do Liga MX and MLS. When they were unhappy with the way the CCL was being run, namely the lack of Liga MX-MLS matchups to drive ticket sales and interest, they created the Superliga. CONCACAF then adjusted the CCL to make them happy and Superliga died. They were unhappy with the CCL again and started talking about a Leagues Cup. CONCACAF then completely reworked the CCL and is including the Leagues Cup as part of it, in order to keep everyone happy.

 

I think winning should be rewarded so you can keep teams together instead of forcing them to breakup. Right now winning a tournament is minor league money other than CCC & Leagues Cup. I believe it just goes as a bonus but doesn't help maintain a roster. If there was a cap bonus for teams the following year, I think you could raise the quality by keeping teams together longer.