A new vision for MLS

Aside from the socialist comment, you lost me here. If MLS ever had the money to purchase the USL, i hope to god they don't. The money would be better spent on salaries, stadiums, and marketing.

And as a side note, in a true free market system, any team should be allowed to move to another city whenever it pleases the owner or whenever he/she/they feel a city is offering a better deal.(outside of contracts of course) Not the kind of free market system i want in place.

 

Bingo.

 

Although we've discussed this points over and over and over again on this message board, I find it almost irresistible to throw in my two cents worth again. If MLS hadn't been single entity over the past ten years, we wouldn't have a first division soccer league. Otherwise stated, we've had a go with a Euro-style free market type of league and it failed -- it was called the NASL.

In any event, it's quite obvious that the next stage of MLS development is already upon us and that's a movement away from single entity and towards individual ownership for all league teams. That's essentially what the whole San Jose and Kansas City controversies and, as horrific as it has been for K.C. and Quakes fans, I think that this transition will eventually transform and strengthen the league.

I continue to think that promotion/relegation is a very cool concept, if only because the first pro soccer games I ever saw occurred while I was on a college term abroad studying in London and that's where I became acquainted witht the subject. Right now, pro/rel is impossible because there aren't nearly enough financially stable second division teams that would be even remotely capable of making the leap to MLS. What you'd have would be a house of cards that would simply collapse in fairly short order.

One other thing, pro/rel in England, say, involves teams that are merely a short bus trip or a moderate train ride away. MLS has the relatively more expensive task of setting up a league on a continental basis while competing for the sports entertainment dollar with vastly more popular pro basketball, pro hockey, pro football, college baseball, college football and pro baseball teams. It ain't easy and that's why I wouldn't necessarily mind seeing MLS go into Canada and place teams in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver eventually.

As between pro/rel and NFL-like parity rules, I'd far rather go with enforced parity rules. Sharing the wealth through salary caps is the one tried-and-true method of allowing small market teams or teams which are not owned by a multi-billionaire a realistic shot at winning a league title -- and I'm all for it. Seriously, why should MLS be just another league that has only two or three teams that have a legitimate shot at winning the title year after year?

Maybe, in 10 or 20 years, it might be realistic to talk about single entity or pro/rel. Until then, I simply want MLS to survive and prosper -- by whatever means necessary.

 

Single entity has nothing to do with determining how many teams make the playoffs. That's like trying to compare democracy with communism.

I love how single entity means that say Vergara doesn't want to win or say Real Salt Lake is just happy to have MLS Cup sold out or how Colorado is happy to just make the playoffs. Wait, from what we can tell none of those are remotely true.

Or let's look at it another way.

The company I work for is single entity.
There is another company in my field that has multiple ownerships under one banner.
The company I work for is the leader in my field.

Hmmm.

 

Ask any economist and they will tell you the same thing. When an economy is on its early stages lots of socialist friendly reforms will benefit the entities in that market because it takes the "risk" factor away.

However once the market has grown to an "x" amount it is better to just let them go in the "free market" economics because if you dont then the entities in that market have no reason to grow. Later on when you have a strong stablished market you can beggin to regulated, its that simple.

The hard part is the timing of when to do these things. I think that the MLS still on the early stages and should continue to run that way it has. Howeve that being said they should start to relax the purse strings and let teams sign some talent... by that of course I mean actualy start paying market value for good stablished players, not only that but even KEEP them.

 

I disagree that there is a move away from Single-entity. There has been a move to make the structure more palatable to prospective investors (post-contraction they got more gate receipts and all local sponsorship, but also got increased expenses), but I don't think the structure itself is going away. It may get tweaked as more minds come into the system, but I don't think anything that has happened in the past few years has signaled a step away from SEM.

 

Well an argument can be made that SEM within MLS sets the standards..such as the playoffs. It is an ownership decision. I agree it could be done just the same in an individual ownership share situation, but SEM is a good thing for MLS at this stage and for the near future. Escaping the anti-trust regs is advantagous for the league.

I think what people really have a problem with isn't this SEM system but the concntration of owners (AEG, HSG) holding the biggest interests.

 

MLS will never go away from SEM because it controls labor costs. It can set salaries with no bidding up for free agents.

 

I totally agree with this. Like Johnny Cochrain might have said, it will most likely evolve, not dissolve.

 

Doesn't a salary cap already accomplish that?

 

To have a salary cap if you're not single entity you need approval of the player's union and even if you got that, the cap amount would be affected.MLS couldn't just set it by itself.

 

SEM can involve free agency. Right now, the league is responsible for 100 percent of player salaries. What if an addendum to the agreement allowed ownership to exceed that - at their own cost - by 30 percent or something like that? And what if a new CBA gave players the right after five years to negotiate with individual investors so long as those investors remained within the constraints of the cap.

I think we'll see higher salaries. I think we will see some form of free agency. I don't think we'll see the end of SEM, however.

 

And last I saw MLS is in competition with everything from the EPL to the NFL to youth soccer.

If you want to take another approach you can just look at any of the monopoly or oligopolies or conglomerates that dominate their market. They still have to try to maximize revenue for their share holders or investors.

 

The 'Single Table' has been addressed by the MLS & Garber already. It ain't gonna happen. It won't work in the U.S.
The country's too vast, and nobody's going to invest millions of dollars into a team and risk them being relegated.

The 'Single Entity' setup is training wheels for the still new league. Hopefully, in another 10 years all of the teams will be owned by seperate owners. The 'business model' can then be modified and MLS can "take their hands off the seat".

At the present, the MLS consists of teams....not clubs (exception FC Dallas). Until they set up individual 'Youth Development Programs', the Draft will remain the best way of locating and aquiring talent.

Okay, I can live with that.

As you stated earlier, "This is America baby".... and Americans like playoffs.

??? ???

 

What makes FC Dallas a club more than other teams? Their stupid name? Chivas has the word club in theirs as well.

 

Because they now have a Youth Development Program.

 

My guess is that, if MLS emerges as a true rival for the almighty sports entertainment dollar with the four major pro sports, a rival soccer league eventually will appear out of thin air. That's what happened with pro baseball (the National League's success spurred the emergence of the American & the Federal leagues), pro basketball (the NBA's success spurred the emergence of the ABA ), pro football (the NFL's success spurred the emergence of the All-American Conference, the AFL, the World Football League, the U.S. Football League and the XFL [ ]), and pro hockey (the NHL's relative success spurred the emergence of the WHL).

Out of all these leagues, only the American League and the old AFL ultimately proved successful in the sense that about all of the teams in their upstart leagues survived. In addition to the teams from those leagues, three teams from the old AAFC (the 49ers, Colts & the Browns) were allowed to join the NFL and four teams from the old ABA (the Pacers, the Nuggets, the Nets and the Spurs) were allowed to join the NBA. That's not a terribly high success rate, but all it would take would be another Lamar Hunt or Phil Anshutz type multi-billionaire to give MLS a run for its money someday.

Anyway, that's my prediction about what may happen if MLS actually begins to take off. So, don't discount the possibility of future competition to MLS from within the United States.

 

MetroStars do too then, and I think D.C. may as well.

 

Again, 100 percent correct, except for the parts where you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground.

DC United has had a youth program playing in the Super Y League for, I think,m three years now. John Harkes is their director Youth Development, which involves the organization of the Super Y teams as well as the other clinics and programs the team operates.

The Metros won a national SYL title this year in U-16 and lost the U-19 title on PKs.

The Fire have the Fire Juniors, which play in a Chicago-area league and use Fire staff.

As far as I can tell, FCD has camps and training programs like pretty much every other team, but does not (yet) sponsor youth teams like DCU, the Metros and the Fire.

So, except for the small detail that they don't do what you imply and otehrs do, you are 100 percent correct.

 

Not yet.