hyperbole much? theres barely been an MLS for decades...much of that time had a very hard cap on salary. how you can pretend that MLS doesnt severely cap and restrict club spending boggles my mind. there are clear and severe spending restrictions on MLS clubs in terms of salary on orders of magnitude more than any other american sports leaguse...and more than any major soccer league worldwide provide the numbers (which you wont do...cuz they dont fit YOUR NARRATIVE) and let me decide how I take them....
https://www.inquirer.com/philly/blo...ferent-way-of-looking-at-MLS-salary-data.html Player salary spending from this article 2007: $42,223,660.07 2008: $47,292,509.20 2009: $51,878,050.49 2010: $71,304,972.70 2011: $85,079,475.83 2012: $99,257,881.30 2013: $95,078,142.32 2014: $129,531,839.47 2015: $167,569,743.03 Here's the MLS Player's Union Salary guide https://mlsplayers.org/resources/salary-guide MLS is nearly THREE decades old. For much of its existence MLS has NOT had a HARD salary cap. It's had a flexible salary budget since it's first season. How else was the league able to bring Wynalda, Meola, Lalas, etc to the league in 1996?
Just to correct something. The base salary budget is about $5 million. Plus GAM, TAM and other mechanisms which adds millions. That is the amount the LEAGUE pays toward salaries. St. Louis will pay beyond that but that's the amount MLS pays players on a particular team. St. Louis gets the naming rights money for the stadium. Two completely different pots of money.
And don't forget transfer fees . Last season MLS spent $140,028,681 on transfer fees and received $55,922,130, an $84,106,551 deficit.
okay well what revenues go to the league and what revenues go to the clubs? because this just makes it seem like clubs have very little cost in terms of paying players...with a whole bunch of revenue streams coming in
The league distributes money to the clubs. I guess that $5 million will go towards things like paying for a $450M stadium, non-playing staff costs, building practice facilities, the reserve team and academy and other business expenses on top of DP salaries and transfer fees.
I forget travel which is yuge and will be getting yuger as the number of regular season charter flights goes up from 3 in 2019 to 17 in 2027.
so in 5 years hence...they can basically triple salary expenditures? hmmm.....seems quite a jump if there wasnt currently some wiggle room not being used....
2027 - 2015 = 12 years, not 5 which shows how much attention you pay. I took the number from the latest CBA. That's the minimum spend = salary budget + allocation money, which excludes things like DP salaries.
So someone who left Manchester United's academy to pursue a career through the college draft system just became a Leeds United legend.
Are you seriously asking? I'll assume that you are. College players cannot be under professional contracts and be eligible to play in college sports. When they choose to leave college (or run out of eligibility) they declare themselves eligible to sign a pro contract. Teams in the major leagues in the U.S. and Canada typically have a process to divide these newly eligible players among the various teams. International players that are not under contract can also choose to go through the draft process to join a team. MLS uses this process. Teams pick players in reverse order of the previous season standings so the worst team gets to pick a player first. That team has the rights to the player. Other teams cannot pick that player. Then the 2nd worst team picks a player and so on through the league. MLS currently uses 3 rounds of all the teams having an opportunity to pick up to 3 players. There are other complications but that's the gist of it. Any players not selected can be signed by any team.
I misunderstood the comment, how did a ManU academy pursue a career though the college draft system- I thought that meant he got drafted by an MLS team straight from ManU acedemy. I guess what he meant was- player left ManU academy, went to college, got drafted in MLS, then ended up at Leeds. Is the person the coach - Marsh, or one of the players?
He joined Man Utd's academy when he was 7. When he was 14 his Mum decided he was in danger of getting lost in the system so she pursued plan B, move to the US, have him play high school soccer and get a scholarship. He went to Berkshire School in Massachusetts and in 2015 was named Gatorade National Player of the Year for high-school soccer. He got a scholarship to Wake Forest and in 2016 was selected as the #1 overall MLS draft pick by Chicago Fire, immediately jumping to NYCFC. Man City signed him in 2018 and he went to Leeds and Middlesbrough on loan before joining Leeds permanently.
Thanks for clarifying, that is familiar. I remember once one of our USA national team players from the 90's (I think), who played in Europe, but after playing a season or two at a US college; said one advantage of having gone to college is that not all his friends were from football. He said the English guys, who grew up on academy teams - everybody they knew worked in or played football. But this guy, he's like, I have college friends who have nothing regular lives, some are former teammates, but others are just classmates who never played the game. He said thought that was good for him.
I think that's true of any environment though. I've interacted with a lot of track and field coaches who literally have no life outside of track and field. The problem is when you've been in that sort of environment for many years and you're suddenly cut loose. There have been stories about English soccer academy players being cut at 16 or 17 then going into a deep depression because they have no way of coping in the real world. The elite French, German and Spanish academies seem to be taking a wider approach, ensuring that their kids have a broader experience than just soccer. Hopefully US academies will choose that route.
watching the draft coverage on mlssoccer.com right now and some thoughts come to mind: 1. it is a less than ideal mechanism for maximizing the talent development of the players coming out of college/the draft....should just let them sign with whatever team they choose, imo 2. NFL guy Garber doing NFL things - insisting on a draft for MLS - makes little sense - this is 100% a case of trying to copy "american sports" that simply makes no sense in MLS of 2022.....the draft as it stands in present day MLS simply doesnt do enough to impact winning/losing to justify its existence. maybe at some unforseen point in the future when college soccer is just loaded with MLS difference-makers, it could make sense then. (and im not saying there arent mls-caliber players in the draft/college by any means. there are) 3. while I'm at it, also - let academy players pick which academy to play for....make these MLS clubs earn the right to develop talent.
1. How does it impede the talent development of the players coming out of college? 2. Pretty much a bunch of misinformation here. While the Draft may not be perfect, it is not about trying to copy American sports, rather it is about using a mechanism within American sports to minimize the competition between MLS teams for players coming out of college. Whether or not it has a significant impact on winning/losing is largely immaterial. 3. This, again, goes against MLS's policy of limiting the amount of competition between teams to sign players.
Ah yes, the guy who's spent 7+ more years with MLS than the NFL is a NFL guy insisting on a mechanism that existed before he joined the league. Got it.