Oops! "Marcus Hahnemann made more money in one year in England than Kevin Hartman has made in his MLS career..." http://66.221.11.74/columnists/loney/040109loney.shtml Pretty good stuff Also recommend the link "within the link" (the Lalas interview-as one of the five executive members of the newly-formed MLS Players Union (MLSPU) board - "MLS player salaries leaked" "It wasn’t us..." says Lalas " by Llew Llewellyn http://66.221.11.74/mls/mlsnews/040109mls salaries.shtml
Yea, two good articles. Lalas' for the player's perspective and his repeated assertions that players will have to swallow their pride and face the truth in a professional manner and not let it get them under their skin. How does Loney know how much Hannemahn makes? Good article by Loney though.
Good stuff. One thing I'd like to see added to the list, who reps each player and then lets see how the agents do for their players.
Assuming the numbers are accurate, it shows that, to date anyway, MLS has done an amazing job maximizing the talent its resources allow them to buy. It's a pretty damn good product for the money they're spending. It also shows that just like in any other business, there are good brokers (ie. agents) and others who are doing a lousy job for their clients. If nothing else publishing these numbers might improve the quality of representation for some of these players and in the long run, that's a good thing for them.
The MLS has been smart but whoever published these numbers just caused the MLS a big headache. It is embarrassing to the players (the low salaries) and it gives each player a comparison. The salaries will only escalate now and MLS has to find a way to deal with this diplomatically.
The only way the salaries will escalate is if the players can find additional options. This may open up some opportunities for anyone interested in getting into the player agent business, providing they have some decent contacts. But right now if you're a middle to lower rung MLS player your only alternative is the A League so having your salary published in reality changes little if anything.
If Ruiz moves to the EPL will it vindicate his salary? Yeah, he's only made 30k, but in return he's received exposure that has given him the chance to make 33.3 times that much at least. Would he look back, and think he were robbed? Or, will he look back and think that move allowed me to crack the EPL?
Loney at one point argues that despite LAlas' noble sentiments, the fact that a salary cap exists will create obvious dissatisfaction among the players...X player saying stuff like "these are my stats, and yet i get paid much less than Y players" and so on....What do you guys think?
I don't want to believe the numbers. Bo may be overpaid (???), and Looney is presenting his feeling as much as Lalas', who is out of job for expressing those feelings. Touching Dan.
Mike Duhaney plays abroad, so do Jamar Beasley, Matt Jordan and other mid-tier guys. Even though I know it creates bad spirits during negotiations in MLB, I think salaries for 3rd yr vets should be structured to allow for the play to appeal for arbitration. That way, good contributors will make what they deserve or at least close to what similar players of their caliber in the league earn. I think the Salary cap shouldn’t be fixed, but should be more like a cross b/w the MLS and MLB. It should be flexible enough to allow teams to retain their stars by paying a luxury tax if they’re over the flat rate. Teams should be allowed more room to pay over the maximum for 3rd yr vets. Also, teams should be able to deactivate players and put them on the IR, if they’re not going to contribute for long periods and activate players at their will when they need more depth.
Alexi Those of us who have the pleaure of knowing Alexi will tell you that he's the one of the the most rational and honest athletes out there. With or without a job. BTW, Llew Llewelyn is his real name although you could call him Frank.
Re: my methodology on comparing Hartman's salary with Hahnemann: (1) Forget to include 2003. (2) ? (3) Profit! Ha ha! Oops. Basically, I gave Hartman an average salary of 35K for his first three years, then gave him the 100K salary for the last three, and forgot year 7. I compared that with the guess of $400K that Marcus is probably making this year with Reading. Plus, Hartman apparently made more than $100K all this time anyway. So, make it that Marcus will have made more money in 2 1/2 years or so than Hartman has in MLS. Blushing correction to run next week. Heh.
If Hartmann and any one of these other whiners thinks they can get more overseas get your ass on a plane and go for it. Otherwise shut the f up and go pick up your check!!! Alot of idiots on here who think MLS is trying to rape these guys has never owned there own business and has never been their own boss. Easy for us to say. You drop a few million dollars a year for 6 years and well see how soon you want to part with your money. Some of you are the same whiners who complain when MLS raises ticket prices too. You all want the players to make 4 million a year and you want to only pay 12 bucks a ticket for a game. Bigsoccer is full of people that went to the retard school of economics. MLS isnt going to pay these guys bigger bucks until its atleast break even or in the black nor should they! Why dont all of you enclose 5 bucks in a envelope every time you go to the game and give it to your favorite player. If I was Anschutz I would be telling you and the whiney players that want more money to F off in the most polite way possible!! And then point them to the nearest Airport that has an international flight to England or whatever other country they think is great to play in.
Some salaries will escalate, but there's still a cap. The quality veteran players who aren't stars will probably suffer (as usual).
I think if they are surprised this kind of stuff has gone on, they're stupid. I also think the MLS "disppointment" is overblown as posturing because it's not like they couldn't expect the players to keep stuff secret. Maybe they're pissed at how it got out and maybe the timing with the draft coming up, but I can't see how they realistically can be pissed when this was discussed in some of the articles published right after the union formed.
I find it pretty refreshing that a lot of the players actually have 'real' salaries. By 'real', I mean salaries that the average fan might actually be making. Besides....most fans probably work for companies that are actually making a profit! There's nothing more irritating than finding out some journeyman baseball player is making $3.75 million and bitching about it!
Are you sure a cap even exists? And what evidence of this imaginary cap is there in circulation? Is there REALLY a set dollar amount, that is equally applicable to all teams?? Quick, rounded addition of the different teams' salaries yields [for example] the following: Chicago: ~$1.332M in salaries DC ~$1.77M in salaries LA ~$1.038M in salaries NY ~$1.023M in salaries Now, my understanding was that the "cap" was ~$1.3M. If someone has the purported salary cap restriction, that would be helpful. However, the published salary list is further evidence that MLS had not been negotiating fair value for player contracts; That the players are organizing is likely to be a MAJOR headache for the league in the not too distant future. Cheers!
Having been associated with some USISL and A-League teams in the past, I looked at these numbers and said "Joe Blow is making $60,000 a year playing soccer, that's wonderful!" not complaining that he is "only" making $60,000. If your only exposure to sports salaries is the NBA, you will think this money is a joke, but if you've seen what players in soccer pre-MLS made, you would have a different perspective.
The owners of MLS are smart shrewd businessmen. There are not investing in MLS for the love of the game but the love of money. I know some of the investors do love the game of soccer but they know a good bargain when they see one. The MLS has not had an "open book" when it comes to seeing how they are running their operation. Major League baseball has not as well. The MLS might be losing money like they say but a lot of it is in accounting games. If I was a MLS owner my story to the players and to the players' union would be the same strategy that they are implementing. I would tell the union we are losing money and we cannot afford to pay the players any more than we do. The key to the MLS profitability for owners is to keep the player's salaries down. I think the league is going to have to have an open book to see what the accounting books truly look like and then the players might be a little more satisfied. I doubt this will happen. The league has created their own mess. When you screw over some of these players like you do (i.e. Carlos Ruiz) you usually get it right back at you. When (and if) there becomes a demand for world class soccer players again, the MLS will definitely be on the short end of the stick. The MLS owners are in a pickle and I am not sure how they are going to get out of it.
I’m not setting a fixed dollar amt, I’m speaking in generalities; like if 75% of players w/ +10 goals/season make 100K, then a 30K guy like Ruiz should have the right to arbitrate his salary to w/i that range. Salaries are relative to actual buying power, a 30K star should be able to afford to live in the neighborhood of his choice and have some material toys like his middle class fans w/o having to worry about writing hot checks like Lassiter. If all of our talent can hop overseas and make 33.3 times his salary than in the MLS, then what benefit does it do for him to ply his trade here? Playing time is one thing, but money talks. The league needs to be able to turn a profit, but they also need to field the best quality/price to add value to the product
"And the wealthy must start to pay their fair share of taxes!!!" I smell a plant from the players union.............
The cap is a little over $1.7M. P-40 and developmental salaries are not counted against the cap. Also, there is a "per player" max of somewhere around $280k, meaning that a player making $500k only counts as $280k towards the cap. I'd say that there is a cap, at least in NE and a few other places (I couldnt speak for DC or NJ, to name a few). However, none of the exceptions figure into the point that I was making. If Columbus were near the cap, and Buddle made a fuss about his pay, and the Crew were forced to give him a raise, it doesn't mean that salaries are escalating. It means that either someone else needs to take a pay cut, or someone on the roster needs to be replaced with someone (probably younger and less experienced) willing to play for less. Bad for the non-star veterans, and possibly bad for the product.