2013 Top 10 MLS Earners (Guaranteed Compensation) $5,038,567 Clint Dempsey (Seattle) $4,350,000 Thierry Henry (New York) $4,333,333 Robbie Keane (LA Galaxy) $3,625,000 Tim Cahill (New York) $2,500,000 Landon Donovan (LA Galaxy) $1,937,508 Marco Di Vaio (Montreal) $1,725,000 Obafemi Martins (Seattle) $1,663,323 Danny Koevermans (Toronto FC) $1,124,992 Kenny Miller (Vancouver) $856,000 *Fredy Montero (Seattle) *On loan to Sporting (Portugal).
There is no way in hell I would say he was or is our savior. I was saying DP cause it doesn't count against our salary cap (right?) One season then let him go Not that it would have been the answer to any of our problems.
I don't really understand the complex rules but supposedly, a DP counts $400k against a salary cap of $3 million for the entire team.
I think those numbers are more or less correct but rounded up a bit. I think it's just under $3 million and something like $368k hit for a DP.
What a waste. Watching Dempsey yesterday and it hit me that with him being THE guy on the team he's going to feel like he has to be the guy that has to beat a few players before he takes a shot to justify his price tag. I would not be surprised if we see Dempsey go back to his pre-2009 self with with more wannabe Ronaldinho tricks and less substance.
I think you either take some of my comments much too literally, much too seriously or perhaps a little too much of both. Somehow, you seem incapable of differentiating the serious from the tongue n cheek. Subtlety doesn't seem to fit well with some. It's like saying there were a "couple" of items left on the shelf, then being chastised because there were three. Oh well, not my problem.....almost forgot....thanks for making my point about the millionaires in the area. Couldn't have said it better myself.
Of course, I'm serious about this one. There is no subtlety intended, nor is there much ambiguity about what I mean. It's no secret that MLS is single entity. There is only one company, MLS, with several franchise owners. The single entity model is that each team operates within a set of guidelines established by MLS, including player budgets, player allocation, player trades, etc. (many would argue that the guidelines are not always followed). The league has a very restrictive franchise agreement with it's owners. MLS has final say on just about everything. Owners control their local venues and marketing. They also have control of local media (with league approval). Players are under contract to MLS. Owners own stock in MLS as part of their ownership/franchise agreement with MLS, but they do not have a controlling interest in the league. About the only major exception that has been granted to owners is allowing them to sign designated players whose salaries are counted differently against the salary cap (which obviously is the real subject of this thread). As far as I know, since the league, not the team, receives the transfer fee (if there is one) when a player is sold, one assumes the league pays the necessary transfer fee for a player that is purchased. It's a business deal like any other by a corporation.
Yes, I am a serious person, but with a strong sense of humor according to others. Your subtlety may be too subtle as plenty of other commenters are also challenging your strange, allegedly humorous, definitions of rich and filthy rich.
Cool your jets.....it was not a particularly serious comment. Christ, this bunch is getting to be easily rattled by silly stuff. The weird part is that one person is getting my case because there aren't that many rich people and now you are razzing me because there are "thousands".....I could be really anal about it and point out that there are actually 1342 billionaires in the world according to Forbes latest list, so "thousands" might be overstating the case, but I'll let it slide. Again, I'll say it to you, like I said it to another poster. Try not to be so literal or take things quite so seriously. Not everything I say or do is meant to taken that way. My point was that most of the people I know who have worked hard and made a lot of money (some of them might be millionaires - I don't ask, and if they feel the need to tell me, I'm pretty sure they are full of sh*t anyway) never feel like they have enough. It's a matter of perspective.....that's the point. To be honest, I'm still not quite sure what you were talking about, but I will try to figure it out. Beyond all that, getting way back to John Fisher and the Quakes, the real issue is that it would be irresponsible of him, just like it is irresponsible of any owner in the league, to arbitrarily waste money on useless players. The most important thing that can happen is for the league to survive. Nothing else is more important, IMO. Fisher doesn't have enough money to fix that problem, should it exist.
Hey, we put that to bed a couple of days ago. I admitted that I should have been more careful about looking at my past postings and not contradicting my specific words. However, my intent has never changed. Beyond that, it's nothing more than a tangent discussion anyway. The thing is that just because Fisher might be able to afford to dip into his personal pocket for some player, there should be a very good reason to do so and there should be a very clear method of recouping the money somewhere on the horizon. If neither of those conditions exist, as far as I am concerned, he can't afford it.
Falvo is used to the Italian league where strikers somehow all average a goal per game while the defense is posting shutouts.
Given the youth of our league, and the financial weakness of soccer in the USA, the salary cap is absolutely necessary to keep our teams and league, more or less solvent. I'm pretty sure that most of the teams are losing money on a year by year basis, and if you factor in the expenses of building a new stadium they are way in the hole. Beyond that, there's no way that I want this league to be run like the EPL or Serie A. In those leagues, the rich teams are nearly always at the top of the table, while the poor teams are at the bottom. It becomes a rich man's pissing contest. The DP rules allow those teams that want to spend more money, to spend more money, without giving them the advantage of paying all of their players more than the other teams can afford, and thus acquiring all of the best players in the league. At the same time, making each DP count as a significant hit against the salary cap means that there's less money to go around to the other players on the roster, so it should be a trade off. Also, whatever the first DP counts against the cap (used to be $350K, probably a bit more now), the second and third DP's count less against the cap. Speaking of DP's, how many of us think that Goodson is a DP? Current National Team player? I would guess that he's making at least $400K, of which, we're only on the hook for half of the $325K or so he counts against the cap. Something like that. Just a guess. I could be wrong about him being a DP. go quakes!! Fire Watson!! - Mark
I have nothing against the salary cap if it were even for everybody but this current DP setup , is neither way fair or equal for all the clubs across the board. You have $5 million in Seattle on one player not to mention what they spent on Martins and another 5 mil on Henry in NY. All in all, I think those two clubs alone are paying in excess over 15 million dollars on 3 players while all the other clubs are not even spending $3 million total.
Sing it out, Mark! Sing it! If we had an EPL- or Serie-A-type set up, we'd be watching New York or Smellay get every championship.
It's soccer Falvo. One player won't make that big a difference. Three players would though. And then, because you'd be spending $900K (more or less?) of your $2.9M (more or less?) salary cap, you're in a bind for hiring other great players. So the filth (who I think are way over the cap, even allowing for the DP rules) the RedCow, the Flounders, and TFC who are all free spending teams, do not completely dominate the table. The RedCows have become good in recent years, but they aren't great. The Flounders similarly are a good team, but not a great or dominating team. They haven't been to MLS Cup yet, nor have they ever won the Supporter's Shield. TFC are abjectly terrible, in spite of spending a ton of cash on DP's. The filth however, dominate the league. They have more cup appearances, more Cup Trophys, and more Supporter's Shields than any other team. They are also in the hunt for more US Open Cups. They exhibit all the hallmarks of a team that out spends their rivals across the board. I suggest here that not only do they spend more money on their DP's (and their DP's before we had DP rules), but on the rest of their roster as well. I know that the "official numbers" show that they are in compliance with the salary cap, but I don't believe it, and it offends me. So back to our club. The big question is: will we start spending more money once we are in our new stadium? We may not see this until the '15 season, but I suspect that as our revenue grows, our owners will spend more ducats. go quakes!! - Mark