That's true, and the effect on overall payroll would probably be very significant. Of course, there's no reason that all salaries have to go up. It's not unreasonable to me for MLS to decide "senior roster players making <$50,000/year are undervalued by us, so we're going to raise senior players' salaries to $50,000/year. The players currently making $50,000+ per year, however, we think are valued just fine."
The next CBA will be a substantial increase in the pay scale, book it. The Union feels current cap and salary rates are well below what MLS teams can pay. MLS isnt hurting for money, Garber mentioned how the league had recieve hundreds of millions in new investment over the past few years. MLS pays the salary not the clubs (outside the additional contract money for DP's). The pay and cap rates should expand greatly when the CBA comes up. Thing is my proposal doesnt take into account dev players since i would just eliminate them altogether. Now each player is a senior roster guy and market forces will determine their contract rates.
And this is just ONE of the thread about Needham: https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=595894 As I said in the other thread -- people can make all sorts of arguments for raising the developmental pay in the next CBA, and I think few of us would complain if they renegotiated it now. I'm just constantly floored by the never-ending list of spurious arguments and, as someone else put here, anecdotes masquerading as data. If I'm working for MLS, I'm a little more worried about losing Occean and other midlevel players to Scandinavia than I am about losing Needham to Puerto Rico. Did someone in here really suggest a $75K minimum? So every 22-year-old guy with a handful of appearances in reserve games should get more than the overwhelming majority of teachers, police officers (and, yes, journalists) in this country? I'll toss something into the mix here. The National Lacrosse League averages more than 10,000 fans these days. I interviewed San Jose's goalie earlier this year. Want to know what else he does? He's a teacher ... in Canada. He flies on weekends to meet up with his team. Again -- I feel like I always have to state this -- I don't think anyone's arguing that developmental players absolutely shouldn't make more than they do. But the hysterical arguments will be counterproductive in the long run. The more you misrepresent the situation, the less likely the other side in the negotiation will be inclined to deal with you.
I agree with you that it might be wise for MLS to investing more here in terms of talent for the league. No doubt. What I was saying is that THEY do not value development highly as they don't support it with any real money. My question is the one I posed to you above, how much would a move to back these players with better salaries really cost the league? This league has survived up till this point by containing their costs.That's important. Or at least I think it is. They have alot of investment as you say, but they also lost alot of money along the way too. We can't see their income statements, balance sheets and and cash flows so it would be hard for me to just say, pay these guys. We know some of these guys are billionaires, but that aside, will the business support this increase? If so, Is it smart use of their resources? Is this more worth while than buying another couple bigger named players that might draw fans? (in other words saying, we'll suffer with a couple Leitchs, so we can have an Amado Guevara) You most likely know WAY more about this than me. These are just the questions that come to mind when I hear people talk about this topic.
This will get better overtime as the the league grows. All that said... the players are deciding by themselves that this is what they want to do for a living. They could easily pick to do something less difficult with fewer risks. This is why I'm glad a good chunk of athletes go to college in the US. Because that way they hopefully have something to fall back on.
The mistake you are making is considering a guy that DC wouldn't offer a senior roster spot to one of MLS' "better prospects." That's the mistake alot of posters are making. The players we are talking about aren't the blue chip stocks, they're the nickel stocks that likely won't pay off.
As a fan, I think MLS should expand both the developmental roster and the senior roster. The lack of depth on the senior team should be a separate issue from the developmental roster. No, MLS shouldn't be using the four or five developmental roster players as senior team players without paying them the league minimum. But it's backwards to suggest that, because of that handful of players, we should pay the dozens of other developmental players more. I don't necessarily know that Texgator is right that Jay Needham and his ilk are readily replaceable-- mostly, they are unknown quantities who may or may not develop into Boswells and Rolfes. But again, that just means you need to cast the net as broadly as possible. Keep the senior roster pay for the players who play senior games. Keep the developmental program for developmental players. If done right, the two teams will have somewhat different missions.
How many of those guys were offered Dev contracts? Those are the ONLY players relevant to this thread. Bottom line is that winning is more valuable financially in Germany, Spain, England, Holland, even Belgium, than it is in MLS. So work permit issues being equal, a player of X ability is worth less money in MLS than in those other nations. Nothing MLS does wrt Dev players can change this iron law of economics.
I basically agree with you. It's just that there is no impetus to do this until the CBA expires. Also, you list some examples of players who should not be on the roster. I disagree that you will get much better than that if you increase the senior roster size to 28. If there were 100s of high quality kids going overseas to play for fat contracts your argument would be valid. But there aren't - and even now, some who go overseas (because of a Euro passport) would not make it in MLS.
That is a good question. I don't know Needham. But how many of these guys that slipped through the cracks have made something of themselves somewhere else? What examples do we have of good/decent players that have slipped through the cracks as a result of low balling? PS: I know that this doesnt talk to these players full value, its just one measuring stick. We are not talking about super stars here who's name is going to roll off your tounge, just a more solid crop of role players.
How do you know it's a "trend?" Because the union guy told you so? Did you follow up? Or is this just you throwing around a word with alot of impact without the factual backing it needs? And it's not that great when a BS post goes in length about one "example" and tries to make that singular example mean something more than being a singular example. I definitely expect more from a journo. One other thing...as someone pointed out, WE the obsessives now that the Dev players are more akin to AAA players in reserve to move up to the big club in case of an injury, or a CBA player waiting for his next 10 day contract from the NBA. But you didn't really explain that in the article, did you? I don't mean to be a jerk, but this one article, not your body of work, but this one piece, was just bad. There's no way around it.
Yeah if you look at Dev. contracts in a vacuum. But the ability to have these dev. players so cheap affects MLS desire to sign these players. If I take a group of 3 or 4 players on a developmental contract and I can churn out 1 bobby boswell/chris rolfe every 2 years .... am I better spending the money there or on 1 Charlie Davies or other more expensive players coming out of college. IMHO they are separate discussions, but they are tied together. MLS has lost a large number of players to Europe over the last two years. Why? Because their salary offers have been too low by comparison. Obviously salary cap issues work hand in hand with minimum salaries, developmental contracts, etc. As Onionsack noted (which is pretty obvious since the DP rule was passed, the new TV contract for MLS kicked in, Beckham was added/jersey sales/tickets/etc.) there will be a major renegotiation when the current CBA expires on all of these issues. That renegotiation is going to be not fun. MLS can attempt to get ahead of the curve on some of these issues with the union, but then the union will just start that negotiation with any modified terms with salaries/dev. contracts instead of where they are now.
The MLS fan is who should be mad. How many of you have paid $25-50 for a ticket, $10-20 for parking, $7-10 for each beer only to see an injury-hit (or worse, national-team duty) MLS team that includes a bunch of players nobody has ever heard of? I know I have. And it pisses me off. As Sandon said, there are plenty of players willing to play for free if given the chance. So we shouldn't feel bad for the players or expect them to demand an increase in pay. We also shouldn't feel bad for the club or expect them to initiate an increase in pay. What incentive do they have? Tickets are sold by the star players long before anyone knows they are going to be injured and replaced by John Q. Footballer, an NAIA second team all-American out of some small school in Indiana. Simply put, the revenue is pretty much the same no matter who suits up. The change has to be initiated by the fans. The fans have to make it clear to the league that their money is too important to be spent on third-rate players in a second-rate league. Supporters groups could and should lobby MLS HQ for a raise in developmental player pay and/or salary cap by refusing to renew season tickets.
To repeat a point that's been made a few times, Dev pay is only too low to the extent MLS misses out on players they want for Dev contracts. Is it 10% or 50% or 90%? We don't know. The fact that KD had to get in his wayback machine and talk about Occean, a guy whom the then-Metrostars wanted to sign for more money anyway (but HQ wouldn't let them), and who predated Dev contracts anyway (nice work, KD ), strongly suggests the percentage, and hence the size of the problem, is pretty damn small. In a later post you mentioned Chris Leitch and Troy Roberts and other no-talent hacks. But those guys were all deemed BETTER by an MLS team than Needham.
Where'd this come from. Prepare to pay NFL-type prices for first-class soccer. MLS is the greatest sporting bargain in the country.
One more thing I'll toss out here: I hope the people saying MLS should be paying more just because the owners are wealthy aren't going to turn around and scoff at the women's league, saying no one's entitled to have a pro soccer career.
Sure it's unreasonable. One day, the $50K player is about 50% more valuable than the other guy, the next day they're equal? That doesn't make sense.
Wouldn't we all pay NFL prices for first-class soccer??? I think that the full NFL stadiums for Barca, Real Madrid and Manchester United in recent years suggests I'm right about that. The real problem is that we are pretty much paying MLB prices now for a product that often resembles something you'd get in the Florida rookie league in baseball.
No, the next day, the guy that was only worth $20k is replaced by a better player that is worth $50K. I know as an MLS fan that would make me happier.
We're not talking about players' absolute, objective, average-of-what-they'd-get-paid-everywhere-else values, we're talking about what Major League Soccer decides they're willing to pay for a certain set of players. As much as you or I may disagree with MLS's decisions on player salaries, they still have the right to change their minds (while abiding by all appropriate laws and rules of business ethics). And who says that it has to take place overnight? What if MLS decides to gradually (over, say, 5 years) increase the base senior salary? Or announces six months in advance of scheduled CBA negotiations that they (MLS) have a new initial negotiating position compared to the previous CBA?
It's not so much that we've missed out becasue of low balling. It's that there's really no way to tell which developmental players will blossom into good players. But I think requiring much higher salaries is the best way to make sure that late bloomers don't make it to MLS. Kerry Zavagnin certainly wasn't "worth" $75,000 to anyone prior to 2000. Brian Ching wasn't "worth" big bucks prior to 2003. But both of them are (for better or worse) national teamers now.
If I recall correctly, Jay was projected to go second round and slid to early third for whatever reason. Was widely considered one of the top five defensive prospects in the draft. Check 3rd degree and other draft coverage if you don't believe me. Ryan Guy was a second round pick. Now, as you stated below, we're already losing the cream of American talent (nguyen, sizzo, davies, etc.) overseas. Now we're apparently also losing 2nd round draft picks from what is left to lesser leagues like USL and Ireland. This isn't a concern? How many second and third round draft picks in the NFL sign up for arena football or the CFL?
Your claim was that players that are worth 20K on the open market would be artificially promoted to 50K and that could cause problems with the players who are actually worth 50k on the market. My claim is that the players worth 20K on the market will be replaced by players worth 50K on the market. Then a 50K player is a 50K player. Those 20K players can go back to another career and leave top-flight pro soccer in this country to the players worthy of MLS admission prices.