With the MLS talking about adding some expansion teams in the not so distant future, one has to assume that the a-league will loose a couple clubs. This will likely happen with the MLS club coming into their town & just not being able to compete, I would imagine. I'm sayign this because I have a hard time seeing an investor wanting to sink $25 million into a two-bit small time club when they could start fresh from the groud up, own it all and not have to deal with any big changes. If a MLS club comes into Seattle, what will happen with the Sounders? Will they go and play in Tacoma? Call it quits? How about Rochester? Will the Rhinos move to Buffalo?
In the case of the Rhinos, the plan would be for the Rhinos to be morphed into the MLS. It would take alot of work with changing contracts from Rhinos to the MLS, but that is the plan.
Unless MLS radically changes their structure sometime soon, there is no chance of moving a significan number of players on any team up into MLS. Because of MLS's single-entity structure, any team "moved up" from the A-League will get a new allocation of players from the MLS pool. Players sign their contracts with the league, not with the teams. So if any current A-League city ends up with an MLS team, expect an entirely new team to take the field. If MLS allowed any A-League team to bring any number of their players up to MLS intact, it would destroy the structure MLS has been imposing on their current players.
Why? Suppose two A-League teams join MLS in a single round of expansion. The league could choose to allow those teams to retain their existing players instead of holding an expansion draft (or in conjunction with an expansion draft). The players would only need to sign contracts with MLS.
That is crap. Firstly, the Rampage would kick the crap out of half of the MLS teams right now. Secondly, they won't re-distribute players all around the league again if they add teams. As some of the A-league players are under MLS contract already (as reserves), the original MLS clubs would more likely have options on these players for draft choices and such. I would expect that a team like Rochester or Milwaukee would maybe lose a few MLS reserve players, but would gain MLS allocations and draft picks, and would essentially be the same team minus five or six marginal players who would be cut, plus some better MLS talent. A-League players not under MLS contract would be added. The MLS does not have extensive numbers of free-agent type players beyond those already playing like the NFL. Most of those guys are playing in the A-League or elsewhere. Of course if a new city was added that essentially had no team, they would simply receive allocations and drafts, but that is a dumb idea. Teams like Rochester and Milwaukee deserve to be in the MLS, and have proven fan bases. I guess that it would be harder to do this, but it should happen that way. We eventually will need to use relegation in the US, and now wouldn't be a bad time to begin. Obviously the system doesn't allow for this now, but in twenty years it will be necessary. The A-league should not stand alone, and neither should the MLS. Our biggest problem here in the US is the lack of a true professional system, and it can't exist without some divisional infrastructure. Plus Fire/Rampage would be the best rivalry in the league.
If Rochester were admitted to MLS, they'd need a new stadium, with a greater capacity. If Milwaukee goes up, they'd need a stadium, not just a clearing in the woods. And those names would have to change. There are already too many bad names in MLS, we don't more.
It's all a moot point anyway. It looks like Rochester isn't getting their stadium because of political bickering, and Milwaukee has yet to come close to a new stadium, or crowd sizes that could support MLS. If MLS was SMART about it, they'd let the two cities with the best local support (Rochester and Portland) go up. But since they won't let an MLS team share with baseball, it won't happen. I still think there is no way they'd let an A-League team come up and keep their players. Can you imagine how the other players in the league would react to that, considering how angry they are at the single-entity, league controlled player movement?
I can see the MLS allowing an A-League organization to keep some players, for a couple of reasons: 1. It preserves the history and visibility of the team, even if they only keep a handful of players. 2. It's unlikely any MLS team would snatch up the existing A-League players, as they would have done so already. 3. The MLS's player allocation rules are so convoluted, I'm sure they'd find a way of keeping the whole team intact, should they want to.
So? They have no union and no collective bargaining agreement. MLS changes their rules to fit the situation all the time (Olsen and Albright demanding DC and getting it, Valderrama getting handed to the Mutiny the second time, etc.). They'll do it again to fit the situation. It'll make players mad, but what can the players do in response? Sue them and take it to the Supreme Court? That doesn't seem to have worked. Regarding Rochester, it depends on how a team got here. The first choice plan would be to have the Rhinos pay the expansion fee and join the league. However, when Tampa Bay was rumored to be moving the year before they disappeared, Rochester was mentioned as a possible destination. If an existing franchise moved here and didn't sell to the Rhinos owner, I believe that the Rhinos owner would move the team to Albany, where he lives or has a business or something.
This isn't always true. I know that a few Rhinos have gotten MLS offers over the years, but have turned them down to stay with the Rhinos for various reasons. Lenin Steenkamp and Scott Vallow are the two I can think of right now, though I seem to remember that other players were in the same situation.
True - there are always exceptions, but you'ld also have to wonder, in those cases where players spurn MLS for better salaries in the A-League, if they'd stay with the team, when I'm sure the MLS would offer the same package they turned down. My guess is that they'd offer their services to Charleston, or another team with deep pockets.