I'm a native English speaker and I have no problem understanding his point. I think the league is past sustainability and when it comes to parity, what is the proof of that? The Philadelphia Union had one of the lowest player purchases in the league and hit and missed just like Inter Miami & Atlanta who laid out big pay out for transfers. Adding the transfer fee to any salary cap now makes little sense since they flipped the season to take advantage of the transfer season with Europe. Making a prospect a DP player accomplishes what? Gabriel Pec cap 2.5 million a year and his transfer fee was for 10 million dollars and he signed for five years. If the league is now embracing sell on from development of players, why count the transfer as you want players to develop on the field?
Why are you getting all xenophobic on me? If you don't understand why MLS is screwing itself on adding the transfer fees into the salary cap then I won't make you understand no matter what I say. By the way Paul Berry said the same thing and as I said earlier, anyone else suggesting any changes to MLS, a tiny bunch of you guys always come to the defense of MLS. Always. Never fails. Then you all proceed to shut down the opinions of those people. Oh...and then you all will make the same exact suggestion on another post.
Data show that spending better and smarter, perhaps by allowing high-payroll clubs to more easily spread their money across their entire rosters instead of spending such large chunks of it on three players, would vastly improve the product. If MLS allowed teams to spread out that spending on the first team roster, putting $20 million into eight or nine players rather than the top two or three, its rosters would be more well-rounded and boast more overall depth. I could've told them that for FREE! Also this one; It was such an obvious issue, but league decision-makers were so stuck in their ways that they kept adding more buckets to address shortfalls. They couldn't see that the overall structure of the rules was the problem. It perfectly fits some posters on this very thread. A lot to unpack in that short story. Many things have been said before here too and just like some of those owners, there are fans who want to keep everything the same and are afraid of change while other fans (and owners) know MLS can do better. Now I'm interested in reading that book.
You aren't proving any detail to your point. Maybe read the article and show some data to dispute what is being pointed out by folks the league paid for something they are trying to decide how much on.
Yet if you look at the LMX, the bigger clubs spend a big chunk of their payroll on two or three players. In fact you get the same pattern in the secondary leagues in Europe. But they pay more than the current MLS max cap hit (salary) on players 7 through 11, which is where the gap is. For instance PSV spend > $3 million on 3 players, $2 - $3 million on 5 players and $1- $2 million on 7 players, according to Capology. I don't think getting rid of DP status will make any difference. The spending needs to happen further down the roster if the goal is to compete with LMX.
It's really up to Houston to expand their fan base. It always disappointed me that NYC and the Red Bulls did zero to try and attract fans from upstate New York. For instance, you'd walk into MLS major sponsor's Target in Poughkeepsie and be able to pick up a Man City or Liverpool jersey but nothing from a local soccer team. It was as if the MLS didn't exist (never mind the local teams). Indeed Tyler Adams grew up around the corner from Target store and you couldn't find a USMNT jersey with Adams on the back. Why aren't they promoting the heck out of him?
@wantmlsphilly @STR1 Let me try a broader, hopefully more conciliatory, track. There is a difference between goals and implementation. Right? What’s bugging me about your posts here is that you’re criticizing the implementation of goals you don’t agree with. At least, that’s what comes across when it comes to your thinking. But the way you write, it’s as if you’re criticizing implementation. That’s why the “screw themselves” language set me off. When I write, I’m considering whether this or that idea fits the league’s vision. You guys, on the other hand, are indirectly criticizing that vision by talking about the rules rather than the purpose and thinking behind those rules. And you keep doing it. It comes down to this…maybe this will change, but for now, the league wants to balance various goals. They want to avoid becoming a league like all the rest, where there is a very, very clear line between the haves and have nots. MLS doesn’t want a handful of clubs where it would be a great regular season just to win more games than they lose, and another handful of clubs where finishing near the top would be a miracle. They don’t want to have LAFC, Seattle, and Inter Miami fighting for the Shield* every year. You guys write as if that goal doesn’t exist, or you ignore the math of that goal, the dollars and cents of it. *And saying the randomness of playoffs is what matters doesn’t help, IMO, because that’s not what affects attendance. When Wigan won the FA Cup the year it was relegated, or when Palace won it last year, it didn’t substantially change either team’s ability to spend. Here, playoff runs haven’t helped make either New York club financially stronger, with more fans, for example. The clubs that have used success on the field to boost their fan base (or lost their fan base due to bad results) have done it with consistent winning (or losing) in the regular season. And that’s true everywhere. This or that college basketball team makes a miracle run to the Final Four, but those schools remain 3rd tier powers. OTOH you have Gonzaga, which has been a consistent winner, and now they’re a top power.
Reports out of Mexico claimed he was the second highest paid player in Liga MX. At $1 6M a year any MLS would've had him as a TAM player. Even Brazil would've had him too as he was rumored to go there but his salary demands were too high. One important detail you are leaving out is that players will want to play for PSV for less just because it is PSV or any other top Euro club. MLS doesn't have that pull. Neither does Liga MX tbh. MLS, Liga MX, Brazil, Saudi need to overpay to get players. Top European clubs just have that advantage. I think that ship has sailed. If Houston wanted fans then they needed to constantly compete and win. Winning brings in fans. Tigres went from an irrelevant team until CEMEX took over, started investing millions, started winning, reached a Copa Libertadores final, CWC final and won several Liga MX titles. That's how they became so popular in such a short time. Tigres fans just used to be in Monterrey. Now they spread over the US and the neighbor states of Nuevo Leon. I'm from South Texas. When the Astros won the "Astro fans" popped out of thin air here in South Texas. They claim to be "long life" Astro fans now. This is your problem right here. And not only yours but some other posters too. Unless you are there in the meeting room you have no freaking clue what the league's vision is. The only way anyone of us finds out is by what is reported from those meetings by insiders. They made a book about some of those meetings yet you are here saying we are wrong because we are repeating what most of those owners are arguing about in those meetings. It's right there for you to read about it with quotes and everything but you still come here and say you know more about the league's vision.
My point was, that outside the very top teams, teams tend to have 2 or 3 "star" players on big salaries with or without them being labeled DPs. And North America has a lot to offer besides salaries. You just have to suspend any idea of playing the UCL for the length of your contract.
Yes, this is why it's a great domestic league and until the cap/budget can grow to an NFL size cap/budget will never be a league of choice on a global scale in the eyes of a majority of MLS owners. Gonzaga isn't a good comparison because they are a 1A school competing in an 1A division in one country. . You keep going to MLS 1.0 and the book is clearly making the point that owners who didn't pay bottom dollar are the ones pushing for change. After 25 years on ESPN and linear TV they set a goal of 400 million and couldn't find an offer. Meanwhile the EPL & Liga MX passed them in the domestic market when it comes to what they could demand from a media contact. They settled to move to Apple for less than they had hoped to get and never received an offer for more than what they were already getting besides Apple. Basically they had reached their ceiling for media revenue while everything you describe that is a problem for other leagues hasn't been a problem growing more revenue for a media contract and an audience. . I commend you on just not accepting the reality of the situation and pushing back but the league has already been announced it is flipping the season and it seems like you don't want to believe more is coming even though an insider (independent soccer journalist) has written a book about it.
True. And a reason why MLS having "super teams" is a discussion the owners have had. MLS as it currently stands, well, let's see what Mas has to say; "its persistent self-imposed restraints and not see competitive balance as enforced mediocrity—or what Jorge Mas aptly called "a race to the bottom." "Everybody sucks, so everybody bad has a chance to win," he lamented.
The Premier League and Bundesliga didn't decide to have super teams. The super teams emerged when everyone was paid the same. The Football League had a maximum wage, German football was amateur. As Miami has proven, there's nothing to stop other teams like Houston or Cincinnati becoming a super team.
You are arguing against what the owners have discussed. They have discussed in their meetings about the idea of having super teams. Not me, the owners! It was reported by Bogert, IIRC. So if there is nothing stopping Houston or Cincinnati from having a "super team" then owners wouldn't even bothering with that idea. But they have.
Interesting. Completely irrelevant to the discussion, but .. Reading this, it occured to me (probably six-seven years too late), "Who the hell is Jorge Mas?!?" (As I really had no idea) I see he is a barely billionaire (but a billionaire nonetheless) real estate and investment guy. Good for him to make it to the point that he would do what everyone of us would do if we were worth a billionaire dollars, hook our wagon the David Beckham and sign Messi (I may not be a fan of either Beckham or Messi, but damn if I would not do what Mas did if I could).
In all my years watching MLS grow the one thing I've always noticed is Don Garber will drop Easter eggs about what is coming in the future. From expansion cities to different players who might sign when he's asked a question, you can kind of get an idea where it might go. Twice he has mentioned roster rules in past interview but in this interview he is pretty much confirming it's coming. The other thing in this interview he mentions that the league might be opening five new stadiums in a row, starting with Miami this year. He then names NYCFC next year, the year after Chicago, Boston should happen, then possibly another in a new market. Sounds like either expansion or relocation is happening in the future. https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/06/10/cnbc-sport-mls-don-garber-world-cup-apple-tv-strategy.html
Didn't watch the entire interview, but he says the league is actively reviewing its entire roster building, salary structures, and schedule strategy to better compete with global soccer leagues and other American sports markets.
Didn't watch it all but right at the beginning he said one of the metrics for MLS growth is measured by social media interactions and following. On this thread I was told that social media isn't the real world, which it isn't I agree, but MLS and Don Garber do use it as a metric. And oh boy, those social media interactions are mainly bad rep for MLS. More negative than positive. He also mentioned the "league of choice". Well, they need to change to really make it a league of choice because if all you are selling is the life style of the US and DP money to a few select players then it wil only be a league of choice for a handful of players. Even our domestic players are leaving abroad.
a. They're not more negative than positive. You know how algorithms work, right? If you click on the negative ones you'll get more negative ones. b. Social media interactions aren't the real world but they're what investors care about and Garber is responsible to the investors (btw: it frustrates the hell out of me that Notts County haven't posted anything since last Friday).
He doesn't say that specifically. He's talking generally about MLS 3.0 and what the league will look like "after the WC". I dont imagine we'll hear all of the big detailsb until the ink is dry on the new CBA. The league isn't going to announce something that hasn't been agreed to by the players union.