It is not going to happen with a salary cap and a single entity structure. The NASL had the NY Cosmos who paid more money than any other team to sign international players like. Carlos Alberto, Beckenbauer etc. The other teams tried to keep up to compete and it killed the league.
This idea would only work in a single table format with pro/rel, and if we move K.C. and Columbus. Colorado has to rebrand to the "Caribous" and the Cosmos have to come back. Also, more players need to be hooked on blow.
I don't think that we really need to go to those extremes. There is a median that we can shoot for. We don't need Cosmos-type spending.
The league has had a pretty consistant couple of franchises in DC United and San Jose/Houston. Four titles each, in the International compitition consistantly, International recognition. I don't follow the other leagues as much but I always see Boca/River, or ManU/Chelsea, or Rangers/Celtic, and so on. This would be the same with Houston and DC I imagine. Galaxy want it but can't win enough.
Your probably right, but then if you really want MLS to improve you also need your clubs to have a reason to keep up to compete, otherwise ther is not going to be genuine progress, because their is no need to if the balance of power never change for real... When you ask American players in Europe about the difference between MLS and Europe, they just about always seem to mention that games and training sessions are more intense in Europe... It doesnt really matter if they are playing for a big or small club.... Its never healthy for a league if the clubs are at just about the same level all the time, because then ther is little need for keeping up and improving.... on the other hand, you do not want one or two clubs getting so rich that it is impossible for the other clubs to keep up.. Its just a difficult balance ... .
How many of the EPL teams are actually operating in the black. The spending has gotten to be ridiculous. The MLS business model is the correct model for now. The league has only been in operation for 13 years. In comparison to the other leagues and American sports leagues, this is nothing.
Financially MLS may be improving at the moment, but at the same time its rapidly falling further and further behind especially the Scandinavian leagues, so I dont think the MLS model is the "correct" model by any standard, but it's probably the only possible model for now... .
Can you provide substantial proof that they are falling behind? What do you mean and how do you quantify this statement?
I think this has already been debated in some other threads, some time ago... https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?p=15297020#post15297020 https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=15272546&postcount=58 but I'm talking about the financial aspects... TV deals and so forth... MLS may be getting more $$, but is at the same time falling behind in compare with especially Denmark and Norway, who are getting even more $$ to spend ... This is also why you see more (and better) MLS players moving to Norway and Denmark... .
Well, no matter the facts and figures, then I think it's pretty obvious that MLS is losing more and more talent... The logic reason is : 1) MLS is infact improving and players are getting better, so the top players have now become more interesting for European clubs. 2) You can never prevent players from moving to the top 4-5 leagues, but unfortunately (from an MLS point of view), your losing players to the "wrong" leagues at the moment, because the "MLS model" is not able to keep up financially with places like Denmark and Norway. What I'm saying is, that if you stick with this "MLS model" that you got now, then your league no doubt will keep improving, but financially you will not be able to keep up, so you will keep losing your top talent... and in even greater numbers, as the league keeps improving, just as it would be the case if MLS was a European league... Ther is no way you will be able to stop your players from leaving, unless you change this model to suit the actual competition your facing from Europe... At the moment your really doing nothing proactively to keep up... .
That's because we're still having a hard time keeping up with American Football, Basketball and Baseball here. We don't get the kind of coverage that those sports do, so we don't get the revenue to expand the cap. We're not to the point where we're trying to compete with Europe to keep our talent, we're still trying to keep our young league from ballooning and collapsing on itself.
Here's my problem with this idea: The original poster seems to think that having one or two teams that would be recognized by the whole world is somehow better for the league than parity. WRONG. Parity keeps more teams alive for longer periods of time. That means more fans have reasons to watch their teams, more fans watch on TV, and more fans come to the games. Also, parity comes hand-in-hand with the salary cap. If the salary cap goes away, yes, you could wind up with three or four giants and a bunch of minnows, but then you'd have a bunch of teams that are perpetually horrible, and that's not good for business either. What's the wonderful side effect of a couple of superclubs -- a bunch of guys in England and Argentina buy a few more DC United jerseys? So what? How is that better for MLS than competitive balance? Seriously, guys. Some of this is nothing more than Euro envy. People who have such a huge hard-on for all things Euro that we have to have superclubs, we have to have promotion and relegation, and we have to have single table -- regardless of whether or not it makes sense. You've gotta let this stuff go.
The problem is that the salary cap (as it is now) is not making MLS competitive, but just creating a whole league of the "minnows" that you mention... Truth is that Donovan is right. Ther may be some good MLS players but the teams/squads lack quality.... and this should be no surprise when you look at the salary cap... If you want teams of Bundesliga quality, you also need to pay Bundesliga wages, otherwise the best players are picked up by clubs in Europe who got more $$ to spend... and the better players will keep leaving in even greater numbers in the years to come... What really matters is the quality of training sessions... and if you can only afford a few very good players in your squad, then the training sessions and games become less intense... and this is exactly what American players in Europe say about the difference between MLS and Europe, that the training and games are more intense in Europe... or in other words, the squads are better, because they use much more $$ on wages... .
The cap will increase when we can afford for it to increase AS A LEAGUE. We have the NASL to look at for an example of what happens to a capless league in a country where soccer is barely above the label of "niche sport". It will balloon with the signing of major players, but will explode all over itself when the casual fan is past the fad. Hell, MLB is the only league in America without a cap, and it's safe to say that the capped NFL drums up more interest year in and year out. AT THIS POINT IN THE GROWTH OF THE LEAGUE WE CANNOT AFFORD TO DROP THE CAP, end of story. There is no logical counter-argument. We're not competing with Scandinavian leagues for revenue, it's other sports leagues IN AMERICA that we compete with. Edit: Donovan was wrong, he was on a team with a few GREAT players, who took up too much of the cap. Teams like Houston and Columbus had MUCH MUCH more depth from top to bottom, it's about how you spend the cap, it IS possible to get a team full of GOOD(not average, not serviceable, GOOD) players.
Quite simply Ceres, the money is not there to spend. Did you get a chance to check out the television ratings for the MLS Cup final? More people were watching children's cartoons that morning than the final of our league. So your presumption that raising the salary cap will fix the problem because it will draw more TV money is incorrect. I can go into the homes of 90 percent of my friend's houses and say the name "Landon Donovan" and they will have absolutely no idea who I am talking about. They don't follow soccer and they don't care to. They don't know who Lionel Messi or Luca Toni or Cristiano Ronaldo are either. Throwing millions of dollars at the salary cap is not going to change that. I know this kind of argument doesn't go anywhere on Big Soccer, but: just give MLS time. It will take a generation or more for soccer to even move to fifth most popular spot on television here. It's a slow, steady process, and throwing millions at players now will just guarantee the whole thing folds before it gets going.
The argument could be, that MLS should not use $$ on older over-the-hill Star players from Europe who are quite expensive, but instead use this $$ on actually making the squads better.... Like they do in Denmark, by using more $$ on developing own talents and also buying more affordable younger top talent from Africa, from smaller European leagues and some of the less known players from the top 4 leagues... I mean, why sign an expensive "Ljungberg", when ther are lots of "Patrice Bernier"s, "Feilhabers", " Saganowski"s, "Björn Runström"s and players of that quality that you can pick up for free or rather cheap, either because they have suffered relegation, are warming the bench or for some other reason just want try something new... better to sign 3 of them to make the squad better than one "Ljungberg" who is probably going to be injured most of the time anyway... .
Except they don't want to play in MLS. You'd have to overpay them so much that it would hurt your salary cap. I mean....play in UEFA Cup or Champions or play Joe Public and LA Firpo! Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........tough choice. But anyway, MLS IS getting more and more young talent from Latin America and Africa. It's also improving it's youth development and teams are starting up academies. It's part of the reason MLS has improved since 1996. But we're just not ever going to sign a lot of young European talent, for the same reason that Russian League will not see a giant influx of young North American talent. People in MLS are not as stupid as we think they are, there's probably very few things we think about that they haven't. They're either unable or unwilling to change...but they know their options.
Exactly. Don't you think we'd all love it for MLS to be able to pull money out from some bottomless pit, spend it on players, and have 16 teams full of world class superstars? Of course we would. But that's not reality. It's not even close to reality. You Euro-philes all start at the best-case possible scenario, like that's what we really have to work with, and work backwards. Always ranting about lack of quality, or lack or recognizable players/teams, and wanting to just spend, spend, spend, with no regard to the economic restraints. Always ranting that MLS absolutely (and this, to a lot of you, is an undeniable fact) has to have promotion and relegation in order to survive and be "legit". Let's not let the business of having to have at least 32 or 40 independent clubs with their own stadiums and fan bases that would be needed to make it work stand in the way of the fantasy. If you guys want to ruin the league, and just have DC, NY, LA, and (insert fourth here) and have everyone else go out of business, and just have a four-team league, be my guest. Get rid of the cap, and just go nuts. Please pick up the white courtesy phone -- you have a call from common sense.
For those individuals who believes that MLS needs a dominant team, I have a challenge: Define "dominant team" in the context of past franchises in the NFL, NBA, MLB, or NHL. This isn't Europe and the "superclub" concept embodied by England's Big 4, Barca/Real, Rangers/Celtic, etc. really doesn't translate here. If you talk about dominant teams, do the Buffalo Bills of the late 80's/early 90's qualify? Do their kindred spirits, the Minnesota Vikings of the 70's qualify? Do the Kansas City Royals in the 70's and 80's qualify? How about the Los Angeles Dodgers of the same era? Define "dominance" based not on what exists in Europe, but on what an American sports fan would understand ... unless it's too hard.