Since @KCbus closed this thread https://www.bigsoccer.com/community/...league-in-the-world-by-2022-one-hund.1978919/ (one of the better ones in this very low standard forum) I will bump this one. Hearing it's likely that higher-seeded MLS team will get to choose order of game locations in home-and-home playoffs moving forward.— Subscribe to GrantWahl.com (@GrantWahl) January 16, 2014 League is also considering moving the MLS Cup final to the third weekend of December.— Subscribe to GrantWahl.com (@GrantWahl) January 16, 2014 Don Garber: "Within 30 days we'll make an announcement on what's going on in Miami."— Subscribe to GrantWahl.com (@GrantWahl) January 16, 2014 And more importantly Don Garber getting ready for CBA talks: "The league is losing between $75 and $100 million a year."— Subscribe to GrantWahl.com (@GrantWahl) January 16, 2014
Listened to the recent Big Head Red Head podcast and they brought up some good points. One was that because Leiweke overpayed for both Defoe/Mikey and threw near 80M at both, any cries of losing money and being unprofitable will fall on deaf ears. Basically, Leiweke put many owners in a bind by throwing that type of money at two players and I agree it's an issue and this next CBA will be quite the battle. I expect a stoppage of play and holdout. BTW, I don't see why the other thread was closed as I assume the 2022 goal will come up when the tv deals are announced in the near future, with Garber saying something along the lines of this being a next and important step to becoming a top league, and I also think the 2022 goal will come up over the next 6-12 months with new CBA discussions. I get that some here can't handle certain topics all that well and want them shut down, but who exactly is forcing them to click on the threads? BS would go downhill if MOD's start closing on thread after another because a handful complain about repetitive discussions, which is what BS and forums in general are filled with. This forum(You Be The Don) also is quite dead many times. Why censor discussion in the busiest thread in this forum?
This post was actually longer, but I censored the last two paragraphs. New thread started. We do that occasionally so things stay on track, and so newcomers to the conversations can get to the stuff that's relatively current instead of clicking on a thread about a topic only to find out the content isn't even remotely related to the topic anymore.
FWIW jond, as the starter of the thread, I have no problem with what the Mods did -- in fact, you'll see I suggested it too. People's positions were pretty clear, fewer and fewer new people were posting in the thread, and my guess is that the financial/quality discussion is now moving into the CBA battle anyway. There's still plenty to talk about, but freshening up the discussion in a new thread won't hurt IMO.
Stupid ... this type of inconsistency is what makes MLS look ridiculous. "We can't decide so we'll have it both ways" Gotta go back to neutral venue then. I can't see how you can risk MLS Cup in Chicago or Toronto a few days before Xmas That's not good if true considering most teams are in their own stadiums. That would mean that even if the last few stragglers get their stadiums we'd barely break even ... if that. My gut tells me that Garber is subtracting stadium investment and the new big signing costs to get to this figure. That sort of makes sense but not really since those aren't losses but investments. He's probably also going back several years to get the "per year" average. The true snapshot of where we are today in '14 is probably a lot rosier than that.
moving the cup back seems like its testing the waters for winter games to me, wether its due to along break or a decompressed season. doing it with a championship game is asinine though, I remember him mentioning something to the effect of "wow isn't it amazing to have this many people here when its cold out?" at last years MLS cup. and I'm thinking, yeah off course theres a lot of people, the well attended home team's playing for the championship. can't represent that as a norm. low balling with unions seems unnecessary seeing as how they won't want a huge jump in salary cap themselves. I'll believe it when I see it. and I still think both 1 vs 4/5 games should be at the top teams place.
Yo, how come this got split from part 1? I mean the other thread was only 3 pages long. https://www.bigsoccer.com/community/...-and-all-other-league-structure-talk.1976025/ I created the first thread to have basic information about MLS and how it works (as far as we understand) Info like the following.
I honestly do not know how attendance for playoff or finals matches can be used as a barometer for how well a mid-season cold weather match would be received.
I don't think moving the final back is testing the water for a winter season (which I think is a bad idea, on balance), and I think moving the final back is OK if it can be a day game. I, know, here Colorado; we get a lot of nice days between November and March, but very few nice nights. Especially in December when the days are so short. People here overlook that the English tradition of playing a winter season started when all games were played during the day.
Doesn't matter if it's an investment, it's still a debt/loss until it is paid off. The stadium debt (or whatever it is labeled) is a bullet point on the end of year report. I think that 75-100 as a league is pretty much nothing considering the new stadiums/renovations/etc the last few years.
I posted this in the news thread but it should also be here. What’s Wrong with MLS, If Anything? (Part I, Understanding Roster Rules) businessofsoccer.com How Much More Do Professional Footballers Make Than The ‘Average Joe’? businessofsoccer.com
The second article has interesting data. MLS average salary is 4 times larger than the average worker salary. That's a ratio approximately equal to England's ratio back in 1991 just before the EPL was founded and TV money went crazy.
Yes, they should have kept everything about the league exactly the same as it was in 1996 for "consistency." Never evolve. That would be great.
Commissioners cannot be trusted to tell the truth about a league's finances. Especially when a CBA is on the horizon. I think we learned this from Bud Selig who said in 2001 that baseball was losing a half-billion dollars a season. He wanted to eliminate the Minnesota Twins. Selig, of course, was lying, or if at the very least using a dishonest mechanism to reach those numbers . Actually, every sports Commissioner in the U.S plays this game. Take for instance a club like Sporting KC. They have just built a new stadium that they are financing. So, when they do their books of course they are going to come in at an operating loss. Not to include debts on their balance sheet would open them up to more tax liability. Every club does this. What's important is revenues. Not, net profits. Especially for a growing business, which MLS clubs are.
One man's evolution is another man's clusterf**k. I'm all for evolution that fixes problems. But having teams decide home field advantage on a case by case basis is basically a solution in search of a problem.
You can always rely on an American sports commissioner's word when he speaks on his league's finances. It will always be the most outlandishly negative portrayal of the leagues finances he can manage without his pants literally bursting into flames. The difference with the MLS of course is that unlike the Big 4 pro leagues, soccer is not a closed system for players. If the NBA doubles players cut of the revenues, it isn't going to attract any more Lebron James'. In MLS there is a whole raft of Jermain Defoes (and perhaps more importantly Jose Goncalves' and Aurelin Collin's) who the league can add for the right price. If the league's salary cap isn't raised noticably in the next CBA round, then that will show that the league's growth strategy is nothing more than 3 good players per deep-pocketed expansion owner willing to pony up for them. That would expose the 2022 mission as a con, full stop.
If you have a plan by which MLS can exist with its current player model and with its salary cap remaining stable vis a vis other leagues in the world, and can nonetheless become an on-field product worthy of, say, some of the mid-major European leagues within 8 years, I would LOVE to hear it.
You stated that if the CBA didn't significantly raise the cap, that it was proof that the league's growth strategy is nothing but a trick pony with splurging on just a few names for a few teams. That's flat out false. I merely mentioned that there are dozens of other variables/metrics with which to measure this. You responded by wanting to hear my plan on how MLS can "vis a vis" get things done ... ... you started one conversation but then went into another one.
I know Don Garber has given himself plenty of wiggle room when pressed on the idea that we're going to be "competing" with the world's top leagues within 8 years by mentioning attendance and fan experience and all those things. And those things are not to be disregarded. But there is no denying that on-field product is a major part of any plan for MLS growth, and the only way to improve that in the short, medium, or long term is to pay more money for better players. I'm actually with the Don here, I don't think the league should get super aggressive with player salaries. That would fly in the face of all the success they have had in recent years at becoming stable, sustainable, and intermittently profitable. Slow and steady is winning the race. But don't blow smoke about becoming an elite world league in the very short term if you aren't planning to put your money where your mouth is. It's credibility damaging.
Gotta agree with Illini ... Sure there are many metrics for growth in general but in the end in a soccer league what matters is the soccer. Specifically the players on the field and their quality. From that perspective it does raise some valid questions about the league's priorities. If the league is sacrificing overall improvement in order to sign a handful of mega stars they deserve their criticism. Soccer isn't tennis. It's a team sport. Two mega stars surrounded by the same old mediocre players does not necessarily make a better overall product. Especially if some of those stars are there based on name recognition more than actual production on the field