MLS deciding where players go is just bad for the league. Imagine if MLS sold Dempsey and Joseph, where would this leave the Revs. Teams should have control over what happens with their players. If players want to leave MLS but don't this makes them unhappy and that will leave the teams with an uninspired player. The clubs should decide what's best for them. There are too many dumb rules like the Red Bulls situation with Matt Jensen. They can't sign him because they don't have his MLS rights since Columbus has them. What if an MLS team filed for the MLS rights to every player in the world outside MLS? Why do "MLS rights" exist? Single entity has to go but will it ever happen? The sooner the better.
Single Entity is currently needed for at least these reasons: 1) No collective bargaining agreement with players (nor any reason to negotiate one) Can't have a salary cap without one. 2) Not enough owners for the current 12 (or 13) teams yet. Any others?
If the clubs decided what was best for them, the Red Bulls would've committed suicide in 1997. Single entity is what has kept this league afloat for 11 years. Clint Dempsey is just mad because (shocker!) he has to play out his contract. He's been pissy this whole year for some reason. Dude needs to stop doing his Cleetus impression. Meanwhile Shalrie Joseph turned down an offer so he could finish the season with the Revs. Speaking of all that, it's not like the Revs have been playing very well with them. "Uninspired poo poo" comes to mind.
11 years of suck has really turned metrobulls fans brains to mush, hasn't it? For the one millionth time: NY had Jansen in for a trial and chose not to file a discovery for him (which would have meant that MLS would begin contract negotiations with the player on metrobulls behalf). Columbus then had said player in for a trial and did file a discovery for him. It was then that metrobulls suddenly said "hey wait, we do want to sign him". Since negotiations had already begun with Columbus things went nuts. In other leagues it would be called tampering, but in MLS it isn't. As far as your ridiculous analogy goes: Will metrobulls be trialing every player in the world with the intention of signing them? No? That's what I thought. Why is it so hard for metrobulls fans to understand how discoveries work? Or to understand that their "club" failed to file one on Jansen after his trial with their "club"? Columbus has his rights because we filed the discovery and negotiations had begun. You want him? That's fine, he wants to play for Bruce and no club wants players around that don't want to be there. The solution is simple: Just send Danny O'Rourke home.
Not sure if I'm understanding your post. There is a collective bargaining agreement in place between MLS and the players union. As for #2, single entity is not required until MLS finds an owner for each team. It's simply a business structure.
This is my best layman's take as to what MLS is doing with regards to single entity. One of the requirements MLS operated under when forming back in the early 90's was to find a way to control costs. The main cost-control measure was to institute a salary cap. A salary cap meant that MLS could plan and budget a certain amount of money for salaries. However, without a collective bargaining agreement, multiple corporations in the US cannot conspire to set salaries. To avoid trying to get a collective bargaining agreement that included a salary cap (or to renew such an agreement periodically) MLS used a concept of Single-Entity. In other words, MLS formed the league as a single corporation. Since a corporation cannot conspire with itself to set salaries, the salary cap is not a legal issue. If MLS were to divest itself of all its teams and become a league of 12 to 13 individual corporations, the salary cap would become a legal issue, and would always be a point of negotiation with the players for each collective bargaining extension or re-negotiaion. It would be a major concession in owner-labor relations. I don't understand your response to my second point. My second point was that there were more teams than owners. By having single entity, that's not a problem. I suppose that if each team were a separate corporation, you could have a league that permits owners to own more than one team. I don't think MLS wants to go that route. I think their long range plan is to have one 'owner' per team. Perhaps MLS will someday revert to a more traditional structure were teams are separate legal entities. I don't see an advantage for them doing so, but I'm not privy to their plans. I suspect, though, that each team would need its own owner, and that MLS would have to at least be profitable. I also suspect that a good long-term agreement with players would need to be reached before leaving single entity. These are just my guesses, however.
Coming from someone an NJSEA supervisor, I'll take that as a complement. Believe me, they don't think any soccer fan is bright Kinda like getting an endorsement from the Bush Adminstration or something.