Actually, the Red Sox do whine about how much the Yankees spend, but your greater point still stands. The Galaxy spend more than any other team in MLS, but they are one of the few making a profit. You have to spend money to make money.
They actually didn't make a profit last year, or so they claim. And the Revs have been profitable several seasons in the last dozen or so years. If you look at MLS team profitability in the last decade, the Revs would be in the top 4 or 5. Obviously, there are no numbers to back any of this up, but it's pretty much accepted as fact in MLS circles and among the major pundits. It has a lot to do with the stadium situation, and the bare bones budget of the FO.
His teams generally don't even spend to the cap, which is a whopping $2.8m. Poor guy, he's just living off his welfare checks.
I haven't seen numbers for the past couple of seasons. Just a suspicion, but with so many teams banging out soccer-specific stadiums (and with a number of teams landing lucrative local media deals) it's likely that a number of them have jumped into a new stratosphere in terms of revenue. The problem the Revs have playing to a mostly empty Gillette is it doesn't allow for a lot of growth. The shirt sponsorship helps, but outside of that the growth is league revenues (television, merchandising, promotions). Any expansion dollars that were getting funneled back to the league's existing members are about to dry up. For the Revs there is going to come a point where increasing costs are going to eclipse what the team's revenue streams can produce. It may have already happened. Other teams are looking at sustainable revenue growth well into the future.
I totally agree with this. I was just pointing out the reason Kraft was running his business they way he was for so long (an at the present). In the past, it's made him money. However, I think those days are long gone.
Yeah, that is a good point. I think the nominal profits they made in the past are going to begin to erode. A dramatic drop in attendance may do it. This year could be the Revs lowest point in their history. Even if there is an improvement in the on field product, I have the strong suspicion that their off-field issues are going to reach their all-time high.
This discussion was about why he dropped his interest in investing in the EPL, it's not about MLS. The spending to the cap thing is a red-herring, as you well should know. If the Revs don't spend to the cap, it may save MLS some money, but it barely saves the Revs anything (1/19th of the unused cap?). People keep using that as evidence of Kraft being cheap, when it makes absolutely no sense at all.
But it's a 100% certifiable fact that Kraft doesn't save money by not spending to the cap. It's just not up for debate. In fact, I'd even say it's....off topic
So if the rationale behind the Moreno signing was to have a big body who could hold up play and involve our mids, who does that now? Sene doesn't seem that sort of player. Rookie Dewayne Smith? Or do we sign Nate Jaqua now, hat in hand? Punt until July? Decide we're going to play all speed with Cardenas and Sene? 26 days until showtime.
Ok, so they signed another striker (hopefully this one shows), I would take a guess that opening day, baring signings, we look like [lineup-4-4-2]Sene, Cardenas, Rowe, Sharlie, Fielhaber, Nyassi, Barnes, Lozano, Soares, Alston, Reis[/lineup-4-4-2] Have to think that Rowe, Sene and Cardenas certainly upgrade the pace of the team over Lekic, Caralgio and Zerka so that is a plus. What I have seen and read about Rowe, he seems like the real deal and that he could turn out to be an upgrade over Zerka. The forward pairing is where I am still having issues. If the Revs could sign another forwards then Cardenas could go to left Mid and Rowe to right taking Nyassi out of the line up it would be a huge upgrade to the team. The team is looking better. Lozano over Cochrane has to be an upgrade but Barnes is not the answer, neither is Tierney
...but if he doesn't spend to the "cap" he never has to pay out of pocket for going over it. That, is cheap.
I really want to see what this kid is all about. It will be interesting to see him in action against MLS teams next week
True, yet if you're unwilling to go over the cap and spend your own money, then you pretty much have to leave a buffer under the cap. Otherwise mid-to-late season moves (even ones made just to fill out the roster) will be coming out of your pocket. I think it's fair to say Kraft treats a soft cap like it's a hard cap.
I am speculating like everyone else, but the I think the failure to spend to the cap, or spend over the cap, is more on the front office and the Head of Operations than on Kraft, per se. I have to believe that in an organization like KSG, decisions get made based on some financial analysis by the front office, then presented to the highest management for approval or not. If a strong argument can be given that by signing player X for $ Y, even if it means going over the cap, revenue will increase by $ Y + Z , than such signings would occur. That fact that they dont suggests to me that the front office has not made the arguments to Kraft, not necessarily that he has been given the opportunity to go over the cap, but he's chosen not to I don't think this front office understands the business that they are in very well. I don't think they know who their target market really is. And I suspect they have not established much of a connection between revenue and things like: - overall quality of the team - wins and losses of the team - name appeal of certain players - focussed appeal of certain ethnic players - overall game experience of the fans Now you can argue successfully that ultimately the buck stops with KSG so if the front office isn't getting it done, replace them. And I would agree. But the glory seasons of increasing yearly attendance, MLS Cup finals and scoring leaders like TT aren't really that far behind us. I think KSG are slow learners.
Is it a certifiable fact though? I keep wondering if there is a financial reason to not spend to the cap.
I don't want to get into this too deeply, but what evidence do you have, other than that it's "illogical?" I'm pretty sure the Revs aren't the only team that doesn't spend all their money. In fact, I'm not sure they're even the worst offender. So again, the question is why. Shouldn't every team in the league be spending at least close to the cap limit? Why don't they? If there's no financial incentive to being frugal wouldn't it make sense to spread money around a little more freely? Which leads back to my question, is it possible there's some financial advantage for teams to not spend all the money allotted to them? Can they write it off on their taxes? Does unspent salary money somehow roll back to them at the end of the year?
No, it doesn't. The league owns the contracts and the league pays the salaries. At the end of each season, if a team is more than $200K(?) under-budget, the remainder of the budget goes to the MLS players union to be distributed. There is no incentive not to spend the cap.
Incompetence? Inability to attract high salary players to play at our dinky little club in an over-sized stadium on plastic grass?
The first certifiable fact I think you should consider is that MLS never met a "rule" that it didn't like to have apply differently across teams.