Sunday 7 June 2026

I read the book and it pretty much is the theme of many threads on big soccer. From the Apple deal, Inter Miami, CONCACAF Champions Cup, to MLS and Don Garber slow walking everything, it's in there. How they still really haven't figured out how they will use the World Cup & Messi to help sell the league seems to be the theme.
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Jorge Mas, Larry Berg & Merritt Paulson are the owners pushing for spending big to grow the league. Meanwhile it seems that flipping the season and everything else that comes with that which they still haven't figured is because Clark Hunt had a change of mind and Garber is trying to cement his legacy.
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Paul Tenorio covers everything going back to Don Garber being hired and Beckham coming to the Galaxy. His main theme is unless MLS has a huge change in their business model like Beckham had, they'll will waste the opportunity they now have with Messi.

 

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Paul Tenorio covers everything going back to Don Garber being hired and Beckham coming to the Galaxy. His main theme is unless MLS has a huge change in their business model like Beckham had, they'll will waste the opportunity they now have with Messi.[/QUOTE]

What's the change to the business model that the book recommends? The article doesn't seem to highlight that, but I'm curious about what's suggested. Also, what is a representative example of MLS Garber slow walking everything?

 

What's the change to the business model that the book recommends? The article doesn't seem to highlight that, but I'm curious about what's suggested. Also, what is a representative example of MLS Garber slow walking everything?[/QUOTE]
It doesn't recommend anything other than they recognize they need to change and that Mas by investing in his team created revenue back into the team and MLS. It suggest that it's proof of concept but at the same time it's Messi so....

 

FC Spartak Kostroma is a Russian club.

They play in the Russian First League which is the 2nd tier of the Russia.

 

Doesn't inspire a lot of confidence that things will change in the next CBA. If Messi and the WC didn't do it for them with time in advance then nothing will. At best they'll increase GAM and add more over all salary budget but then again, that's a given. Then continue the slow but steady pace path for another decade.

 

I believe the author isn't trying to express what he thinks but subtly suggest what needs to be done. The one thing that is stressed is they need to change. Garber made a speech about winter teams sacrificing for the good of the league and reminded how the Galaxy did just that as they had a huge local TV contract and have territory to LAFC . After they did they still benefited as did the rest of the league. It's more how they will and how although the NFL model works, it needs to be adjusted to compete in the world market. I think a lot of this depends on the switch in the Apple deal and how much they might gain in the future..... Or lose.

 

Expecting a league with thirty owners to all pull in the same direction is kind of a lost cause in my view. In that I agree with those who think the big teams should be allowed to spend as much as they want, though we arrive at different conclusions.

 

LOL, ok. Obviously I haven't read it yet but comparing asking a heavily favored team like the Galaxy to "sacrifice" by giving territory in the country's second largest market and giving up a TV deal for one that nets $250M annually to asking multiple traditionally struggling teams like NE, Chicago, Colorado, etc. to completely change to playing in the worst possible weather is a stretch.

 

This was actually mentioned in the book. When the league was under twenty teams they would always go with unanimous decision on everything but later on it went to majority. When they decided to change they broke down teams into pods to discuss everything and included sporting directors, presidents and owners with Garber telling everyone nothing would change until 2027. It seems besides flipping the season that the Australian playoff system is a go and the three divisions with ten teams each. The only thing not settled was how much and what mechanisms they would use or get rid of. Seems the MLSPA has a lot to do with this as well.

 

It was confirmed by Garber but there was more than just that and it involved no mitigation for cold weather teams. They announced the change, so I don't see why it isn't true.

 

In Austin, Garber let owners have their say first. Then he recommended the calendar change and gave the room a history lesson. He pointed to multiple occasions where owners had voted or acted against their own self-interests in order to do right by the league. Phil Anschutz and the LA Galaxy had a strong local television deal on which they turned a profit, one of only a handful of teams with such an arrangement, Garber noted. They gave up that agreement so that the league could negotiate all local rights as part of its media deal, which was eventually signed with Apple. The LA Galaxy also did not block Los Angeles FC’s stadium deal, despite its proximity in the market. It was good for the league to have two teams in Los Angeles, including one with a fantastic downtown stadium location, even if it made the business more difficult for the LA Galaxy to split the market. Garber rattled through other examples from the league’s history with a clear message to the owners: This isn’t about just one decision. The commissioner contextualized flipping the calendar against three decades of sacrifices owners made over the years. It went back to the design of the single-entity model: Owners were partners, acting for the better of the greater venture.
By the end of the meeting, the board reached an overwhelming consensus to move forward with the changes—with no mitigation for colder markets. Not every owner was happy; there were still two or three that preferred not to change the calendar and a few others that wanted to be paid for the trouble, but there was a better understanding of why the league needed to act. It was a critical step toward the next evolution of the league, pending talks with the MLSPA and Apple.

 

My point isn't that it wasn't true. My point was that equating the Galaxy's sacrifices to the sacrifices the cold-weather teams are going to have to make is a stretch from Garber.

 

Yea, but that's just part of the story. Took me two days to read it but most of the stuff they talk about is pretty much what most folks in this blog talk about from almost every point of view. Pro/rel for the USA is mentioned, USL possibly passing MLS because the story line of pro/rel is what might attract more viewers. After Messi winning thinking he might not renew his contract because MLS isn't interested in winning CONCACAF or the Club World Cup and this started this process.
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Basically they are going forward with all the changes and just trying to figure out how much investment is needed because they think proof of concept has been proven with Messi.

 

What book you talking about?

 

The Messi Effect

 

What does it mean when it is said Garber is/was slow walking everything? Where's the evidence? He works for the owners after all, so wouldn't it in fact be the owners slow walking?

 

When the owners met for the final vote to flip the season the first thing Garber said was none of these new systems would start before 2027. Some owners ask when they voted on that but 2027 was approved for flipping the season and Garber was the one that made that decision according to the book.

 

I do want to point out that the local deals and RSNs required a couple seasons to wind up, so that happened almost certainly before they knew what they were going to get out of it. Also, I imagine that the Galaxy were aware that the new club had a strong change to become bigger than they were, given the location.

 

The same can be said for Red Bull NY when NYCFC came into the league. Plus that also affected the New England Revolution and Philadelphia Union due to the proximity of the teams and their overlapping "home grown player territories."