Do you have a source that actually describes how the accounting works? I’ve never been able to find it, and phrases like “allocated $3 million to spend” are ambiguous to me because I don’t know if it’s $ given or permission to spend given or something in-between, and I’ve seen terms like “pool” thrown around, which suggests the owners are supplying the $. At the end of the day the $ is as useful to the Quakes as it is to any other team. We just have to make good decisions with it. I’ve said for years that the advantage to MLS acquisitions is that they are low risk - you know exactly how the player fares in MLS. At the same time everyone else knows it too, so hard to get a steal. That’s why you also want to take shots at intls.
I was going off the allocation money wikipedia page but that seems to be based on 2018. Most up-to-date is probably this: https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/majo...-ratify-new-collective-bargaining-agreement-0
Yeah I still haven’t found a reference that explains unambiguously how the accounting works. Is it money literally given to the club or just funny money - money of your own that you can spend over the cap, or does it come from a pool - each owner ponies up the amounts of the allocation pools.
it's a bit mysterious. According to MLSPA the Quakes are spending 10.1m in 2021 (prior to the summer signings). According to the latest CBA contract in 2021 each team can spend: 4.9m (salary cap) + 1.5m (GAM) + 2.8m (TAM) + 3 DPs + 3 Young DPs. Our 2 DPs are Chofis (860k) and Espinoza (1.3m) = 2.2m Our Young DP is Lopez (370k) So adding the salary cap + *AM = 9.2m Subtract the DPs 9.2 - 2.2 = 7m 9.2m - 7m = 2.2m I think we paid 1.2m for Jebo (600k this year and 600k next year) + whatever his new salary is. Likely had to sell Flo to make it work. Whatever allocation money is not accounted for probably went towards Nathan for his fee and salary.
I remember reading several years ago that every team was allocated $400k for a DP. It was to encourage clubs to sign DPs. I think that was the year they made Wondo a DP. So I wouldn’t be surprised if TAM/GAM/thank you Ma’am worked in a similar way, that the league is helping clubs get better players. But as I said, I don’t try to get my head around allocation money. Too hard!
Yeah I did some more reading and it does seem like it’s money “given” to clubs - of course that is likely coming out of their revenue sharing checks. But at this point TAM / GAM is nearly half the regular salaries cap - let’s say $6 mil and 4.5 mil or something. So it seems strange that the league pays almost half of team’s “regular” payroll. Then I remember hearing that the league pays half is “regular” salaries also, but maybe that doesn’t happen anymore - if it ever did.
Great article, and I hadn’t seen the word grok in a long time! I’ll bet the reason Jesse didn’t buy MLS players was because he couldn’t grok the system!
That is the best article I've read on GAM/TAM, but I'm still not totally clear about it and would love to see a case study or example.
After reading that article, it has reaffirmed to me that allocation money is the way it is to benefit the owners. It obfuscates how much individual teams pay players in salaries and links all the teams together via a mechanism to discourage them from trying to outbid one another too much for talent so they can keep the salaries of players lower than they would otherwise be. It's pretty brilliant in its exploitation, honestly. It's not quite as insidious as service time, but it's not that far off, either. The league could effectively double the salary cap and let teams acquire players that fit under that cap in a transparent way, but that would open them up to more criticism from the players' union about why the salary cap is so low, etc, etc. Instead, they get to have their cake and eat it, too. I hope this kind of stuff starts to be pushed back against by the players' union.
"NEWS: Three Earthquakes Named to MLS Team of the Week" (SJEarthquakes.com - Monday, 8/23/21) GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
You do realize MLS is a single entity league, right? That's an important fact to consider before comparing MLS to... literally every other league in the world. Soccer leagues around the world. Other American sports leagues. Etc. Allocation money exists because they can't send real money around for players, and still claim single entity status, with the league paying all the players salaries (minus the DP over the threshold stuff). That's the same reason there are "discovery rights" for foreign players and an "allocation order" for USMNT / returning players. Because if MLS is one company paying all the salaries, you can't have a bidding war over a new employee between the Sales and Marketing departments. So instead some team has Zlatan's "discovery rights" and either they can sign him or if some other team is going to sign him, they will be compensated with $50-100k in allocation money for those rights. The players union could try to "push back" but while the league is opening up their wallet over time (DPs, TAM, increased salary cap, young money, limited free agency), they are NOT going to do anything that jeopardizes their single entity status. Other leagues WISH they were single entity. The NFL tried to argue they were in court and failed. The problem is you can't be "not single entity" and then try to become single entity. So that's actually one area where MLS has an advantage other other leagues, it's much newer so it was created under a single entity model from the beginning. Single entity is considered the "holy grail" and they're not going to give that up.
I just read someone’s opinion that the same applies to the college draft system, that it’s just a way for owners to depress salaries. I guess that and your comment both make sense to me…
It's not an opinion, it's a fact. Free agency has been a hard won gain for pro athletes, but there are pretty extreme requirements for it in most leagues. In baseball you have a very long period of team control after being drafted where you basically earn league minimum, even if you're the best player in the league and there's basically nothing you can do about it. I'm not as familiar with football, but I believe they tend to earn a bit more up front for certain positions. Linemen and such earn far less, which is its own issue. MLS is unique in that player salaries are still largely paid by the league an not individual teams, that money just comes out of the team's allotment. So not only do you have to have service time requirements to hit free agency, but the league has a mechanism built in to keep teams from competing for one another for players, which keeps salaries artificially low that players have zero control over. In most industries, mechanisms like these would be illegal, but sports often have legal exceptions because of lobbying congress and an appeal to the romanticism of sports. Owners work extremely hard to suppress player wages and all of them are extremely unethical. The draft is a long-standing an particularly heinous one, especially since college athletes basically get nothing for putting their entire lives into their sports the vast majority of the time. They don't get paid while in college despite earning their institutions ridiculous amounts of money. Basically, the business of sports is just one travesty after another. The counter argument that athletes get paid millions of dollars doesn't really sway me, either, because A, most athletes don't have careers long enough to earn significant amounts of money, and B, in order to become a professional athlete, you are making huge sacrifices in your life with the odds of making it are so small that they are for all intents an purposes, not attainable.
Yes, I am very well aware of single entity. I'm not sure how what you said contradicts what I said. They are complementary pieces of the puzzle. Even within single entity, teams could theoretically get into a bidding war for a player except that MLS has mechanisms to prevent it to help preserve their legal status and suppress wages. Single entity exists to suppress wages, ultimately. That's its primary function.
Did not see him. (Would not read anything into that. Was told Jared Shawlee was there, but I didn't see him, either.)
Ted Ramey did a very good job with the questions. While there was a "What restaurants have you been to?" in the mix, most of the questions were successful in drawing out interesting answers. It also helps that Jeremy E. is smart and thoughtful, but hearing from the players about the locker room, the EQ club culture, Matias' system, how a new player fits in and is made to feel welcome, etc. made for very interesting listening. Unlike some past panels, all 4 players had something to contribute.
Ha ha. I liked the restaurant question. (I even went to Luna on The Alameda for dinner afterward, because Jebo mentioned it in his answer. My guess is the recommendation came from Tommy T, because that's his favorite place. )
The question that impressed me the most was his answer on social media and how it can affect some players, and the effect it had on him.