Why is the top soccer player getting paid a lot less than NBA, NFL, MLB top player?

Billy Preston: "Will it go 'round in circles?"

 

Yeah, but they would have had (I believe) 3 more seasons of Wayne Rooney. Maybe they would have made the CL group phase with him. Maybe they'd be riding through the UEFA Cup. Maybe they'd be in a position to make the CL next season. They'd sell lots of Rooney merchandise, they'd sell a few more seats at Goodison. Maybe they'd have a lucrative summer tour next year if Rooney has a great World Cup. And they wouldn't have had to buy Beattie. Add it all up, and alot of the money they "lost" by not selling Rooney, they'd make up in other ways.

 

Well I glanced through this thread and I would have to say, if it hasn't been said, that the reason soccer players aren't paid as high as other American athletes is because of the amount of players worldwide that's available for clubs.

There are 9032902349023403990349034223904 players worldwide for soccer clubs to choose from.

Compare that with the NBA, NFL, etc. when they only have a limited amount of players.

In soccer the clubs have control over player's salaries while in American sports it's usually the players that have control.

 

The point would be that they would have to offer their top players higher salaries if they played out their contracts to keep them.

They would be in demand and the only way to keep them was to offer them higher salaries.


The other squad players wouldn’t have the same leverage with the club even if they played out their contracts, as they’re less likely to have higher offers elsewhere.

 

A long post with multiple quotes warning.

The threat of suspending a player until the end of the contract is usually a bluff, I’ve said that already, but the players usually aren’t ready to wait 6 months or so to see if the club will come to its senses.

I don’t know what the clubs would do.

Some would maybe add 3-4 players to the squad.

Some might just give everyone a 30 % raise.


Some might give the 3-4 top players a 50% raise and give everyone else a 10% raise.

You might want to disregard these threats, but they do exist, and do have an effect on players.

You could go to the Arsenal forum and ask what would happen if Henry decided that he wants to play out his contract.

This situation is impossible in American sports, and makes true free agency in soccer much rarer.

We agree on this.

And on the end of the contract Rooney would get a new deal from someone (maybe even Everton if things worked out for them) that would probably be better than his current one at Man U.

 

He understands that, he just disagrees with you.

 

Arsenal's in 5th place. Henry would play.

Maybe. But only because he'd be a more proven talent.

 

and what makes you so certain these star players would have higher offers elsewhere?

If the top clubs in the world are only offering £90,000 a week then who out there is going be offering £150,000?

And yes, it does set a precendent, as the next time another of their star players' contract is up, they'd demand £150,000 as well. They'd just be making a rod for their own back by offering hugely inflationary wages, and there would not be any point for the club to do so. The club would not gain anything at all from it, and would stand to lose a fortune.


I repeat, what would be the point to the club to give the money they've saved on a transfer fee to the player as extra salary? What would the club gain from doing that?


The question I'd like to see answered is this....if it is lowered salary budgets (due to paying transfer fees) that causes to top earners to be paid less, why is it that premiership team who have salary budgets similar to MLB/NBA team don't have similar pay scales?

 

Well, the history of U.S. professional sports suggests that the clubs would.

The NFL and NBA didn't come up with salary caps because the owners had some farsighted vision that if they forced income to track with expenses, they'd inject stability into the business. Rather, they did so reactively, because they collectively couldn't stop pumping up player salaries. In business school, I had a class where we mimicked being sports owners for the purposes of studying game theory. Sure enough, we spent like irresponsible bandits. Had we continued for long enough, no doubt we would have enacted something like a salary cap to save us from ourselves, too.

Baseball was a bit different. In the early days of free agency, the owners cut each other's throats. Then they colluded to hold down wages and were caught at the act. Since then, I don't quite know what they've done and how well they've maintained discipline. But if they have managed to do so on a voluntary basis, hmmm I would suggest that is more of an exception than the rule.

As to your hypothetical, yah sure somebody's going pay Thierry his 150k sterling. Club presidents and managers don't have jobs for life. The ones who are feeling the pressure -- the ones who know they won't be around 12 months from now if they don't qualify for Europe, contend for the domestic title, advance to the knockout stage, whatever -- those guys aren't going to worry too hard about long-term salary inflation. They need Thierry to save their bacon today. Thierry makes any manager a lot smarter, at least for the next few years.

 

Re: Why is the top soccer player getting paid a lot less than NBA, NFL, MLB top playe

why does it matter? when has a player been suspended for 6 months simply because he hasn't signed an extension?

That's very possible. In other words, the money saved by not giving outrageous transfer fees and elite players salary skyrocketing are NOT correlated.

That's just your speculation. I said those threats have no effect on players. You said it yourself, it's mostly bluff.

I don't have to. I know what Ballack is doing. He's still playing. You mean Arsenal fans' speculations, just like your speculation, would be more valid than the fact?

 

any the history of sports here suggests they wouldn't.

Maybe because a cap exists you have more clubs potentially bidding for a star players services than you would over here. Maybe because you don't have strong second tiers in your sports, or strong overseas competition, those at the mid to bottom end of the pay scales really have to like it or lump it with the salaries they are offered.

 

Which sports would those be?

All possibilities, sure. I wouldn't bet on any of them, but I don't suppose we can know unless the system is actually tested.

 

Re: Why is the top soccer player getting paid a lot less than NBA, NFL, MLB top playe

I'm not a fan of this analogy. First, in soccer, there's no player union, no countervailing power to the teams. Second, neither the NFL nor the NBA has to develop its young talent. Colleges do that for them for free. Third, revenues in the NFL were socialized over 40 years ago, long before salary caps. Fourth, economin power within US leagues has always been more balanced than economic power within a given Euro league. Fifth, the NFL and NBA function within one market, and until the Raptors and Grizzlies, within one nation. In soccer, the economics of the Portuguese league are different from the economics of the Danish league are different from the economics of Serie A.

Sixth, no NFL team that I'm aware of ever faced bankruptcy, none ever faced being Fiorentina or Borussia Dortmund or Leeds. And while the NBA really did have serious problems, that brings me back to unions. What happened to Leeds? They got relegated. What would have happened to, say, the Pacers if they had gone bust? They'd be gone, and that'd be 12 players union jobs gone. They wouldn't be replaced by West Bromwich Albion. From the owners' perspective, it's like that saying...if you owe the bank a million dollars, the bank owns you. If you owe the bank $100M, you own the bank.

 

Re: Why is the top soccer player getting paid a lot less than NBA, NFL, MLB top playe

Perhaps you can explain to me why you don't consider English soccer to be an example where financial discipline is prevailing. There is no salary cap, yet at present, most teams have salaries pretty well in check (not much above 60% of revenues). Although you make a great point that coaches are on the hotseat and would prefer to spend more, my impression is that the people holding the pursestrings are more inclined towards stability. There are a few notorious exceptions who've crashed and burned, and this may help keep others in line. (There are also a small number clubs -- Chelsea, Wigan, Blackburn, iirc -- who seem to be spending non-revenue money willingly.)

By the way, this comes from my memory of looking at Deloitte and Touche reports. IIRC, they say that German and French clubs have also tended to keep solid finances recently, while Italian clubs have been hurting themselves by over-spending, as have Spanish clubs to a lesser extent. A few years ago, Real Madrid was known for over-spending, but since then they have dramatically re-structured. So there doesn't seem to be a hard-and-fast rule about institutional bidding behavior.

Important properties:
1. Structure of US player movement -- restricted to payment-in-kind, plus a small number of free agents

2. Structure of US revenues -- Relative to European soccer, the distribution of top-tier income is very flat; also, teams don't need to hedge against the risk involved in moving between tiers.

By 1, the supply of available players is kept down; by 2, the demand for available players is propped up. In terms of bidding wars, it's a worst-case scenario.

 

Re: Why is the top soccer player getting paid a lot less than NBA, NFL, MLB top playe

Oh, it is prevailing, by & large. I am not sure however that the discipline would continue with true free agency, where the star players did not arrange to be sold when they were ready for a change, but instead waited until their contracts ran out and then negotiated with the highest bidder.

That said, you point out a couple of good reasons for suggesting that the case in England might be different than in the U.S. So it's possible. My guess is, somebody who had the right background in economics/game theory could model this pretty well and determine which of us is correct. In the absence of such an exercise, I will avoid making strong statements -- but I am not sold on others' strong statements, either.

All that said, English soccer is not an example of unfettered free agency coupled with financial discipline, which is what my question to RichardL was about. Are their such things in England?

 

Re: Why is the top soccer player getting paid a lot less than NBA, NFL, MLB top playe

Ah, gotcha ... although I'm not keen on the expression "unfettered free agency," but that's just me being pedantic. I agree that you could probably build a pretty good economic model for the (short-term) effects of a rule change.

As for other sports in England, do they exist? When I lived there, I only ever cared about one of them.

 

Re: Why is the top soccer player getting paid a lot less than NBA, NFL, MLB top playe

Because no single player in football can be as important as a basketball player or a NFL player.

I’m not sure about baseball but I think that’s similar to other American sports in the possibilities of a single player to influence the game.

I’m talking about next summer, if he still hasn’t signed an extension and doesn’t want to move.

No, not skyrocketing, but increasing.

Not to American level, but still increasing

Ballack and Bayern are setting a precedent. Let’s what the impact of that will be.

 

Re: Why is the top soccer player getting paid a lot less than NBA, NFL, MLB top playe

yep, I'd agree with that totally, and that would also therefore indicate that a lack of transfer fees wouldn't lead to a change to US style salary distribution.

 

Re: Why is the top soccer player getting paid a lot less than NBA, NFL, MLB top playe

Basketball, absolutely. NFL, are you kidding me? NFL teams play 22 players per game. It is the ultimate team sport. Sure, quarterbacks are pretty critical, but the frigging Bears are 9-3 today with maybe the 100th best quarterback in the U.S. so quarterback ain't exactly make or break. And in football (as we're call it here), high-scoring forwards are pretty critical, too.

So I'll give you one out of two.

 

Re: Why is the top soccer player getting paid a lot less than NBA, NFL, MLB top playe

I vaguely remember a piece in The Hidden Game of Football where Palmer and Thorn showed how often the following pattern played out:
1. Star QB injured
2. "It's a calamity!"
3. QB's understudy turns out to be pretty good, too
4. "It's a miracle!"

People have this ingrained idea that because the quarterback is always touching the ball, he must have a disproportionate effect on the outcome. That may be true in college football, but in the pros it isn't.

By contrast, a star forward like Henry may not get that many touches, but I suspect that his presence makes a big impact on Arsenal's success.

 

Re: Why is the top soccer player getting paid a lot less than NBA, NFL, MLB top playe

Increasing is NOT enough. The title of this thread is "getting paid a lot less than NBA, NFL, MLB top players". Simply increasing still isn't going to get elite Euro soccer players' pay scale to NFL/NBA/MLB players' pay level. In other words, if "no transfee fee" simply increase the pay scale, then it's not an explanation on the salary difference. Your school (yourself and PC) have lost the argument...

So how do you know Henry and Arsenal can't set similar precedent?

 

Re: Why is the top soccer player getting paid a lot less than NBA, NFL, MLB top playe

My argument was never the same as pc’s.

I’ve only been saying that players could get higher yearly earnings if they played out their contracts.

I never said that they would reach US levels.

I don’t, but Arsenal fans consider it inconceivable that he won’t either extend or move in the summer.


If he refuses to do either, he’ll probably be considered greedy and selfish. That simply isn’t the case in America, which makes free agency much more common .

 

Re: Why is the top soccer player getting paid a lot less than NBA, NFL, MLB top playe

Have you polled all the Arsenal fans? or how do you know about this?

Again, are there any documented evidence to back this up?

 

Re: Why is the top soccer player getting paid a lot less than NBA, NFL, MLB top playe

I've read the whole thread and it seems we have some real misconceptions about how transfers work.

1) When a club want's to sign a player they must first negotiate a transfer fee with the 'selling club'. If a price is agreed they may then speak to the player/agent about salary package. If no transfer fee is agreed they may not speak to the player.

This means that transfer fees and salaries are utterly seperate and have little or no bearing on each other.

2) In football, one or two superstars does not make a team an overnight sucess. Maradona/Napoli being an exception I suppose but there's no-one around with even half of Maradonas talent.

In US sports where there is a general level of parity then a couple of superstars can and do make all the difference between obscurity and success.

3) Percentages.

The Euro posters have mantioned wage structure many times but US posters don't seem to pay much attention. Very often a big club (or a little one for that matter) will have their top players on the same salary. Say this is $8M. Perhaps 4 players on this level of 100%. They will also have 4 players on 80%. This amount will be written into their contracts. They may also have 8 players on 50%. This will again be written into their contracts. This give us $89.6M. Should this team then wish to sign Thierry Henry on a salary of $12M then thier overall wage bill is going to increase to $146.4M. Remember that ALL the players will be entitled to a wage increase.

Such clauses are becoming less common but many top players will want to know that he will be on a minimum of 80% of whatever the top salary is at his team.

So thats why salary structure is so important.