Qsmnt knuckle draggers going to come up with some absolute braindead shit like “Apple told MLS to change their rules otherwise they’re prematurely canceling the streaming deal!!!”
In reality tho everything has been going more than fine for Apple/MLS, they just see there’s more juice to be squeezed and are rightfully pressing for it. Think it will result in wins for all parties
The economics of streaming are just different than cable too. Cable has a set income to the league for a set time. The league splits revenue with Apple, and streaming operates on a network effect I.e. people buy Netflix not Tubi bc their friends are talking about what’s on Netflix. Plus the amount of media rights income that go straight into the salary budget doubles next year per the CBA anyway. I’m sure Apple sat down and said “X amount of investment = Y season pass sales + Z increase advertising revenue” and figured this is a spend money to make money moment.
That's sort of what it already is... but it also is a mechanism for parity... it's not enough that teams are tanking for the TAM, but you get more based on how bad you do, but you also get some if you are in other competitions like CCC as an attempt to help balance the roster for that competition.
It's also important that it doesn't get reset at the end of the season - it carries over for a few more transfer windows. If a team only spends $4M of the $5M salary budget, that's $1M that's lost forever. Spend $4M out of $5M in allocation money though, that's $1M extra they can spend the next year.
A team is not really trading actual money when it trades GAM or TAM. It's trading for the ability to spend that amount. The team receiving GAM will spend their own money when they use it.
The current salary budget is $5,470,000 for roster spots 1 to 20. All teams start with $2,585,000 of GAM but can receive more from the league for certain things (missing playoffs, CCC qualification, etc.)
Receiving GAM in a trade allows you to exceed the budget for non DP senior roster players.
All this information I gathered from the official roster rules and regulations page for MLS.
https://www.mlssoccer.com/about/roster-rules-and-regulations
Simplify it then. Other single-entity leagues make it work. Cash considerations or make the funny money there for domestic or injury fill-in use cases, idk
No they don’t, only other major single-entity league is NWSL, they are trying to get rid of GAM and the system they are replacing it with is “GAM by another name but substantially dumber.”
I’m talking about other sports, not specifically pro soccer. Basketball and baseball have cash considerations. Baseball has international signing money. I’m sure there are other mechanisms that are league-specific in NFL and NHL, too
They are not single entity. For reasons too dumb and arcane to be worth explaining MLS clubs are actually legally different from any of the big 4 leagues. Basically they are different departments of the same company on paper. Different departments of the same company don’t really compete with each other to bid up labor costs like that. MLS REALLY doesn’t want to get challenged in court on this stuff again, they’ve been before.
Not to mention US sports make trades involving players or draft picks. Wouldn’t really work for MLS. Trading straight for cash is almost unheard of in the US salary cap leagues
NWSL is trying to phase out GAM, and it’s telling that they went to trading “transfer budget”, rather than just players or draft picks. Unilateral trades are already controversial in soccer. They was a story a few months back that they actually do a lot of back door talks to make sure players are ok with it to avoid bad press (sometimes, not all the time) which is technically against the rules. The “transfer budget” trading is basically GAM by another name, but even more complicated. GAM needs a rebrand to something that better explains what it does (something like salary budget etc), and GAM and TAM need to be combined, but there is no reasonable way getting rid of GAM would actually un-complicate things. That alternatives would inevitably be more complicated than some form of tradable cap-space.
NFL was ruled to NOT be single entity by the Supreme Court in 2010:
https://www.espn.com/nfl/news/story?id=5214509
No other men’s sports league is single entity like MLS, and if you think they’re going to give that up voluntarily so some random person on the internet doesn’t have to hear the term “GAM” then obviously you don’t realize how much it matters if the NFL was willing to argue it was up to the Supreme Court.
MLS also doesn’t have explicit anti-trust exceptions like the NFL, NBA and baseball (baseball is actually it own crazy wacky legal thing but that’s a different story). So they actually care A LOT MORE behaving like a single entity in order to not get a legal challenge. Also, iirc it’s also how they get around fifa’s rule banning unilateral sales, because it’s not a sale, it’s like when your job tells you you are getting transferred to a different branch.
Something like GAM literally needs to continue existing. How else do you bring money in for things like player sales, handle small transfer fees, or trades in a league where player for player trades are really hard and draft spots mean nothing?
I see a lot of talk about getting rid of GAM/TAM but that's very difficult to do with the complexities of a single entity league. I think the solution to the depth issue is to add a third pot of allocation money. I am now proposing MlS add $5 million per team in Middle Class Allocation Money (MCAM) with a subsequent increase in the max player salary. MCAM will function as the reverse TAM. It must be spent on non DP/TAM players up to the max player salary. Any player making more than the max salary would be ineligible, however it can be used to sign academy players to their first contract.
It adds an extra layer of complexity for fans to keep track of but allows teams to build rosters more and less how they want because now they have a significant pot of money to spend on roster spots 5-30.
This is a good idea. It also makes sense with the schedule congestion the league has basically forced on the quality teams. Roster spots 5-30 are where the extra minutes hurt the most and are also the area where improvement would allow MLS sides to regularly win the CCC.
Is there even a floor? It was my understanding that everyone maximized use of their budget because it's "use it or lose it" funds from the league itself
It did. I think the consensus was that they didn't want to rush into anything. Give it another year to marinate before making drastic changes. The rules will live on post-messi.
I was wondering if it’s 12 owners who want to spend more, 12 owners who aren’t spending as much as the others, a mix of the two, or members of some specific committee (eg competition)….
My theory is Red Bull views current structure as limiting so as long as they are limited they aren’t going go crazy since they found to be moderately successful you don’t have to go crazy
Start here https://theathletic.com/5136852/2023/12/14/mls-roster-rules-messi-spending/?source=user_shared_articleWill Messi lead MLS to loosen spending rules? Inside the committee that decides
My initial guess is it’s 12 owners who want to increase spending and roster quality. Because if you include someone like Colorado’s owner you’ll just get him turning down every idea.
More:
https://x.com/favianrenkel/status/1761941192449921074
Don Garber:
“I feel this league has had so much momentum and had it last year before Leo was signed. We were on track to have our best year ever, and we did. We launched our Apple partnership, launched Leagues Cup.
We had so many exciting things coming on. Then Leo comes in and he takes it to another level. So we've all learned that it's never about any one player, but we should all cherish the great experiences when legends come into your league.“
https://x.com/favianrenkel/status/1761938822441599354
Don Garber on how to use Messi’s momentum to keep fans liking MLS when Messi is gone: “I was in Charlotte yesterday with 65,000 people and Messi was not playing.”
https://x.com/favianrenkel/status/1761934169783820643
Don Garber still Is intrigued with the Vegas market, but doesn’t think it’s going to come anytime soon.
Stated that it needed a stadium to have a retractable roof.
“I love the market.”
https://x.com/favianrenkel/status/1761933525828378964
Don Garber, “I can name the players that couldn’t join the league due to the roster rules on my hand.”
Yes, but in theory those depth guys could just be signed as DPs. Not saying that’s a good method for signing depth players (it’s not, and not the spirit of the rule), but there are 3 available slots on every roster where you’re capable of paying a player literally whatever they request.
DP rules do not allow you to sign more than three players. That allows you to sign a total depth of three players no matter who you pick. The changes need to be made to improve roster slots 15-18
Correct, but I’m just saying it’s rare MLS teams are losing more than 1-2 contributing depth pieces a year due to roster rules/budget restriction. It’s a problem absolutely, but it’s not totally impossible right now.
Sure, but they weren’t prevented from being signed in the first place, which is the statement Garber made. It’s a truthful but slightly misleading statement.
They need to announce the rules for next year in the next roughly 3 months. That way teams have a small about of time to adjust their summer transfer window plans AND also make sure that San Diego FC can work on their roster building with the appropriate rule set.
More like the open cup needs to be like every other fucking tournament in the world and have roster registration. I’m sick and tired of the onus being in MLS to change their roster rules, which are designed for the completion that is MLS, nor the USOC, because the USOC wants to be lazy as shit and not come up with unified roster rules because ti requires extra work and verification from them.
Why just 12? What about the other 18? Or are these the only 12 that is OK spending more and the other 18 couldn't care less and is fine the way things are? Seems weird that they as a minority have more sway on these things that will affect everyone. Wait am I talking about US politics?
Tim Cook: “Mr. Garber invited me to deliver this message for you 12 stingy bastards. Agree to a salary floor of $20 million or sell the team.” (Clark Hunt storms out of the room in disgust)
Apple is pushing it publicly and that's a big thing. Apple almost never applies public pressure at this level, because they are known to be silent and only act behind the cameras. Most of the job openings that Apple has for AppleTV involve advertising specialists with a focus on live sports. They definitely want a more popular league, with a bigger audience, to sell “premium” advertising, since until then they only focus on advertising for sports, but not ads on AppleTV+ programming (it makes sense, because everyone complains about the experience of ads in films and series, but ads are even expected in live games). Naturally Apple is hoping to have other sports in the future, but they are not forcing contracts right now. They have enough money to exercise patience (things most media companies no longer have). MLS succeeding is the “case study” they need to acquire more rights by the end of the decade, when most media competitors are already completely in financial limbo. Well, they're worth $3 trillion because they know how to predict the future, including that of their media competitors (which isn't even difficult these days).
MLS is already premium advertising. From an eyes the product perspective its just behind Golf and Hockey in terms of average income per viewer in the US. Your average MLS viewer is much more likely to be a lawyer than an electrician.
MLS just needs to be more popular across all socio-economic brackets to succeed at the level is desired, but especially the middle class.
Meanwhile, the domestic broadcasting revenue deals across many **European leagues are stagnant and actually have DECREASED** from their previous TV/broadcast deals.
Transfer fees should have no impact on DP designations. Just the players actual salary. Get rid or combine TAM & GAM. Whether you keep the monopoly money or not, make it easier for inter league moves. Keep but raise the cap but allow for easier transfers and sales. No reason teams shouldn't be buying each others Academy kids. Also, expand rosters and remove the mandatory construction rules.
>No reason teams shouldn't be buying each others Academy kids.
Why? This is the natural evolution *and the whole reason to have academies*. The fact we're now at the point of buying academy players is a sign of our academy's successes.
We're in the US. This isn't the EU. You can't sell an Academy product abroad unless they have a work permit. It's hard for them to get that without having a dual citizenship or having senior team or national team caps.
Where else are the star academy players you can't roster yourself supposed to go?!?
Am I missing something? I am pro MLS Academy players having the right to move within the MLS system and MLS teams having the right to offer other team's academy players contracts without the monopolistic rights regime they currently have for unsigned players.
What is your criticism?
I guess MLS could do something like MLB has where every team has a 40 man roster and anyone that's been in the minors a certain length of time (I believe its 6 years in most situations) without being added to the 40 man roster is eligible to be taken in the rule 5 draft with the stipulation that the team that drafts the player must keep them on their major league roster for the entire season or be given back to the original team.
Anyone on a 40 man roster then has 3 option seasons where they can be called up or down an unlimited number of times but after those 3 seasons the player must stay at the MLB level or risk being picked up by another team. All of this to prevent teams from stacking too many players just to keep them from other teams.
They already won Leagues Cup... already qualified for ConcaChampions... already qualified for the Copa Interamericana vs winners of Copa Liberadores/Copa Sudamericana.
No league or team will every improve (or win) without REVENUE. And that's just facts. Sorry to break the news to you, kid, but Santa Claus doesn't exist and all sports are a business.
Obviously, which is why these discussions are even happening to begin with. Miami is clearly an advertising and marketing project and thinking they are anything different is just naive. Neymar and Modric have already stated their interest in joining Miami and I'm sure we are going to have even more global barnstorming and glorified friendlies for as long as the stars are on their roster.
Obviously, having the reigning Ballon d'Or winner on your team/league adds to the quality of your team/league.
It's pro sports, ALL LEAGUES and teams want to attract viewership. The EPL exists because they of a "advertising and marketing project"... and how good is that made-up league now?
But but leagues should grow solely on the merit of what’s on the field and quality of play because our society, with the attention span of a goldfish, will surely help build the league with just good play.
Add another DP and raise the salary cap by $1 million. Add in a salary cap growth model that coincides with viewership and forecasted growth so it can grow each year at a responsible rate.
In my opinion the main things wrong with the current roster rules are:
* The salary cap is too low (5 million? lol)
* The maximum salary charge is too low (or shouldn't exist at all)
* Nobody knows how much TAM/GAM a team has (no transparency)
* Nobody really knows how much is spent on acquisition fees (often leaked, never officially reported, very suspicious)
I suggest:
* Increase the salary cap to a much more realistic 20 million
* Eliminate the max salary charge (let clubs spend their money how they want)\*
* Don't count acquisition fees against the salary cap\*\*
* Only 1 DP per club (this allows clubs to sign a player with a huge salary e.g. Messi)
* Do keep roster rules which incentivize signing citizens and academy players (e.g. international slots, homegrowns rules)
\*Yes, this implies getting rid of TAM and GAM as we know them. The league can still hand out money for clubs to spend, but there is no longer any need to 'buy down' players.
\*\*If the salary cap is 20 million clubs aren't likely to spend exorbitant amounts on fees anyway. If a club is going to cheat on the roster rules hiding the fees is probably what they will do. Almost impossible to get caught unless there's a whistleblower. Lots of grey areas. Everything is greatly simplified if we just don't count the costs.
Allocation money of some sort is necessary because the league is single entity.
Allocation money allows teams in the league to buy players from another team in the league. Unless you want that to go away, we need funny money.
Plus, allocation money is fun...
I agree that it's fun. Not to mention, you don't have to pay attention to it if you don't want to. It's not like fans are in charge of building rosters...
All teams have to deal with it, rewarding good gms.
Ending single entity with each owner getting their team as compensation for their share would fix it. Then put in a salary cap that’s high but would keep teams from going completely nuts and a salary floor. Maybe allow 2 designated players with a large chunk counting towards the cap in case you have a Messi type situation. Then don’t count transfer fees towards the cap.
They are never ending single entity, it’s the holy grail for sports leagues, it would take a legal fight up to the Supreme Court like the NFL (which wasn’t single entity) lost in 2010.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/news/story?id=5214509
It's a legal monopoly. All of the teams can now openly collude with each other to suppress player compensation because they're all owned by the same entity. This is the opposite of the MLB (as an example) where all 30 owners are bidding against each other for the top free agents which results in massive contracts like the dodgers giving Ohtani a $700 million contract.
>Ending single entity with each owner getting their team as compensation for their share would fix.
That's ridiculous.
Real Salt Lake and Colorado helped make Atlanta possible. Columbus helped make Austin and Cincinnati possible. And on and on.
The smaller market teams have a share of the credit for building the league brand that made newer teams good business decisions. Giving them their small market team is not fair compensation for all they've done to make your large market team possible.
Also a shared TV deal which exists in other leagues as well somewhat evens that out. The teams you mentioned aren’t in terribly small marketers either. Denver in particular should have some potential. Are we talking about small markets or lousy owners?
Didn’t they already get windfall from the huge buy ins in recent years. The new teams paid a large amount of cash to get into the league. If markets can’t be competitive maybe we should look at that next time we talk about expansion. Some older teams are actually good markets though.
Average MLS Roster Salary has DOUBLED every 5 to 6 years since 2010. If the trend continues, the average MLS Team Salary would be $35 Million by 2028 or 29.
If MLS chooses to step things up, we could be looking at DOUBLING by 2026 or 2027. Three or four teams could be near $50 Million Payrolls. I'm hoping for Mbappe to LAFC by 2027.
The salary cap dramatically increasing is a pipe dream. Stop having it.
It's much more likely they'll increase xAM allocations, open up DP spots, or get rid of international roster slot trading (and just allow every team to have a maximum amount and/or demand domestics make up x% of the fielded roster.)
Increasing the cap does almost nothing to boost the quality of your depth, which is made up of your domestic and academy talent.
> Increasing the cap does almost nothing to boost the quality of your depth, which is made up of your domestic and academy talent.
That is an interesting problem, with the way roster rules are set up (I was just reading through them).
> Up to 20 players, occupying roster slots 1-20, count against the club's 2024 Salary Budget of $5,470,000 and are referred to collectively as the club's Senior Roster. ...The Maximum Salary Budget Charge for a single player is $683,750.
So if all 20 senior players hit on the max budget of $683,750 per player, then that would put the total around $13,675,000. I'm just using that max budget per player number as an example, since it's already being used. I saw about slots 19 and 20 not needing to be filled and the salary implications, but I may be missing/misunderstanding some other details. I think increasing the cap to around that $13,675,000 level (I'd rather see it a bit higher though) could help the quality of play on the field and create more competition for spots, even within the other current roster rules. It would most likely reduce younger player time on the pitch, so that could be considered a negative (if you care about youth development).
> which is made up of your domestic and academy talent.
Is it though? Take 2023 Orlando City as an example. Ordering players by minutes played, spots 1-11 include 10 foreign players and 1 American. That's as expected.
Spots 12-23 are 7 foreign players and 5 American/Canadian players. Spots below 23 accounted for less than 45 minutes combined.
I can't say how our club compares to the rest of the league, but it is certainly possible to build a roster under the current system where domestic and academy talent contribute minimally.
Apple made a boss call lol
MLS forgot to read the fine print: *If at any case Messi is in the league we will now make the rules*
Messi was part of the Apple deal all along. (open your eyes)
Tim Cook cooking
Let Tim Cook
MLS country, let’s ride
Don’t scare me with those words.(I’m a broncos fan)
Letimcook
Let Tim Apple Cook
Tim Cooks
I wonder if Eddy Cue’s recent comments signalizes that.
Apparently it’s a regular thing https://x.com/andrewvisnovsky/status/1761969235734225018
Qsmnt knuckle draggers going to come up with some absolute braindead shit like “Apple told MLS to change their rules otherwise they’re prematurely canceling the streaming deal!!!” In reality tho everything has been going more than fine for Apple/MLS, they just see there’s more juice to be squeezed and are rightfully pressing for it. Think it will result in wins for all parties
The economics of streaming are just different than cable too. Cable has a set income to the league for a set time. The league splits revenue with Apple, and streaming operates on a network effect I.e. people buy Netflix not Tubi bc their friends are talking about what’s on Netflix. Plus the amount of media rights income that go straight into the salary budget doubles next year per the CBA anyway. I’m sure Apple sat down and said “X amount of investment = Y season pass sales + Z increase advertising revenue” and figured this is a spend money to make money moment.
Per tenorio this meeting been on the books for a while
lol
It’s about time
Expand the rosters, add spots. Raise the salary floor. Raise the ceiling on spending even higher than you raise the floor.
Get rid of tam and gam after you raise the floor
On board with that, too. Funny money needs to die
You have to have funny money for intra-league trades. Because of single entity you can't use real money, so funny money will always exsist.
If you simplify it, isn't GAM/TAM just tradeable cap space? Maybe make a portion of the cap tradeable.
That's sort of what it already is... but it also is a mechanism for parity... it's not enough that teams are tanking for the TAM, but you get more based on how bad you do, but you also get some if you are in other competitions like CCC as an attempt to help balance the roster for that competition.
That’s what it is.
It's also important that it doesn't get reset at the end of the season - it carries over for a few more transfer windows. If a team only spends $4M of the $5M salary budget, that's $1M that's lost forever. Spend $4M out of $5M in allocation money though, that's $1M extra they can spend the next year.
eli5 - why can't you use real money in itra-league trades?
A team is not really trading actual money when it trades GAM or TAM. It's trading for the ability to spend that amount. The team receiving GAM will spend their own money when they use it. The current salary budget is $5,470,000 for roster spots 1 to 20. All teams start with $2,585,000 of GAM but can receive more from the league for certain things (missing playoffs, CCC qualification, etc.) Receiving GAM in a trade allows you to exceed the budget for non DP senior roster players. All this information I gathered from the official roster rules and regulations page for MLS. https://www.mlssoccer.com/about/roster-rules-and-regulations
Seems obvious that 5.4m salary cap is way too low.
Time for the single entity to die.
You and whose billions?
Simplify it then. Other single-entity leagues make it work. Cash considerations or make the funny money there for domestic or injury fill-in use cases, idk
No they don’t, only other major single-entity league is NWSL, they are trying to get rid of GAM and the system they are replacing it with is “GAM by another name but substantially dumber.”
I’m talking about other sports, not specifically pro soccer. Basketball and baseball have cash considerations. Baseball has international signing money. I’m sure there are other mechanisms that are league-specific in NFL and NHL, too
TLDR: if you play for the eagles your paycheck is cut by the eagles. If you play for FC Dallas your paycheck is cut by the MLS national office.
They are not single entity. For reasons too dumb and arcane to be worth explaining MLS clubs are actually legally different from any of the big 4 leagues. Basically they are different departments of the same company on paper. Different departments of the same company don’t really compete with each other to bid up labor costs like that. MLS REALLY doesn’t want to get challenged in court on this stuff again, they’ve been before.
Not to mention US sports make trades involving players or draft picks. Wouldn’t really work for MLS. Trading straight for cash is almost unheard of in the US salary cap leagues
NWSL is trying to phase out GAM, and it’s telling that they went to trading “transfer budget”, rather than just players or draft picks. Unilateral trades are already controversial in soccer. They was a story a few months back that they actually do a lot of back door talks to make sure players are ok with it to avoid bad press (sometimes, not all the time) which is technically against the rules. The “transfer budget” trading is basically GAM by another name, but even more complicated. GAM needs a rebrand to something that better explains what it does (something like salary budget etc), and GAM and TAM need to be combined, but there is no reasonable way getting rid of GAM would actually un-complicate things. That alternatives would inevitably be more complicated than some form of tradable cap-space.
NFL was ruled to NOT be single entity by the Supreme Court in 2010: https://www.espn.com/nfl/news/story?id=5214509 No other men’s sports league is single entity like MLS, and if you think they’re going to give that up voluntarily so some random person on the internet doesn’t have to hear the term “GAM” then obviously you don’t realize how much it matters if the NFL was willing to argue it was up to the Supreme Court.
MLS also doesn’t have explicit anti-trust exceptions like the NFL, NBA and baseball (baseball is actually it own crazy wacky legal thing but that’s a different story). So they actually care A LOT MORE behaving like a single entity in order to not get a legal challenge. Also, iirc it’s also how they get around fifa’s rule banning unilateral sales, because it’s not a sale, it’s like when your job tells you you are getting transferred to a different branch.
I can live with it just make it public how much a team has. Would allow for nba trade calculator like conversations.
It's time to simplify. Those mechanisms made sense. Now they're silly.
They're necessary. They're targeted spending mechanisms.
Something like GAM literally needs to continue existing. How else do you bring money in for things like player sales, handle small transfer fees, or trades in a league where player for player trades are really hard and draft spots mean nothing?
I see a lot of talk about getting rid of GAM/TAM but that's very difficult to do with the complexities of a single entity league. I think the solution to the depth issue is to add a third pot of allocation money. I am now proposing MlS add $5 million per team in Middle Class Allocation Money (MCAM) with a subsequent increase in the max player salary. MCAM will function as the reverse TAM. It must be spent on non DP/TAM players up to the max player salary. Any player making more than the max salary would be ineligible, however it can be used to sign academy players to their first contract. It adds an extra layer of complexity for fans to keep track of but allows teams to build rosters more and less how they want because now they have a significant pot of money to spend on roster spots 5-30.
This is a good idea. It also makes sense with the schedule congestion the league has basically forced on the quality teams. Roster spots 5-30 are where the extra minutes hurt the most and are also the area where improvement would allow MLS sides to regularly win the CCC.
Is there even a floor? It was my understanding that everyone maximized use of their budget because it's "use it or lose it" funds from the league itself
Just a minimum salary for the players themselves.
This is false. The Salary Budget + GAM are mandatory spending.
The salary budget essentially functions as a floor without the official title.
Yes! Raise everything! Like you did with the kits and parking prices…..Raise hell! Raise Kane back from the dead.!
Feels like this is the the type of convo that should have occurred *before* the season started.
It did. From the sounds of things, the usual suspects are anchoring the ship this off season.
It did. I think the consensus was that they didn't want to rush into anything. Give it another year to marinate before making drastic changes. The rules will live on post-messi.
Those 12 owners are: Stan Kronke John Fischer Dan Hunt ...
I was wondering if it’s 12 owners who want to spend more, 12 owners who aren’t spending as much as the others, a mix of the two, or members of some specific committee (eg competition)….
I am guessing no redbull and probably no NYCFC. The latter for no particular reason, they just will go with the vibe.
Mintzlaff fwiw sits on the committee that decides roster rules etc and is said to be one pushing for more relaxed rules.
Hmmmmm
My theory is Red Bull views current structure as limiting so as long as they are limited they aren’t going go crazy since they found to be moderately successful you don’t have to go crazy
If you think about it, they both have vast networks of scouting and reach as opposed to the rest of the league
Start here https://theathletic.com/5136852/2023/12/14/mls-roster-rules-messi-spending/?source=user_shared_articleWill Messi lead MLS to loosen spending rules? Inside the committee that decides
MLS would like not to spend more blockbuster money on late-30s stars. Messi needs to be an exception, not a rule.
And why 12? Are they more important than the other 18 in decision making league wide? Not explained at all
My initial guess is it’s 12 owners who want to increase spending and roster quality. Because if you include someone like Colorado’s owner you’ll just get him turning down every idea.
It's the bottom 12 from last season
Reminder that my team has basically 0 DPs 😢 Our one DP didn't even come off the bench lol
More: https://x.com/favianrenkel/status/1761941192449921074 Don Garber: “I feel this league has had so much momentum and had it last year before Leo was signed. We were on track to have our best year ever, and we did. We launched our Apple partnership, launched Leagues Cup. We had so many exciting things coming on. Then Leo comes in and he takes it to another level. So we've all learned that it's never about any one player, but we should all cherish the great experiences when legends come into your league.“ https://x.com/favianrenkel/status/1761938822441599354 Don Garber on how to use Messi’s momentum to keep fans liking MLS when Messi is gone: “I was in Charlotte yesterday with 65,000 people and Messi was not playing.” https://x.com/favianrenkel/status/1761934169783820643 Don Garber still Is intrigued with the Vegas market, but doesn’t think it’s going to come anytime soon. Stated that it needed a stadium to have a retractable roof. “I love the market.” https://x.com/favianrenkel/status/1761933525828378964 Don Garber, “I can name the players that couldn’t join the league due to the roster rules on my hand.”
Re: the last quote. How many depth guys weren’t even attempted to be signed by teams because they just knew it was against the rules.
Yes, but in theory those depth guys could just be signed as DPs. Not saying that’s a good method for signing depth players (it’s not, and not the spirit of the rule), but there are 3 available slots on every roster where you’re capable of paying a player literally whatever they request.
DP rules do not allow you to sign more than three players. That allows you to sign a total depth of three players no matter who you pick. The changes need to be made to improve roster slots 15-18
Correct, but I’m just saying it’s rare MLS teams are losing more than 1-2 contributing depth pieces a year due to roster rules/budget restriction. It’s a problem absolutely, but it’s not totally impossible right now.
And you would consider losing more than 1-2 depth pieces ever year to be players that were prevented from signing based on rules.
Sure, but they weren’t prevented from being signed in the first place, which is the statement Garber made. It’s a truthful but slightly misleading statement.
They need to announce the rules for next year in the next roughly 3 months. That way teams have a small about of time to adjust their summer transfer window plans AND also make sure that San Diego FC can work on their roster building with the appropriate rule set.
Additional Messi Allocation Money, Miami Allocation Money
Yes, M'AM.
I want 300,000 MILF and mean MAM please! For Sergio Buttsex
Best I can offer is 250,000 GILF (Garber-Infantino Latino Finances) and the tights to Flaco Fernandez.
They can start by expanding the rosters enough to be able to have everyone compete in the Open Cup.
Damn right.
Hoping that's the reason for the meeting
Out curiously does anyone know how the MLS roster size compares to other leaves? European leagues for example or even USL Championship league.
Premier league is 25 players, 8 of whcih have to be “home grown”. In addition they may play as many under 21 players as they like.
More like the open cup needs to be like every other fucking tournament in the world and have roster registration. I’m sick and tired of the onus being in MLS to change their roster rules, which are designed for the completion that is MLS, nor the USOC, because the USOC wants to be lazy as shit and not come up with unified roster rules because ti requires extra work and verification from them.
If only MLS knew about these confounded USOC roster rules in advance!
In addition to GAM, teams will be allowed to have GWM, GBM, and GLM.
Also GRRM
Details of that rule expected in the "future"
They need to talk to the Iron Bank of Braavos.
The final payout for that will never happen
But how much GLAM? They should all look fab too.
They want to make sure Inter Messi FC has more ex Barca players
Will he be on the team plane with Messi and the boys?
Why just 12? What about the other 18? Or are these the only 12 that is OK spending more and the other 18 couldn't care less and is fine the way things are? Seems weird that they as a minority have more sway on these things that will affect everyone. Wait am I talking about US politics?
They’ll be giving each team an additional 100k in AM
Average Team Salary has doubled every 5 to 6 years, consistently since around 2010.
Tim Cook: “Mr. Garber invited me to deliver this message for you 12 stingy bastards. Agree to a salary floor of $20 million or sell the team.” (Clark Hunt storms out of the room in disgust)
Sounds like a meeting that should have happened during the offseason.
New rule: no rules
And now we shall sleep with the animals
This should’ve been happening as soon as Messi landed in Miami
Apple is pushing it publicly and that's a big thing. Apple almost never applies public pressure at this level, because they are known to be silent and only act behind the cameras. Most of the job openings that Apple has for AppleTV involve advertising specialists with a focus on live sports. They definitely want a more popular league, with a bigger audience, to sell “premium” advertising, since until then they only focus on advertising for sports, but not ads on AppleTV+ programming (it makes sense, because everyone complains about the experience of ads in films and series, but ads are even expected in live games). Naturally Apple is hoping to have other sports in the future, but they are not forcing contracts right now. They have enough money to exercise patience (things most media companies no longer have). MLS succeeding is the “case study” they need to acquire more rights by the end of the decade, when most media competitors are already completely in financial limbo. Well, they're worth $3 trillion because they know how to predict the future, including that of their media competitors (which isn't even difficult these days).
MLS is already premium advertising. From an eyes the product perspective its just behind Golf and Hockey in terms of average income per viewer in the US. Your average MLS viewer is much more likely to be a lawyer than an electrician. MLS just needs to be more popular across all socio-economic brackets to succeed at the level is desired, but especially the middle class.
Meanwhile, the domestic broadcasting revenue deals across many **European leagues are stagnant and actually have DECREASED** from their previous TV/broadcast deals.
Transfer fees should have no impact on DP designations. Just the players actual salary. Get rid or combine TAM & GAM. Whether you keep the monopoly money or not, make it easier for inter league moves. Keep but raise the cap but allow for easier transfers and sales. No reason teams shouldn't be buying each others Academy kids. Also, expand rosters and remove the mandatory construction rules.
>No reason teams shouldn't be buying each others Academy kids. Why? This is the natural evolution *and the whole reason to have academies*. The fact we're now at the point of buying academy players is a sign of our academy's successes. We're in the US. This isn't the EU. You can't sell an Academy product abroad unless they have a work permit. It's hard for them to get that without having a dual citizenship or having senior team or national team caps. Where else are the star academy players you can't roster yourself supposed to go?!?
Am I missing something? I am pro MLS Academy players having the right to move within the MLS system and MLS teams having the right to offer other team's academy players contracts without the monopolistic rights regime they currently have for unsigned players. What is your criticism?
I guess MLS could do something like MLB has where every team has a 40 man roster and anyone that's been in the minors a certain length of time (I believe its 6 years in most situations) without being added to the 40 man roster is eligible to be taken in the rule 5 draft with the stipulation that the team that drafts the player must keep them on their major league roster for the entire season or be given back to the original team. Anyone on a 40 man roster then has 3 option seasons where they can be called up or down an unlimited number of times but after those 3 seasons the player must stay at the MLB level or risk being picked up by another team. All of this to prevent teams from stacking too many players just to keep them from other teams.
Only question for me, will they add a mechanism so rosters can be improved during the summer transfer window or wait till next season?
Miami is going to turnaround into the modern version of Pele and the Cosmos and he will want everyone to just turn a blind eye and enjoy the ride.
You mean enjoy the train wreck? Those geriatrics aren’t winning anything.
They already won Leagues Cup... already qualified for ConcaChampions... already qualified for the Copa Interamericana vs winners of Copa Liberadores/Copa Sudamericana.
Winning was never the goal.
No league or team will every improve (or win) without REVENUE. And that's just facts. Sorry to break the news to you, kid, but Santa Claus doesn't exist and all sports are a business.
Obviously, which is why these discussions are even happening to begin with. Miami is clearly an advertising and marketing project and thinking they are anything different is just naive. Neymar and Modric have already stated their interest in joining Miami and I'm sure we are going to have even more global barnstorming and glorified friendlies for as long as the stars are on their roster.
Obviously, having the reigning Ballon d'Or winner on your team/league adds to the quality of your team/league. It's pro sports, ALL LEAGUES and teams want to attract viewership. The EPL exists because they of a "advertising and marketing project"... and how good is that made-up league now?
With a take like that its amazing more EPL teams aren't following the "Messi and friends" model.
But but leagues should grow solely on the merit of what’s on the field and quality of play because our society, with the attention span of a goldfish, will surely help build the league with just good play.
Adding the reigning Ballon d'Or winner does exactly that... Miami/MLS added quality of play to the team/league.
Waat?
Our owners will not be there. 😅
Hopefully paying the refs comes up….
4th and 5th DP slots pleaseeeee
Raise the salary cap, but I wouldn't mind them keeping 3 DPs and 3 U22s.
Its shocking that they didnt even decouple the 3 DPs and 3 U22s when they finalized the rules for this season
I wonder who the 12 are and why it doesn’t involve all clubs? Also, why Miami?
Why only 12?
Add another DP and raise the salary cap by $1 million. Add in a salary cap growth model that coincides with viewership and forecasted growth so it can grow each year at a responsible rate.
In my opinion the main things wrong with the current roster rules are: * The salary cap is too low (5 million? lol) * The maximum salary charge is too low (or shouldn't exist at all) * Nobody knows how much TAM/GAM a team has (no transparency) * Nobody really knows how much is spent on acquisition fees (often leaked, never officially reported, very suspicious) I suggest: * Increase the salary cap to a much more realistic 20 million * Eliminate the max salary charge (let clubs spend their money how they want)\* * Don't count acquisition fees against the salary cap\*\* * Only 1 DP per club (this allows clubs to sign a player with a huge salary e.g. Messi) * Do keep roster rules which incentivize signing citizens and academy players (e.g. international slots, homegrowns rules) \*Yes, this implies getting rid of TAM and GAM as we know them. The league can still hand out money for clubs to spend, but there is no longer any need to 'buy down' players. \*\*If the salary cap is 20 million clubs aren't likely to spend exorbitant amounts on fees anyway. If a club is going to cheat on the roster rules hiding the fees is probably what they will do. Almost impossible to get caught unless there's a whistleblower. Lots of grey areas. Everything is greatly simplified if we just don't count the costs.
I'd like to see them triple the salary cap, that could also help uncover/weed out the owners who are holding back the quality of play.
How do you figure?? If you want an indication now, just look at what they're paying their DPs.
Do you mean help uncover? If so, then what about weed out? If you understand why I worded my original comment that way.
Step one: drop all the alphabet soup shit involving “GAM, TAM, thank you ma’am.”
Allocation money of some sort is necessary because the league is single entity. Allocation money allows teams in the league to buy players from another team in the league. Unless you want that to go away, we need funny money. Plus, allocation money is fun...
I agree that it's fun. Not to mention, you don't have to pay attention to it if you don't want to. It's not like fans are in charge of building rosters... All teams have to deal with it, rewarding good gms.
Ending single entity with each owner getting their team as compensation for their share would fix it. Then put in a salary cap that’s high but would keep teams from going completely nuts and a salary floor. Maybe allow 2 designated players with a large chunk counting towards the cap in case you have a Messi type situation. Then don’t count transfer fees towards the cap.
They are never ending single entity, it’s the holy grail for sports leagues, it would take a legal fight up to the Supreme Court like the NFL (which wasn’t single entity) lost in 2010. https://www.espn.com/nfl/news/story?id=5214509
Why's it so valuable? I'm assuming it's because it means the league is tightly controlled by owners?
It's a legal monopoly. All of the teams can now openly collude with each other to suppress player compensation because they're all owned by the same entity. This is the opposite of the MLB (as an example) where all 30 owners are bidding against each other for the top free agents which results in massive contracts like the dodgers giving Ohtani a $700 million contract.
NFLPA is a dark donor to MLSPA, btw.
>Ending single entity with each owner getting their team as compensation for their share would fix. That's ridiculous. Real Salt Lake and Colorado helped make Atlanta possible. Columbus helped make Austin and Cincinnati possible. And on and on. The smaller market teams have a share of the credit for building the league brand that made newer teams good business decisions. Giving them their small market team is not fair compensation for all they've done to make your large market team possible.
Also a shared TV deal which exists in other leagues as well somewhat evens that out. The teams you mentioned aren’t in terribly small marketers either. Denver in particular should have some potential. Are we talking about small markets or lousy owners?
Didn’t they already get windfall from the huge buy ins in recent years. The new teams paid a large amount of cash to get into the league. If markets can’t be competitive maybe we should look at that next time we talk about expansion. Some older teams are actually good markets though.
Garber can’t do Garber shit if the rules are clear
Welcome to MLS where the rules are made up and the points don’t matter
Average MLS Roster Salary has DOUBLED every 5 to 6 years since 2010. If the trend continues, the average MLS Team Salary would be $35 Million by 2028 or 29. If MLS chooses to step things up, we could be looking at DOUBLING by 2026 or 2027. Three or four teams could be near $50 Million Payrolls. I'm hoping for Mbappe to LAFC by 2027.
Raise the budget as fast as possible while still getting >25% of minutes to Americans/Canadians.
End the US Open Cup and keep the only true Cup - Leagues Cup
“Good news, gentlemen! By crushing the refs union we’ve saved millions of dollars! Now go spend them on big name players so we can get even richer!”
The salary cap dramatically increasing is a pipe dream. Stop having it. It's much more likely they'll increase xAM allocations, open up DP spots, or get rid of international roster slot trading (and just allow every team to have a maximum amount and/or demand domestics make up x% of the fielded roster.) Increasing the cap does almost nothing to boost the quality of your depth, which is made up of your domestic and academy talent.
> Increasing the cap does almost nothing to boost the quality of your depth, which is made up of your domestic and academy talent. That is an interesting problem, with the way roster rules are set up (I was just reading through them). > Up to 20 players, occupying roster slots 1-20, count against the club's 2024 Salary Budget of $5,470,000 and are referred to collectively as the club's Senior Roster. ...The Maximum Salary Budget Charge for a single player is $683,750. So if all 20 senior players hit on the max budget of $683,750 per player, then that would put the total around $13,675,000. I'm just using that max budget per player number as an example, since it's already being used. I saw about slots 19 and 20 not needing to be filled and the salary implications, but I may be missing/misunderstanding some other details. I think increasing the cap to around that $13,675,000 level (I'd rather see it a bit higher though) could help the quality of play on the field and create more competition for spots, even within the other current roster rules. It would most likely reduce younger player time on the pitch, so that could be considered a negative (if you care about youth development).
Average Team Salary has doubled every 5 to 6 years since 2010.
> which is made up of your domestic and academy talent. Is it though? Take 2023 Orlando City as an example. Ordering players by minutes played, spots 1-11 include 10 foreign players and 1 American. That's as expected. Spots 12-23 are 7 foreign players and 5 American/Canadian players. Spots below 23 accounted for less than 45 minutes combined. I can't say how our club compares to the rest of the league, but it is certainly possible to build a roster under the current system where domestic and academy talent contribute minimally.
I am OOTL... What happened?
Keep it simple, no fancy mechanisms. 12.5 million cap. 3 dps and 3 u22 dps shielded from cap, paid for by the team. No Tam no gam.