By TRAVIS CLARK
With the MLS Collective Bargaining Agreement expiring Jan. 31, 2010, big changes could emerge in MLS. There's a lot of possibilities as to what 2010 could hold for MLS, and recent reports indicate the players union is after a drastic overhaul.
Reports are swirling about the proposal tabled by the MLS players union last month in their meetings with league officials. According to the Sports Business Journal, free agency and guaranteed contracts were brought up, two significant developments.
While the current CBA is seen as heavily favoring the owners — the league is a single-entity, with all contracts owned by the league — now is the time for players to speak up and try to gain some more player's rights.
Few contracts in MLS are guaranteed under the current CBA, though some carry a semi-guaranteed status after a deadline that is fixed under the contract.
Free agency would help drive player salaries up as teams compete and bid amongst each other for signings — something that would surely have to be accompanied by a significant rise in the salary cap.
While nothing was reported about the salary cap during this latest round of negotations, it is almost certain to be another point of discussion. Raising the salary cap would become a necessity if free agency was to become a reality.
Getting both guaranteed contracts and free agency seems like a bit of a longshot — the owners will likely do what they can to ensure the league remain a single entity system. The obvious outcome of failing to reach a deal would be a strike or a lockout, attracting the wrong kind of publicity to the league and the sport in this country. That doesn't seem likely, as there is plenty of time between now and then to negotiate.
Whatever happens, it will be worth keeping an eye on until the Jan. 31 deadline and beyond.
To view a copy of the current CBA, click here to visit the MLS Players Union website.
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What do you think the players will get out of a new CBA? Is there a chance that the players strike or the owners instill a lockout?
Share your thoughts below.
Sorry for the double, but I did remember that I TOTALLY agree that the discovery rule needs to be looked at and likely thrown out.
Also, the rule about teams not being able to sign academy prospects without fear of losing them is ludicrous. It should work the way MLB’s farm system works. The developmental guys are the team’s property but if the teams keeps using them on the first team they have to be kept up or exposed. In addition if you are in the academy for 4-5 years you should be allowed to be exposed to other teams the same way it is in MLB. It keeps it fair to both sides as the club doesn’t have to fear it’s going to lose top prospects just because they signed two others and the players wouldn’t have to worry about being kept in the dev academy until they died just because the teams isn’t totally sure they’d want to keep you up on the senior team.
@Posted by: Patricksp | August 03, 2009 at 01:39 PM
Enough with the ‘Dev players can’t live!’ stuff. The majority of Dev players make $20K/year (BEFORE bonuses and off the field money) which about 2.5 times poverty level. There isn’t a place in the country you can’t live on $20K a year. Sure you won’t be eating caviar and washing it down with champagne but you can live.
When I first moved to LA about 8 years ago I was living on $16K a year and living in a very nice neighborhood. (Studio City) and never was in real danger of being out on the street due to good budgeting. If I made $20K + bonuses and had my meals paid for like Dev players do when they are at practice and on the road I could live a comfortable life.
I’m not saying increasing their salary should be off the table but it really is the least of the worries since most dev players are gone in a year and if they are in the league for more than 2 years they automatically get bumped up to a full senior spot.
Free agency is a much bigger concern as a person should have the right to have competition for their services. This isn’t a socialist country (yet).
I don’t see guaranteed contracts being an issue either. They should put the baseball and NFL model into place there. Contracts only get guaranteed after a certain percentage of the season is up and that protects the club from signing a lemon and protects a player who has contributed from being cut for no good reason other than to save a little money. It is only fair as a contract is supposed to be binding. I mean a player can’t leave if he doesn’t like the team while on contract without a deal being made so the owners should have some responsibility to live up to their obligations as well.
The fact is that quality soccer is hot in the US. The problem is that the current MLS system doesn’t lend itself to quality soccer. Rosters do need to be increased and the salary cap and minimum wages as well.
In most leagues the salary cap is set as a percentage of the overall league revenue. I am not sure if that is how it works in MLS but it needs to. In the NBA the players get 55% of all revenue from TV, Ticket Sales and other proceeds. That is how the cap is set every year. That is why the NBA salary cap took a huge dive this year. I guarentee that if the MLS salary cap was based on the players getting something like 55% of the revenues, then it would be much higher than it is now.
The DPs do work. Guys like Beckham, Blanco and others draw big crowds at home and away but the overall quality of the league needs to continue. Guys like Thierry Henry, Ronaldinho, Van Nistelrooy and others have expressed interest in playing in MLS. But the overall quality of players around these DPs needs to improve. You have to keep the best young talent. You have to reward clubs for developing talent in the youth system.
There are a lot of American soccer fans willing to spend money but they want a good product. It is possible but you have to spend money to get it. I agree that you have to spend money smartly, but you do have to spend it.
There is a completely untrue myth that free agency=team poverty. This is in no way true, but is a typical myth spread by owners who enjoy their power over the careers of their employees. Baseball, with its screwed up system, is always held out as the example here, but the analogy is deeply flawed.
Equalize the revenue stream for the clubs and mandate a percentage that each club HAS to spend on player contracts (salary floor) and you can have free agency that will benefit the league and the players. Players are uniquely talented individual contractors and deserve the power over their very brief playing careers bound in a voluntary partnership contract with a club. Club owners should rightly be suspicious about sharing revenue with other clubs, but if you mandate a salary floor you can keep club owners from using the shared revenue for yachts, trips and non-team expenses. (And believe me, this happens.)
This will only improve the product on the field, introduce just compensation for players that is proportionate to the league’s economy of scale and provide a foundation for growth in the future.
The players are right to demand free agency, and the owners are self-servingly short-sighted in the extreme to oppose it.
– Raise the cap by a million dollars, two million dollars in a perfect world. That would allow teams quite a bit more talent.
– No discovery rights. If a player wants to join the MLS he should be able to join whatever team wants he wants.
– No roster size limit (but there has to be a minimum), if you can fit 2 more guys in than the next team under the cap, then so be it?
– Academy needs to be looked at. Teams should be able to sign any players they want from their academy.