Some of the newest Designated Players in MLS are going to be getting a nice paycheck for their contribution this half of the fall.
MLS Players Union released a survey of current player salaries, as of August 12. David Beckham still leads the way, with compensation of $6.5 million, while New York Red Bull forward Thierry Henry is second with $5.6 million guaranteed. Henry’s new teammate Rafa Marquez is slated to receive $5.54 million.
Here is what a few other DPs are making:
- Branko Bošković, Midfielder, D.C. United – $516,000
- Nery Castillo, Forward, Chicago – $1.4 million
- Freddie Ljungberg, Midfielder, Chicago – $1.3 million
- Alvaro Fernandez, Midfielder, Seattle – $300,000
- Mista, Forward, Toronto – $987,337
What do you think about some of the new salaries? Who is getting paid too much?
Share your thoughts below.
It’s so nice to see that the general base is 40k. I see a few at 31, but that’s a reasonable living. Many of these guys wouldn’t make much more than that coming out of college, hell I know a lot of graduates that don’t so finally, MLS is actually a reasonable option! It may not be much, but it’s reasonable.
The smaller leagues of Europe, you can pretty much count on 2 or 3 times a decent MLS salary. Guys like Cam Weaver, Joe Lapira, etc love signing those contracts. Granted taxes are higher but the leagues are equivilent in skill with more money. This is what happens when you only have one sport in your country. Even nations of 5 or 10 million people can outbid MLS.
Why does Henry make $5.6 million… and four cents?
RSL living large with and getting great crowds at Rio Tinto Stadium. Morales is better than most DP’s and is only making $200,000!
My question on that is.. the Met’s play in Flushing and the Jets/Giants play outside the burroughs.. so I figure New Yorkers are used to a little travel.. so is that realy the issue?
Dilly Duka making 213k. Goddamn
Agreed.. but Thierry Henry wearing the red bulls on his chest x amount of games is probably worth more advertising than say three super bowl commercials.. or at least it’s debatable.
Either way, Red Bull has invested in US soccer.. so I root for it’s success.
Cameron for 40k is a HUGE steal imo.
I can’t imagine how NY will be able to keep Mac Kandji for less than DP money after he received interest from Spurs and Citeh in England.
Probably a good bet that this guy either gets a substantial salary raise for next season, or gets sold in the winter transfer window.
Care to elaborate? You have a beef with Bosko making $500K? He’s a DP. What did you think he was making?
Personally, I think Bosko is a high quality midfielder…with crap around him (except Najar and Hernandez).
Saborio, Findley, Espindola, and Morales make a combined $542,000 for Real Salt Lake. Hell of a bargain.
Its actually 240K when you look at “total compensation”. The other 100K might be a housing allowance or something like that.
Man, how could I have missed…oh yeah, I said that in my post.
Yeah, I get that, and I’m pretty sure everyone understands that it’s advertising, as I referred to in my post.
I hope it does work, it would be great if other teams could follow suit. But just because a corporation has money to burn doesn’t mean they are going to keep doing it if it doesn’t make sense, and I’m not sure that it’s going to.
What’s a ballpark figure of what players get paid when they sign with Danish, Norwegian, or 2nd division German leagues? I don’t have a perspective on how MLS compares.
Mista & Castillo definitely overpaid. Fernandez is a steal, he’s only 23 and looks like he is gonna make a difference. You already know Becks & Henry are gonna get taken care of, that’s what they would be getting paid if they stayed in Europe, so there’s no real risk coming to MLS, they are getting their money. LA & NY probably have the richest owners, we are owned by AEG & Red Bull for NY, so we can afford to spend the money. The impact of players on attendence and merchandising determines the loss each team will take this season, because soccer isn’t a big enough sport in this country to earn profits yet, still. AEG owns the Home Depot Center and gets profits from all the other events that take place there, as well. At this point, most MLS teams want to break even or lose less than $100 million
Peter Vagenas is insanely overpaid and I think SSFC could get what they are getting from Pat Noonan for much less.
Montero is a steal. Some of these generation adidas players are making some nice moolah. Look at Duka’s salary. Higher than Tchani’s
rookie vs. vet. thats how it works..
Three years from now…
Ream – $1,000,000 in Europe
Garcia – $17,000 coaching high school
Geoff Cameron wow what a bargain.a
you can pay salaries down with allocation money so while their number is over 400k their salary cap figure might be like 300k.
I am betting his salary comes from insurance.
Schelotto is a steal at 140k
Becks is by far the most overpaid. Maybe he was worth it for a year or two. Despite coming back down to Earth over the past month or so, LA dosen’t need him. Even as a means to put butts in seats, his time is either rapidly approaching or IS past.
Not in New York, hell, even the Jets couldn’t afford an in-city stadium and the arena in Brooklyn bankrupt the first developer. New York is hell. But Harrison in in one good soccer neighborhood and a 10 minute walk from another, so it’s not half bad.
Sounds right, because the number is kinda meaningless, insofar as “average salary” will be tremendously skewed by the Big 4 and Man City. What would be interesting would be average salary per team, or by groups of five based on last year’s standings.
Did a lot for us last year, so maybe…
In addition to what everyone else has said, I wanted to add that Red Bull has lots and lots and lots and lots of money.
Beckham’s totally been worth it—at least for the league. And people forget pretty quickly how key he was to last year’s run to the final.
I did think Henry and Marquez would have a bigger impact on RB Arena attendance. Maybe New Yorkers just can’t be bothered to leave the boroughs for soccer on a regular basis? Red Bull might have been one of the few ownership groups that could have afforded to build an in-city stadium. Too bad.
He’s still young. One of those signings where the question isn’t if he’s worth 1.4m right now, but if it’s worth 1.4m to gamble that he gains some semblance of his old form or reaches some of the potential we saw a few years ago. I say it’s worth it, especially given the ginormous Mexican market in the Chi.
He could go to Europe and be on the youth team, but he couldn’t sign a contract. He still had options to leave.
Lower than all US sports. Just saw a list in a Philly article linked from DuNord that had NHL at the low end of average salaries with an average of $2million.
I never say this but…, +11111111111111
Vodka/red bull.
Jagerbombs.
$10 million is chump change to Red Bull.
it’s the number being batted around, and it looks pretty legitimate. there’s a lot of TV and foreign cash flowing into the EPL. Barca and Real Madrid, however, average in the 6m Euro range per player.
still, the EPL is probably fourth in salaries globally, behind the NBA, MLB and La Liga.
I’m speechless. What the %$&! is DC United thinking. It is official. I have lost all faith in the front office of DC United. They have run the organization into the dumpster.
Que the music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn_iz8z2AGw
Only $8, the large ones are $12 at the HDC
Buddle? Bowen?
maybe it’s for tax reasons?
Awesome instead of assume? wow just wow hahaha
huh…so any idea how NE pays those 2 so much yet they aren’t considered DP’s?
Ha
I meant to say…even more people walking around with the logo
Yeah, people seem to not understand their strategy which is pretty innovative. I mean can you put a $ sign on the advertising value of having 25K people yelling we love Red Bull and walking around with the logo on their shirts?
Companies spend piles of gold on advertising
jonk, I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve a good salary, it’s just funny that he can supplement like that. Good for him!
so glad the minimum is 40000, it was tough to defend a league where a college grad made 12000.
To answer your question, no, they eliminated the grandfathering rule with the new CBA. Donovan counts as a DP.
Reason I asked number 1 is because LA has 2 DP (Landon and Beckham) NE has none but 2 players make over the salary limit, Joseph and Twellman….just curious.
You should never awesome because you will make a we out of some.