There’s a lot of good news tucked into the seasonal information dump that the MLS Players’ Union bestows upon us. Overall spending is trending steadily upward, with MLS teams spending about 22 percent more on total guaranteed compensation than they did a year ago, writing checks that total more than $115 million to their 555 players.
MLS, players must work to close salary divide
Even though the picture continues to get better for mid-level players, there’s still a massive gap between the haves and have nots of MLS.
MLS salaries released
SB Nation's MLS blogs break down what this information means to their teams. The average salary is up a solid 24 percent, now more than $167,000. There are now 12 millionaires in the league, up three from this time last year. About 18 percent more players are making at least $300,000 and about 11 percent more players are making at least $200,000.
Even the median salary -- which has traditionally lagged well behind other metrics for various reasons -- is now up to almost $92,000. Meanwhile, the number of players making less than $50,000 continues to shrink, down 9 percent from a year ago. Every team in the league is now outspending the $3.1 million salary budget.
These are all things that the MLS Board of Governors will trumpet when discussing the upcoming CBA with the Players’ Union. They’ll ask for the players to simply trust them; that they have the league’s best interests in mind. They’ll say all the trends are moving in the right direction and if the players just sign off on the deal that will surely maintain as much of the status quo as possible -- few changes to the basic salary structure -- that everyone will continue to see their situation improved.
But you don't look very hard at these numbers to see reasons for concern. The biggest is that the biggest gains are being made by virtue of a handful of players being paid a ton of money. In fact, the league's three highest paid players -- Clint Dempsey ($6.7m), Michael Bradley ($6.5m) and Jermain Defoe ($6.2m) -- all make more than the entire salary budgets of 15 of the 19 MLS teams. If you take out their salaries from their teams, only the LA Galaxy and New York Red Bulls are paying their entire rosters more.
Or to look at it another way, the league’s 13 highest-paid players make a combined $46 million. That means that 2 percent of the players account for 40 percent of the league’s total compensation package.
The players are going to want to close this gap and, if we’re being honest, we all know that is a far better way to dramatically increase the overall quality of the league than spending lavishly on a few players.
At the same time, if we’re being honest, we also realize that bringing in a handful of marquee players is a faster way to increase attention on the league, which will make it more attractive to broadcasters and ultimately lead to more money being available for the total salary pot. There’s a natural give-and-take here, and I’m sure the Players’ Union understands this.
Must Reads
The trick is going to be finding a balance.
At the root of this problem, if we can agree to call it that for now, is the Designated Player Rule. It has evolved over the years, at first designed to bring in big-name players like David Beckham and slowly evolving to the point where a far less famous player like Chris Wondolowski could qualify, but has remained the same the same at its root. Teams can spend lavishly on a few players, but can't really change how they build their core. It lets owners have their cake (big name players that drive ratings) and eat it too. Parity is so alive and well that we still don't see a whole lot of correlation between team salary budgets and performance through six years in the DP era.
But maybe it’s time to change, if even just a little.
From where I sit, the problem is not with how much money MLS is willing to spend on salaries -- although they could probably afford to spend a bit more -- but in how they are willing to spread it around.
Here’s what I’m proposing: Rather than have a strict DP system in which teams are allowed to spend a virtually unlimited amount on a few players, what if we moved to a system that allowed teams to spread that money around their roster a bit more evenly?
As it is now, a team essentially pays out of pocket for their DPs’ salaries on every dollar above the $387,500 “maximum.” What I’d like to see is that each team be given a team budget and then allowed to spend out of pocket on every dollar above. In the name of parity, there could even be a luxury tax added on that would then be distributed to the rest of the league.
As an example, let's look at the Seattle Sounders. They are spending about $11.8 million on total salary expense. They are spending roughly $7.7 million out of pocket on their three DPs. Under this new system, they'd be spending $8.7 million out of pocket but be able to spread it around the 30 players on their active roster.
Complete MLS coverage
Visit the MLS page for complete coverage of the league. It doesn’t take much of an imagination to see how this would make for a very different team. They’d surely still have a few players making several million dollars, but they could actually supplement them with a bunch of guys making closer to $500,000. Maybe there would still be players making close to $50,000, but there would be far less reason they would need to be relied upon for meaningful minutes.
I'd also imagine that more teams would be interested in taking advantage of this rule than there are teams currently filling all three DP spots. The Columbus Crew, to use an example of a team with just one DP, are currently spending about $357,000 out of pocket, all of which is going to Federico Higuain. But there's a bit of a disincentive for them to spend much more than that because the potential returns are not particularly high.
The downside to this, at least from a players’ union perspective, is that it would be unlikely to move the league any closer to free agency. The best argument the union has now is that even if free agency were to be allowed, the current salary-budget system already constrains player movement to a high degree. The system I’m proposing essentially does away with a hard salary cap, meaning that teams could theoretically get into bidding wars over players and that’s something the league understandably wants to avoid.
But that’s a price I think the players should be willing to pay. The likelihood of unfettered free agency seems quite remote, but the possibility of convincing owners to simply spread around the money they are already willing to spend seems far more likely. Even better, the chances of this improving the league are actually pretty good. And isn’t that the point?
See More:
