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MLS trailblazing a new way to run a football league

By on February 12, 2015

It seems ill-fated to make a movie about football in which the executives are the heroes. FIFA tried it in their movie United Passions, but somehow created an odd mix of propaganda and a story that nobody really wanted to see, given the overshadowing allegations of corruption in the governing body. Michael Smith’s book-turned-movie Moneyball comes to mind as a lone success in this area – albeit focused on a different sport. Then MLS steps in. One can imagine a scintillating film with commissioner Don Garber huddled in a war room with other owners taking their us-against-the-world mentality to fruition.

MLS, after all, is almost as exciting and innovative off the pitch as on it. At least, many decisions in the league appear to stem from a business-first standpoint — completely sensibly we add, but unlike many European leagues. Sure, promotion and relegation may benefit the level of play in Major League Soccer, but represents a step that would put many owners’ investments in jeopardy. It may be more interesting for the MLS to eradicate its salary cap and attract even more star players, yet that business model — made infamous by the NASL’s failure — has been proven problematic. With the uphill task of creating a new league to compete with European powerhouses, the MLS faced a new problem with a new approach: prioritizing sustainability and the business aspect of football.

At times, this approach makes the league a worse environment for the players. Thick into the current CBA negotiations between the Players Union and the league, a main issue for the players is free agency. An issue they are reportedly willing to strike over, but at the moment MLS is unwilling to budge in the slightest. Why? Free agency puts the players’ priorities over that of the league, and in a system where the league desperately needs to start turning a profit in order to remain functioning, the MLS prioritizes everything that will help them do so. This is Moneyball 2.0.

It wouldn’t be a bad film; they indeed are doing something like Billy Beane’s Oakland A’s were doing in Moneyball, only instead of renovating the way a team is run, inventing a new way to run a league: a distinctly American way.

Nowhere else in football is the term “franchise” met without a raucous round of “boos”. MK Dons proved the waters to be far too sacred for business to meddle with the beautiful game across the pond. Yet in England football doesn’t need to grow any further — television rights deals are currently exploding through the roof. Only in the MLS can a team be moved from San Jose to Houston halfway across the country, a trait borrowed from the National Football League and Major League Baseball.

Yet maybe, just maybe, this way could also prove to result in higher quality on the pitch. Billy Beane did it in Moneyball — winning even on a low wage budget. The MLS seems to be taking a similar approach by taking big steps to renovate their youth system and highly valuing young Americans in the league. In some cases, cultivated youth talent can even bypass the salary cap. Recently implementing their first Under-14 Academies nationwide, if the model implemented by US Men’s National Team manager Jurgen Klinsmann works, then the US and MLS will soon be fielding world-class players on lower wages than those across the pond. Last season, one of Seattle Sounders’ best players, breakout youngster DeAndre Yedlin, was making just $92,000-a-year per the MLS Players Union, and is now almost certainly making at least ten times that figure for Tottenham Hotspur (studies have found that the average wage in England is more than $2,000,000).

Of course, MLS continue will grow. And as that growth takes place, players’ salaries will grow and the league can afford a to give little more flexibility to its players. By the time MLS becomes one of the best leagues in the world, which Garber aims to be by 2022, the salary cap will have to be slowly raised until it is eventually non-binding. Once the CBA negotiations are no longer as meaningful and entertaining, then can one expect to sit back and relax to the tune of world-class football.

Homepage photo credit: Bilfish on Wikipedia Commons

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.