Thought experiment time.
What if the $6mm salary was really a new franchise gift to the fans? What is the decision making logic that goes into the next DP salary? AKA who says we have to be one of the top spenders in the league?
The first thing we need to examine is what CFG's goals are for their soccer teams.
Goal number 1: Make money after everything is said and done.
Goal number 2: Completely irrelevant. (Goal two is actually to win titles)
Looking at this logically, from a CFG perspective, at what point does marginal star power exceed marginal player utility?
I'd argue that marginal star power vs player utility is maximized at around the two "star" DP mark. If you look at MLS publications and r/MLS people are very careful to not say all three NYCFC DP's in the same post/article. Having that third legendary player does nothing else to get your team into the discussion, it does however cost a rather large amount of money compared to the on field product.
So what happens if we don't care about the name of our last DP, but only care about his soccer playing ability?
For the sake of ease I'm going to say you only need to double the salary of a player to lure him to MLS.
Well if we don't care about the name and only care about a players marginal contributions to the team's ability to win games, we can happily exclude the premier league. They overpay for talent like money is going out of style. The happy medium in this scenario is probably a Bundesliga player who can speak some moderate English already.
This player will by necessity be around 26-27 years of age and likely would be starting at a lower table Bundesliga club. He's reached the height of his ability and will probably not improve enough to make any real moves. This is your top flight journeyman. Lets assume that he's bang on average for that league, makes around $1.5mm euros a year and isn't really important enough to merit any real sponsorship's.
Lets also assume that this player is smart enough to realize that his salary isn't really going to get much larger, and for someone like him life after soccer probably will not involve coaching, or soccer in any real meaningful financial sense. This player is literally, dime a dozen.
But if he comes to MLS, hes automatically going to be one of the best players in the league. Giovinco after all was just an above average Serie A player, with occasional delusions of international soccer. We're not aiming that high.
So we bring our average replacement in and offer him $3.2mm just about enough to double his current salary. He gets to be the star he always dreamed of being, and probably can get some better sponsorship's in the US. Meanwhile hes the class of the pitch and has a real chance of life after soccer in the US being financially meaningfully tied to the business of soccer.
Better part of this deal from the CFG perspective, your not offering it to some special snowflake, your offering it to the most average guy around. And your making it known that who specifically signs the deal isn't that important from a CFG perspective, as long as they meet certain traits. This gives CFG increased bargaining power.
While I'd like to get another $6mm player, I'd really like it a lot, being realistic our revenues are not covering costs. And you only really need two famous players around at one time anyway, your not getting the full benefit of your money from three in terms of drawing people to the team. Paying someone much less known, in the prime of their career, about half of what we pay our DP's now, could have a really significant impact on the team's ability to win.
That said, can we please have another $6mm player NYCFC people who are reading this?
Also I believe that CFG actually hit on something that was totally overlooked in US soccer, entirely by accident. If you want Mexican fans you don't buy Mexican players, you buy SPANISH players. I noticed how many Mexican fans we have, and I mean Mexican not just people south of the border, and I can't help but think that its David Villa drawing them here. If you go to Mexico the high level soccer they watch isn't Liga MX, its La Liga.
We accidentally figured out what has vexed MLS for 20 years, how to get Mexican-Americans to watch MLS. Sign famous people from La Liga. This is why I have absolute faith that Iniesta or someone who's played at Barca is coming here, because it has the potential to make NYCFC the favored team for the large Mexican population in the US.
Back to my main point for the close, its entirely likely that CFG make a very rational choice, concerning the third DP spot, and we get a much cheaper player. Who's paradoxically going to improve the on field product more than an expensive player. Though a Giovinco type player would be nice, its probably not going to happen.
NickA can you see this happening ?
NYCFC_Dan could you and other's on this Jury I mean forum take 2 Italians ??
LionNYC , President of the Mix hat trick association?
