We should at least travel to "local" clubs in a NYCFC bus.
Article on Galaxy Flying Commercial
- Thread starter Gotham Gator
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At minimum, the league should allow (and pay for) flights to all playoff games. It's ridiculous that teams have to sandbag their charters for the playoffs.
Fair enough, but it also goes on to say that if you spread those costs across the league, MLS (which pays for the flights) would see its travel budget grow by $20 million. Of course, they are about to get several hundred million in expansion fees, so it's hard to imagine they couldn't try and make it work.
Fair enough, I haven't actually done the math. Let's see. Under my scenario, they'd be covering 4 games in 3 weeks. Assume the team stays over 2 nights for each game. That's an extra 13 nights times 15 rooms at, say, $200/room, which equals an extra $39,000. You'd be taking one round trip charter instead of 4 round trip commercial flights, and the article said commercial flights are about 1/4 of the charter price, so that's a wash. There would also be costs to do shorter trips (say, Vancouver -> Seattle -> Portland -> Denver), which would add a bit, along with costs to secure training facilities. So yes, it would be more expensive, but perhaps not a lot more expensive. Certainly cheaper than converting to all charter flights.
Forget expansion fees... The AVERAGE team value is at 185 million. This is a single entity so that average team value times twenty is what the league is valued at... 3.7 billion dollars. Of course this is over simplifying things but you get the point. Put the bread up and raise the profile of the league while also improving the care of your athletes.
Well, value is one thing, but actually having the cash in your pocket is another. Still, they are getting $200 million this season and $200 million next season in expansion fees, which is enough to cover transport for a few years with plenty left over.
Oregonian: Travel in Major League Soccer poses unique set of challenges for players (5/27/16):
When asked about something that they would change if they were MLS Commissioner for a day, five percent of MLS players told ESPN that the No. 1 thing they would change is the rules around charter flights.
When asked about something that they would change if they were MLS Commissioner for a day, five percent of MLS players told ESPN that the No. 1 thing they would change is the rules around charter flights.
But when the MLS Players Union and the league renegotiated the CBA last year, Timbers defender Nat Borchers said that there were too many other important issues, including increased salaries and free agency, to make adding charter flights a priority.
"We looked at that issue, that factor of charter flights and as much as we wanted to push for charter flights, I don't think ownership was on board with that cost," Borchers said. "I don't think it was high on the priority list."
I think if we ask ourselves what would improve the on field product more, either chartered flights or a million extra in salary cap per team it's something of a no brainer.
If we're being honest, the big TV deal the league just signed is only bringing in like $90mm a year. While the league may be called major league, it's clearly not. The NFL's minimum salary is $450k per year, that's virtually the maximum salary charge under the current rules.
Having the league spend $20mm on travel is just too high of a percentage of our cash flow. Especially when you consider how much better you can make the teams by just jacking up the salary cap. It's kind of low priority in comparison to the other ways MLS can use the money.
I can see the league going for this in another 5 or 6 years if the league can negotiate a TV deal in the $190mm+ range.
If we're being honest, the big TV deal the league just signed is only bringing in like $90mm a year. While the league may be called major league, it's clearly not. The NFL's minimum salary is $450k per year, that's virtually the maximum salary charge under the current rules.
Having the league spend $20mm on travel is just too high of a percentage of our cash flow. Especially when you consider how much better you can make the teams by just jacking up the salary cap. It's kind of low priority in comparison to the other ways MLS can use the money.
I can see the league going for this in another 5 or 6 years if the league can negotiate a TV deal in the $190mm+ range.
Donovan went from most beloved US player ever after his Algeria goal to totally whiny bitch. After not working shit out with Klinsmann to play in last WC to his dumb retirement and ensuing even dumber unretirement, he needs to STFU about perks in MLS.
Tough to hear a guy complain when he's around for 6 games (not even 90 minutes in each) and making TAM money for them..... I don't care how many injuries LA has, signing Donovan is burning through their resources at a crazy clip, all for the end of this season - why not save it for next year when the $400K+ could be better served across 34 games with a true TAM roster spot???
Jersey sales are probably making it irrelevant.
Also two things.
#1 Its the galaxy, rules have changed to suit their needs.
#2 The rumor mill is that players were supposed to negotiate a rather larger increase in salary cap this round of negotiations. But they went for free agency, limited though it may be. I'll bet you that we're going to see another pretty large chunk of Garberbux come down the pipeline on a regular basis until the next round of CBA negotiations, and the Galaxy ownership knows this and will spend accordingly.
No question being the Galaxy changes the calculus, but spending over $70k per fame for LD to be on the team, not 100% fit, is a real reach, and yet LA seems to be the only one that "knew" G$ are going to be handed out because nobody else made an aquisition as loaded as this.
But to stay on topic, LD should keep his mouth shut and focus on playing and not being a pundit.
Couldn't disagree more. Poor form from you and Tom.
MLSPU is also complicit with this. If the leauge spends more money, they want it on player salaries. We will have to see what happens next CBA.
It's a ratio thing. Officially the salary cap is $3.5mm this year, multiply by 20 teams and you have a total budget of $70mm league wide. Though TAM and GAM theoretically change this, they really don't since it's not guaranteed money. We accept TAM and GAM as a fact of life but they don't have to be a part of the league system.
Don't forget that as part of the CBA the league, not teams, pay for travel.
Now let's look at this from an owners perspective, aka the only perspective that really matters.
You're adding $20mm in guaranteed yearly league expenses, which is ok since you're trying to grow a business.
You're increasing the annual guaranteed expenditure on every single team by around 30%, call it 25% or 20% if you want to factor in hidden costs and be conservative, to make travel easier on the players? That's a much harder sell.
Let's ask ourselves what else we could do with that money, here's a novel idea, make the salary cap $4.5mm a year.
What is more likely to make you the owners of MLS more money, a 30% boost in league wide salary caps or paying so all your players can fly private all the time.
Private travel simply does not make economic sense at this point in the league's life. The marginal benefit you accrue from increased player salary is still vastly greater than the marginal benefit you accrue from making travel easier.
This is why I don't think it's going to happen until we see the results of the next league TV deal. If that TV deal isn't comfortably double or more than the current deal, private travel for players won't happen until the deal after that.
From a ratio perspective I can't even reasonably begin to justify it until travel is less then 10% of the salary cap, can anyone reasonably justify a higher ratio without resorting to including the inherently unreliable garberbux system?
No, but do you publicly criticize your employer on issues that your union didn't prioritize during negotiations of your CBA?
I don't have a union, but I have my own employee contract that I agreed to. If there's something I don't like, I either talk to my employer now and hope for a common ground to be agreed to, wait for my annual review to discuss/renegotiate, or I look for another job (if the item is big enough to warrant a move). I don't go on social media (my equivalent of going to the press since I'm not a celebrity) to openly complain about it.
But back to the topic at hand: I'm all for better transportation options for team. I think it would help the product on the field. I just don't think the players have a place to complain until the next CBA comes around. Arena can complain, and all coaches should, because they're neutral parties in the discussion.
I don't mean to call you out specifically, because this phrase is used so much all over the place by so many people. But who the hell came up with this phrase?
Of course I want to have my cake AND eat it. The only reason I want to have cake is so I can eat it.
Pedant response: the idiom is based on two mutually exclusive things, having your cake (i.e. without eating it; keeping it) vs eating your cake.
But if you're still annoyed you should file your complaint in triplicate with the 16th century Duke of Norfolk
But if you're still annoyed you should file your complaint in triplicate with the 16th century Duke of Norfolk