Mls CBA 2015 Thread

This article with an interview with an economist who studies soccer from the Hudson River Blue blog was very interesting. It discusses the CBA but for me the most interesting part was the discussion of how he believes MLS will never compete on the world level for talent absent relegation. In short he thinks the other US major sports leagues get by without relegation because they have no serious competition for talent world wide. Because soccer is different, he thinks the incentive system of relegation will be needed eventually to let MLS push into the top tiers of world soccer.
I'm not sure that's right but it made me think about things in a different way and that's always useful.
EXCLUSIVE: Stefan Szymanski of Soccernomics talks dollars, data, & why MLS isn't "major"
 
mgarbowski said:
This article with an interview with an economist who studies soccer from the Hudson River Blue blog was very interesting. It discusses the CBA but for me the most interesting part was the discussion of how he believes MLS will never compete on the world level for talent absent relegation. In short he thinks the other US major sports leagues get by without relegation because they have no serious competition for talent world wide. Because soccer is different, he thinks the incentive system of relegation will be needed eventually to let MLS push into the top tiers of world soccer.
I'm not sure that's right but it made me think about things in a different way and that's always useful.
EXCLUSIVE: Stefan Szymanski of Soccernomics talks dollars, data, & why MLS isn't "major"
Click to expand...
Economists ate good at explaining why things happened, they are just as bad as the rest of us at predicting what will happen.
 
mgarbowski said:
This article with an interview with an economist who studies soccer from the Hudson River Blue blog was very interesting. It discusses the CBA but for me the most interesting part was the discussion of how he believes MLS will never compete on the world level for talent absent relegation. In short he thinks the other US major sports leagues get by without relegation because they have no serious competition for talent world wide. Because soccer is different, he thinks the incentive system of relegation will be needed eventually to let MLS push into the top tiers of world soccer.
I'm not sure that's right but it made me think about things in a different way and that's always useful.
EXCLUSIVE: Stefan Szymanski of Soccernomics talks dollars, data, & why MLS isn't "major"
Click to expand...

He did a really poor job of proving his opinions. The only concrete reason he gave for why MLS is "minor league soccer" is that we don't spend anything on player salaries. Then he goes on to talk about how small our TV deal is compared to other leagues and how low viewership is. Basically, he's just describing a current minor league, not saying anything about its potential.

Then we have a big CBA fight over free agency and higher wages, and he calls it meaningless. So... we have to spend more on players, but players fighting for more money is meaningless?

His solution seems to be to let billionaire owners buy some teams, spend $50m on player salaries, and take a $40m overall loss because all this focus on profits is holding us back. Ta-da! Competitive soccer! What a stupid opinion.

EDIT: I think he's also right about American's not caring as much about parity as everyone thinks we do, but he's not appreciating the context of a young league trying to build larger fan bases. If my father was a Cleveland Browns fan, and I'm raised a Cleveland Browns fan from age 2, that's one thing. If I tuned in to a Cleveland Browns game for the first time at age 25, see a season or two of suck, I'm probably not watching season 3.
 
mgarbowski said:
This article with an interview with an economist who studies soccer from the Hudson River Blue blog was very interesting. It discusses the CBA but for me the most interesting part was the discussion of how he believes MLS will never compete on the world level for talent absent relegation. In short he thinks the other US major sports leagues get by without relegation because they have no serious competition for talent world wide. Because soccer is different, he thinks the incentive system of relegation will be needed eventually to let MLS push into the top tiers of world soccer.
I'm not sure that's right but it made me think about things in a different way and that's always useful.
EXCLUSIVE: Stefan Szymanski of Soccernomics talks dollars, data, & why MLS isn't "major"
Click to expand...
Yeah For the most part he is wrong about how sports are wrong about how sports are wrong in this country and seems to be least about the way to make a profit and more about "do it the way I know that works you fucking Americans".
 
How in the world does pro/rel have anything to do with economics? Sure it causes competitive nature and that might cause some increase in viewers but I doubt even that. What a stupid stupid argument.

The heart of the matter is can the owners or the players survive a strike. The owners. But maybe free agency isn't as important as having to rewind marketing plan 5 years. Next week is crunch time.
 
MagnusPax said:
How in the world does pro/rel have anything to do with economics? Sure it causes competitive nature and that might cause some increase in viewers but I doubt even that. What a stupid stupid argument.

The heart of the matter is can the owners or the players survive a strike. The owners. But maybe free agency isn't as important as having to rewind marketing plan 5 years. Next week is crunch time.
Click to expand...
The guy has points but for the most is wrong in how to operate a league in North America

https://twitter.com/x/status/570595299179278336
 
My biggest problem is him saying pro/rel would work in the U.S. , that is asinine. Going on a rant about who single-entity is so bad yet the riches leagues in the world have some form of single none have promotion/relegation. Does MLS need to open up? You can look back and see I have said they need to spend more but in the way the other leagues do. To be able to compete with the European (association) football we don't need to be more like the European leagues, we need to be more like the other American sports leagues. Drive parity trough revenue tie the cap AND a floor to that and that way it won't matter if you have free-agency you are controlling the cost while allowing the spending that the league need to expand and grow.
 
franchise646 said:
My biggest problem is him saying pro/rel would work in the U.S. , that is asinine. Going on a rant about who single-entity is so bad yet the riches leagues in the world have some form of single none have promotion/relegation. Does MLS need to open up? You can look back and see I have said they need to spend more but in the way the other leagues do. To be able to compete with the European (association) football we don't need to be more like the European leagues, we need to be more like the other American sports leagues. Drive parity trough revenue tie the cap AND a floor to that and that way it won't matter if you have free-agency you are controlling the cost while allowing the spending that the league need to expand and grow.
Click to expand...
Oh yeah, I agree about that article, I thought you were disagreeing with the Twellman piece.
 
Yeah, looking at all the big announcements, there's no way the owners will let this season be jeopardized....

Players will probably get their wish is my guess.
 
franchise646 said:
Oh nah Twellman is on point.

Edit: well there is this

https://twitter.com/x/status/570615323591901186
Click to expand...
Thats not true. 80% of the owners are other sports owners, are billionaires. Very few owners will lose their shirt if MLS completely tanked. So with that in mind, the players are the ones that would have to play in NASL, abroad or just go get a real job. So I think that thinking is wrong.

The only hope we have is that the owners like what their doing and are willing to bend so they can keep their toy-hobby business going.
 
MagnusPax said:
Thats not true. 80% of the owners are other sports owners, are billionaires. Very few owners will lose their shirt if MLS completely tanked. So with that in mind, the players are the ones that would have to play in NASL, abroad or just go get a real job. So I think that thinking is wrong.

The only hope we have is that the owners like what their doing and are willing to bend so they can keep their toy-hobby business going.
Click to expand...
THE MLS owners that will lose there shirts are the RSL union and Crew owners who are millionaires
 
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