WTF are you talking about?????? The single entity structure is the only way this league could have survived until now and this won't be changing. Do you think that if MLS and their teams were run independently and were able to spend what they want on players without a salary cap and without any type of restrictions that teams like Columbus or FC Dallas, or any other small market could have survived?????? NO WAY, it would have been NASL all over again, folding while a couple of clubs brought in all of the talent.
The single entity structure works beautifully for the NFL, and they are doing just fine, and have been doing even better since Roger Goodell came in, and that is from a league that has no competition whatsoever from anywhere all over the world. I swear people just do not understand how HARD it is to run and operate and grow a soccer league in this continent, holy shit. SMH....The single entity structure is not the problem with MLS, it is some of the player acquisition rules, that players such as Herc Gomez, and many others have complained about.
These rules will be changing as we continue to grow but to say that we should appreciate the Cosmos blah blah blah, are you kidding me? Appreciate them, why? because they play in a glorified beer league and have MLS rejects and former MLS scrubs on their roster, and current MLS players that are not wanted by their current MLS team so they loan them out. The Cosmos like to act like big dogs in the soccer scene here in NYC but in reality their league, and their team, is irrelevent until they join MLS.
And by the way to say that the Cosmos said NO to MLS is a huge lie. Here is a comment from EOS from a poster named Ullrich over a year ago about the Cosmos saying no to MLS, and now you have Eric Stover their COO saying we never wanted to join MLS, because with MLS' structure you can't compete on the global football scale, please spare me the BS.
Ulrich 06/15/2015 at 11:32 pm I’m still trying to figure out how the hell the Cosmos were in a position to turn down MLS? MLS has always had a business plan to be run as a single entity structure, and the Cosmos wanted to be part of MLS just with the caveat to not be bound by the salary cap and to be run independently. Essentially it was like vinegar and water – neither would be able to mix. And the Cosmos also didn’t want to have to pay the new “buy-in” fee that was approaching $70M+ when the previous club came in at about $40M. How do I know that? I had many a conversation with the former Cosmos Chief Marketing Officer and we discussed the attempt by their power structure to become the 20th MLS franchise. It was ALWAYS the team’s goal to be in MLS – that’s why the Marketing/Advertizing agency Anomaly was brought in: to sell the team’s potential to the league; Anomaly actually had an ownership stake in the team, which made their efforts all the more important for success. Now to most of you this is just hearsay, and that’s fine because I freely admit my conversations took place over drinks and not in a formal meeting room, so believe me or don’t, but unless you were in the MLS/Cosmos meetings and/or have the minutes from them, just stop with the fictitious notion that the Cosmos turned their back on MLS. Granted, there was no question MLS was interested in the Cosmos because of the name & the ties to NYC in the 70’s/80’s, but they were not ever going to change the league’s structure to accommodate a single potential team owner when there were many more ownership groups eager to join up; evidently, one that was willing to pay $100M. So back to the Cosmos and their supposed negotiations from a position of power (to evidently ultimately spurn MLS according to revisionists)…. The NASL reboot was in 2009. If the Cosmos actively wanted to be part of the NASL, they would have done so immediately instead of being an unaffiliated club attempting to negotiate their way into MLS from 2010-2012 when they ultimately joined the NASL. Even when they announced the buyout from Kemsley to Sela in Nov 2011, they included a snippet in the press release that MLS was their ultimate goal. Granted, the Cosmos website has removed the said new release (because it legitimizes their attempt to join MLS) but the following link (from the next day) has the release in italics:
http://www.sportspromedia.com/news/new_york_comos_announce_management_buyout So somehow the Borough Boys all believe the Cosmos closed the door on MLS when in reality the club was focused on MLS & announced: “It is unequivocally the goal of the current ownership to become an MLS team in the most expedient manner possible, and decisions for the club will be made with this in mind.” Of course, after Joe Fragga said this he was soon fired and the revisionist history of the club’s goals began. Why else would the club & its fans be so excited settling for the NASL when MLS had always been the goal?
