Let me be frank; I’m not a fan of soccer. I've been hearing that it was going to be the biggest sport in America for 40 years, and in 2015 it is still trailing ice hockey in the national consciousness. Ice hockey! Yes, it is a popular sport for kids to play, but that is a function of the fact it requires less equipment than other team sports (and therefore fits into a school’s budget more easily) and there is probably less chance for injury. There is also the undeniable fact that if your kid sucks at baseball, football or basketball, it is painfully obvious to everyone involved; but if your kid sucks at soccer, nobody notices because, well, the average games ends with a score of 1-0, so if your kid didn't score a goal then neither did anyone else’s kid. Plus he or she probably got some decent mileage in on the pitch.
But now something has happened that increases my appreciation of soccer immensely; its owners are as stupid as baseball team owners! The MLS just signed a new five-year agreement, and the league narrowly escaped a work stoppage over the issue of free agency. Neither side could claim victory, unless you believe that the minimum salary going up to $60,000 is a win for the less-talented players in the league.
Yes, the minimum salary will be increased from $36,500 to $60,000. Per year. The minimum salary for a MLB baseball player is nearly $510,000, which means that baseball players must be almost ten times more talented than soccer players. But that’s the minimum; what about the typical player at the league’s median salary? Baseball players in 2014 made a median salary of $1.1 million, while for MLS players it was around $90,000. Median baseball players make per month what soccer players make per year.
Note—I am using median instead of average because soccer data is highly skewed by a few exorbitantly large contracts for “Designated Players,” six of whom earned 28.5% of total wages paid by MLS teams in 2014. That’s right, in the MLS six players earned more than one-quarter of the total salaries paid. This is not a sustainable business model.
What’s great about this, from my perspective, is that soccer IS growing in popularity in the United States, revenues are increasing, and broadcasting revenue is up sharply. And how much of this money do the owners think the players are entitled to? None! The owner’s stance in negotiating the new contract was that free agency was impossible to give the players, as they all work for MLS and therefore no club should be able to bid against another club for a player’s services. The League determines where a player plays, not the free market. The owner’s caved in to the extent that under the new agreement, about 5% of players will one day become free agents.
The baseball owners fought free agency, and lost. Spectacularly. Hence the multi-million dollar salaries for back-up middle infielders. And baseball had one advantage the MLS doesn't have—it truly is a monopoly. If you don’t play in the MLB, you are not really playing “baseball.” Oh, there are some fine players in japan, and of course Cuba, and the Dominican Republic and the rest of Latin America. But those places are where American players go to tune up, or recover from injury, or pick up some spare change. Kids who grow up dreaming of becoming baseball players dream of the MLB.
American soccer players have a world of options, if they are good enough. How many quality American soccer players will MLS develop if they pay players $90,000 a year while rival US sports pay millions? And when international soccer teams pay hundreds of thousands, if not millions? How long will the MLS last if it doesn't develop high quality players? Will fans pay good money to watch mediocre soccer teams, when good ones are on ESPN’s presentation of the Premiere League?
Maybe fans will pay to watch mediocre soccer. I don’t understand why they pay to watch good soccer, where a ball is kicked in one direction, then the other, until the inevitable 1-1 tie is achieved. Maybe the average American soccer fan has watched so many of their kid’s matches that mediocre adult soccer looks good to them. Maybe in America’s “everyone gets a trophy” mentality, winning one game out of four at the 2014 World Cup can be considered a success. But that isn't what drove the MLB, the NFL, the NBA and the NHL to where they are today, the top four sports on the American totem pole (I probably should include NASCAR as one of the top five American sports organizations, but its “teams” are loose aggregations of individuals).
America’s MLS should avoid the bitter feud that developed between owners and players in American baseball and accept free market principles in their labor agreements. You can’t grow the product without quality players, and quality players won’t participate for a median salary of $90,000. Baseball owners hate free agency, but revenues have skyrocketed since its inception.
I rest easy in the knowledge that soccer will never surpass baseball in popularity as long as MLB pays its players ten times more than MLS pays its players. It is time for MLS to put its money where soccer fans’ collective mouths are.
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