The 2010 Major League Soccer season will begin on time after the league and its players union agreed to a new Collective Bargaining Agreement on Saturday. The sides agreed to a new five-year deal.
MLS commissioner Don Garber and MLS players union executive Bob Foose announced the deal in a conference call on Saturday.
Guaranteed contracts (details to come on how many), improved freedom of movement by players out of contract (not quite free agency) and "greatly improved compensation" for players.
The league will create a new Re-Entry Draft, where players out of contract will be able to be selected by new teams after the season. A very interesting development. Details on that should be interesting.
You can now start to party and get ready for the 2010 season.
Thank you!!!!!!!!
YAY! thank GOD!
In case anyone is interested, the conference call is being streamed on MLS.net. Garber is speaking now.
Nice. Just waiting on the details.
Great news! I was getting pretty worried
Glad to see the players got what they wanted and would not let the league push them around. This deal will really help the league grow and bring in better players I think. Thank You MLS, and lets hope the league keeps getting better and better.
Sweeeeeet!
The details SHOULD include the freedom to venture overseas for a decent transfer fee (Donovan)!
Great!
A strike was the last thing this league needed.
Feels like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders for some reason, probably because the possibility of a strike had me wanting this season even more, extremely excited to say the least.
DC UNITED!! clap clap clap clap clap clap DC UNITED!!!
sweet!
the league would not have survived a strike and many players would not have found professional work – good outcome for both sides
REV-O-LU-TION clap clap clap clap clap
Hooray! This should be a great year for MLS
THIS IS BEAUTIFUL.
Great news. Good to see the players and league make concessions to avoid a work stoppage. With this being a World Cup year, and the league footprint expanding, soccer could be poised to make some more gains in the American(and Canadian) sports conscience. Looking forward to what I hope will be an amazing year.
Looking forward to my first of many visits to Red Bull Arena tonight to get things started.
Ives, are you walking the red carpet at Red Bull Arena tonight? Cracked me up that there is a need for a Red Carpet…
Love to hear the final details…. but WHEW!
Some details im hearing on the news confrence on mls.net
1. increase pay
2. free agency (although it is unclear how free at this point) looks like it will be some form of limited Free Agency. Garber used the word “movement” on contracts expired and terminated contracts
someone please correct me if i am wrong. im getting feedback on my line.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SO PLANS TO GO TO RED BULL ARENA ARE BACK ON!!!…The MLS board is smart after all…So excited now…Thanks for breaking the great news Ives
More on the “Free Agency”
it looks like a special Draft will be held for the players out of contract? again anyone feel free to correct me
Great news!
Hopefully the league will stay on solid footing while still being able to keep some of its good talents and continue to develop good domestic players.
the free agency has a re entry draft atthe end of each season
my stream is not working on media player. what can i do?
any word on the salary cap figure?
so the players caved on free agency
I’m normally cynical about everything but this agreement is truly incredibly great news. Soccer lives.
Salary cap is not determined directly by the CBA. I’m sure it will be determined in the coming weeks.
True free agency is simply not possible in a league that doesn’t make money.
how long is the conference suppose to be?
How much did the Cap go up
Has freedom to transfer abroad been discussed? (Donovan)
Great stuff! Very happy to hear this got resolved and that things are heading in the right direction for the players.
Now it’s time for Dom Kinnear to again show why he’s the best coach in MLS.
I argue that bruce Arena is the best
Fantastic. Funny how nobody is fighting in this thread. One day of unity at least. I lift up my glass and toast you one and all, plus both the players and owners!
Not true at all. The NBA will lose 400 milion this year but they have free agency. Now if you would have said its not possible in Single Entity i would probably agree with you. The only thing i was suggesting was that the players said they would strike if they didn’t get free agency. They didn’t get free agency and they didn’t strike.
NICE!
Thank you Jesus!
wow only seattle and toronto made profits last year
Thank the gods. Good job, players; good job, MLS. I am glad they did not get into a pissing contest that would have killed the season.
Oh, btw, you can see me on Thursday night – I will be the one in the Rave Green.
Hallelujah!
Can someone who listened to the press conference please fill us in on the details??
After months of ripping everyone involve, I just say ‘THANK YOU!’ on behalf of myself and everyone else who loves this sport in North America to anyone involved in getting this done! Happy Day!
GOOOOOOOOO FIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What in the world?!?
So you want to devalue the American player? Dumbest comment I’ve read all morning. If the Europeans aren’t willing to pay the due amount for a player (like Landon Donovan) then they simply don’t get them.
It’s disrespectful, to the players even, to say “well, maybe they’re really good, but since they’re American, they’re not worth x amount”
HOORAY BEER !!! (In my Jamaican voice)
There were no details. Said the ink wasn’t even dry and not even all the owners have been informed of all the details that are available (some still being worked out).
Biggest thing was a re-entry draft for players out of contract over s certain age or waived. Also changes to retention of player rights by clubs no change to current DP rules.
Great News. Now RSL can defend their MLS Cup.
ReAL ReAL ReAL ReAL……
The league will create a new Re-Entry Draft, where players out of contract will be able to be selected by new teams after the season. A very interesting development. Details on that should be interesting.
So what happens to them when they dont have a club now? I doubt many would like to wait a whole season before they can play again. Why do they have to get drafted though. Don’t know why if anyone wants him they can’t just get him.
Any buy-out clauses in contracts?
getting impatient.
Ives,
Just pulled myself away from NCAA tournament to check the site and found the posting I have been waiting to see for the last month! HOOOOOOORAY!
Now it is on to important things like putting a beat down on Philly this Thursday night. GO SOUNDERS!
the mls players screwed themselves by making it a 5 year deal.
Fire!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We look unstoppable on paper, let’s see if we can convert that to the pitch.
yessssssssss
Who are Sounders?
Never heard of ‘em.
Well, why should the player not want a decent transfer fee to be accepted when they have waived their right to get part of the transfer money? Players that go on a transfer keep some of that money unlike MLS players, that is disrespectful in my opinion.
Awesome. Glad to hear it. Just as the league is gaining momentum. I’m excited for this year. I’m a recent convert. NFL football is my main sport. But I cheering for MLS. I think it becoming more fun with the increase in fan support. Looking forward to a good year with Philly on line and Portland and Van. It’s nice to see another sport grow in this country. Now shut up all you haters. Soccer is moving inland off the beachhead. Wooo!!!
great stuff
Good news. Hopefully the deal works for BOTH sides.
They may have been using the term “free agency” but they weren’t after FA as we think of–they only wanted the right to find work when out of contract or released, which there is now a mechanism for. I don’t see it as caving as much as a true concession by both sides.
Huzzah! While we’re waiting for the details, so far this seems to me to be exactly the solution that I was hoping for – enough to start down the path and satisfy both sides, but not everything under the sun.
They didn’t really get everything what they wanted. They wanted free agency for veterans — that was priority 1A or 1B. They didn’t get anything even close to that.
Great news! But without the threat of a job action, believe me, nothing would have changed. It seems to me that a five year deal is way too long though, and a three year contract should have been in order. Let’s get this show on the road.
That’s the real issue there — that, and the seemingly endless options that clubs have on the contracts. If the CBA cuts back on the number of options years, then the players will be able to move abroad more freely. And, they should get a % cut of the transfer/loan fee, like other players around the world do.
LOL. When I read the article with RSL owner Dave Checketts and the AEG guy for the Galaxy saying how important it was for a deal to come through, I actually said yesterday that hopefully when I get home from class, they’d have agreed to a deal. And guess what, they did. Happy for the MLS.
They have a very low, hard salary cap. Free agency wouldn’t have impacted a team’s salary roster — not to mention the fact that MLS teams aren’t even responsible for paying the salaries — that’s on the league to do. The league is making plenty of money with expansion fees.
Thank the soccer gods
Gracias a Dios!
Vamos Chivas!
DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHAT THE SALARY CAP HAS BEEN RAIED TO, AND WHEN IT WILL GO INTO AFFECT? SOME TEAMS MIGHT HAVE TO MONEY TO SPEND IF IT GOES UP THIS YEAR
How so?
I would like to echo all of the comments supporting the agreement. It will preserve current gains and set the stage for future growth. Now, where can I sign up for MLS fantasy?
As soon as Donovan went to the CBA meetings this week everything got resolved. Everything he touches right now is turning into gold. Let’s hope he can keep this string of good luck going into the world cup. (there is some sarcasm intended in this statement)
Now, who thinks that Donovan is ready to be given the armband and lead the National team to victory?
Sorry wilyboy, your Screaming Eagle is stuck in my GALAXY.
You will be united in your loss in LA!
Ha, I’m LA till I die, I’m LA till I die, I am I am I KNOW I am I’m LA till I DIE!
GO RSL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can finally get excited about the season!
Thank goodness it’s over. Though this “Re-Entry Draft” deal seems very kooky. Leave it to the MLS.
Just weird.
Gosh quit asking about the cap already. We will all know in a few days.
Thank God!
Estoy de acuerdo ELAC… VA chivas VA, a ve te a su estadio propio ahora!
Arriba LA GALAXY. (welcome back elac)
AWESOME! The IRS just tore me a new one so it was nice to get some good news.
Sigi Sigi Sigi
Here! Here! Give him that arm band and put him (up front) so he can score!
I haven’t even read the details…..
YYYYYYYEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS !
Thanks for the heads up, we almost wore the same shirt.
Salary budgets (not caps) are examined each year by the competition committee and raised or not raised based on their rulings, so it’s not a hard and fast # that’s going to stay static. I don’t imagine this year’s budget was raised much… Maybe up to $2.5M per club. Remember that also doesn’t include any money spent on DPs beyond max base salary and doesn’t include allocation $$$.
I also imagine that it was a 5-year deal with the ability to negotiate deal points throughout that 5 years, so I don’t believe the players screwed themselves.
I do think the league would have survived a strike. The owners were willing to let that happen. It was in the best interest of players, moreso than the owners, to get this deal done.
I am interested to know what the developmental contracts were raised to, league minimums and max on senior roster players??? Ives, any idea what those #s are now? Any idea if roster size, including any update on reserve teams/rosters, will change?
She-ca-go-Fire clap clap clap clap clap clap
I’m most curious to hear if this affects anything with the DP rule. I heard rumblings of the DP not counting against the cap, and also increasing the number of DPs per team to 2 with the possibility of trading for a third. Again, I’m not really sure if the CBA would even address this.
With further expansion, we need to open the purse strings a bit in order to gain/retain talent in our domestic league.
On a side note, I’m psyched for the Red Bull stadium opening today and this is coming from a Timbers fan…
Thank god. A strike would have seriously sucked. Right now, we are so close to the tipping point for both soccer in this country and the league. It’s great to see the progress consolidated.
yeah exactly. the idea a free agency is to give the players some bargaining power to pick their own team. Good players can say nope i’m a star coming out of contract so you either need to pay me more or i’m going to go to the highest bidder. The draft idea doesn’t really do that. One, it doesn’t seem to affect a good player with time remaining on his contract but maybe it does. lets assume it does for the sake of argument. If seems that if Donovan came off contract he’d go into a draft and then if Columbus one he’d be forced to sign with columbus on nobody which pretty much defeats the point of free agency cause it doesn’t let the player go to the high bidder.
MLS clearly wants a sort of totalitarianish system where there are wage ceilings and no competion between teams for labor.
Personally i think this is actually bad because if i’m a foriegner trying to join the league i’m not coming if i’m going itno some draft or if they are retaining my rights. Everytime they’d have to break the rules like they did with beckham.
And if i’m a young player i can play well for my contract and when it ends i just have to hope i get a big contract from who ever get’s my draft lottery rights. They could easily say, “$75K” take it or leave it. I mean if you suck and are gonna be a mls journeyman your whole life maybe your fine with that. I wonder though if your a young 20 year old if you really want that. You could play 4 great years be a good prospect at 24 and get offered a nothing deal. The other thing is i think the current system gives the teams no incentive to improve. if they aren’t going to have to fight for the best players why not just coast wit mediocrity? And if i’m a player that’s not going to get rewarded for playing great with a fat contract what’s the incentive to improve? Who knows but if the players never want to compete for the signature of a player they seem to be saying they never want to be in the same league as top leagues the world over because if they did, sometime they’d have to be outbidding teams for the best players. So i think the longterm future of this league is pretty not much more of what it is right now.
DP is a separate issue that isn’t dealt with the CBA
that’s actually not true. a salary cap means works to keep costs down. no matter what a player asks for they still get more then the salary cap and if you’ve got 23 men on a roster you can only get what’s available after paying the other 22 people. So there is always a constraint on costs. And though the contract is with the mls there’s nothing that says individual teams can’t compete to offer the best package. nothing more then that they don’t want to.
yep people ignore the 40 million in expansion fees they are charging.
I guess lando has to stay with the galaxy…:(
like i wrote above. i think the reason is cause a draft prevents players from pitting one club against another for their services.
owners are trying to not get in bidding wars.
i think from a players perspective it would suck. Seems that if donovan had never resigned he’d go into a new draft. So he’d have no control. Thus his only options would be to resign with galaxy for whatever they offer. could be a cut rate deal. or risk ending up in like salt lake or columbus or toronto, no disrespect. but it’s cold small or canada and turf. None things landon seems to like a lot. But i think that’s why it’s done that way for the owners.
A fantastic day for the beautiful game in this country.
Certainly, just another step in the on-going progression but a step in the right direction, never the less.
(meh to the “Re-Entry Draft” jargon but I’ll refrain…..a good day!)
Chea brah!!!!!
Great news for MLS, glad the owners and players got an agreement in place.
BUT THE DRAMA ISN’T OVER. The league will never progress until it gets better attendance overall. Any club that can’t manage 15,000 fans a game should be relocated.
So here is the challenge. If your team falls under 15,000 fans, take it upon yourself to get people interested. Buy an extra season ticket and bring people to the games.
Thank you Lord!!!
Great news!! I can finally make my plans to attend Red Bulls games in their brand new state-of-the-art stadium.
Frankly, I could not bear to think of the damage that a strike /lockout would have inflicted upon the league, players, owners and fans. We would all have faded into irrelevance. I am glad this was just a bad dream.
Time to move on …. for another 5 years.
From a fan perspective:
Thank goodness we’re going to be able to watch top flight professional soccer…the rest is just details at this point.
Can’t you just line item veto the parts of your taxes you don’t want to pay?
New England til I die! New England Til I die! I know I am, I’m sure I am, NEW ENGLAND TIL I DIE!
Fantastic to hear you’ve recently converted!
It’s better than the players being held hostage by their teams.
That’ll never happen.
So if it is sunny and no clouds out then you tell me it’s grey skies and raining right? The players were clearly happy with the new deal and they had the Donovans of the world in attendance so just be happy and enjoy it. And yest the league wants cost certainity because ONLY 2-3 teams wll turn a profit this season out of 16!
the federal mediator’s line was priceless”we had to get both sides to realize that Western Civilization does not hang in the balance”. The indication that both sides wanted a deal is that they opted for a federal mediator who will not intervene if both sides don’t want it. It sounds good for the league and the players going forward
How does this benefit Nick Garcia?
Sounds like the reentry draft would be a lot like the process for returning internationals. It’s an interesting middle ground between 0 competition for players and unlimited competition for players. Teams would have the ability to trade for or pay for reentry draft positions – right? So there is some market based acpect. We’ve also seen that MLS has no problem manipulating rules for ‘special’ cases, which they’d probably find ways to do.
i wonder how much affect guaranteed
contracts will have on quality of play?
my gut is telling me quality goes up
because guys aren’t worried as much
about getting hurt in may. they’ll
play hard each week, and the quality
on the field will go up. that’s the
biggest gain in my opinion. higher
quality will eventually draw in the
soccer fans not watching mls.
Why? No friends?
That’s an interesting point. You don’t think that people on the bubble in April/May are playing to impress already?
This is great! I really do believe that MLS would not have survived a strike.
My first question was:
How long before we go through this again?
Someone here said five years. Is that correct? Hopefully, it is. I would imagine it will take at least that long before MLS will be anywhere near making enough money to make any concessions that cost them money.
Now, if they will just stop expanding! They need to try and solidify the league before they expand anymore. Either that or the expansion fee is going to have to become ridiculously high and or they will have to limit expansion to teams they are almost certain will flourish, which isn’t an easy thing to do.
continuing……
Maybe, as someone here suggested, it would be a good idea to stop expansion that increases the number of teams in the league, and start replacing some of the teams that appear as though they will never make it.
Of course, now I’m going to get an earful from people who are fans of struggling teams!
Correction….
We have been over this. Free Agency does not work in a single entity system.
Everyone wants to think MLS is like other leagues in the world. It is not. Teams do not negotiate contracts, the league does. MLS is the players employer, not the teams.
No free agency in a single entity.
I think they plan on stopping at 20.
I don’t think they can really relocate any teams and expect it to be better at the city they relocate to.
Especially they would need to build a SSS again.
i was referring to relocation. Why would teams that already spend millions to build a new SSS just to be relocated.
it’s a year after Donovan’s contract expires. This way MLS can buy some time without their posterboy.
All those arguing that the draft compromise doesn’t do anything for the players are completely missing the boat. This was a big time concession on the league’s part. As it stands now a team retains total control over a players rights even after the conclusion of the contract’s terms. That meant that in essence the team could hold that player hostage (as New England did with Steve Ralston). That gives the team tremendous leverage over a player in any extension talks. In reality a team could truly say, “Take it or leave it” and if the player left it they could simply refuse to trade the players rights in effect locking the player out and forcing him to go abroad or accept a below market offer. Trust me, many players had experienced that.
Now if a player doesn’t resign, the team risks losing that player to the veteran draft and receiving zero compensation. That gives the veteran additional leverage and it also removes the threat of them being locked out by their original team.
That said, its not perfect for their players. They don’t have autonomy to choose their team. However, I’m sure that many of the bigger name players, such as a Landon Donovan will also have some power to dictate which teams they will go to. For example, he would likely make it understood that he would only go to teams a, b, and c. Thus, if another team drafted him, they would likely trade him to one of his target teams. Thats not unlike what happened when Troy Perkins returned to the league and was picked up by Philadelphia and then traded to DC. The league isn’t going to risk losing a player of that stature that wants to resign with the league. Is that messy, sure, but it is far, far superior to the previous structure.
I’d also say that the players understood that this is a very positive step and this is only a five year deal. Five years from today the league should be in even better position that it is today. Philly, Vancouver, Portland, Montreal (in all likelihood) and [insert team here] will all have entered the league. They will enter the league with better stadium setups and fan bases than just about any team in the league prior to 6 or 7 years ago. They’ll have opened up additional markets and given the league greater leverage in negotiating television and sponsorship deals. They’ll have added another $200 mln or so in expansion fees. Finally, they’ll have further diversified the ownership structure of the league. In addition, within five years we’ll see two of the worst performing teams (in terms of finances) in KC and San Jose add stadiums and stragglers like Houston, DC, and New England will hopefully have moved forward with their plans.
At this point, the league may truly be ready to make some additional changes because their revenue will have markedly improved, perhaps even doubled over where it is today. I doubt they’ll move away from single entity, but I think you’ll see further concessions on all the topics discussed within this CBA and further significant increases to the salary cap.
Yesssss. Could be the best possible outcome…no interruption in our games, and a bit more freedom for players
Single entity survives. MLS continues as a fraud with no real competition between clubs. Here’s one American soccer fan who will continue to ignore MLS. NASL has just been gifted 5 years in which to win my affection.
Anyone else see this image?
link to i.cdn.turner.com
It is commissioner Garber shaking hands with Donovan after the agreement was reached.
Check out the pad he was taking ‘notes’ on during the negotiations. Apparently, doodling during meetings is universal, no matter how ‘important’ the meeting. Apparently he even found time to color.
And what exactly is wrong with MLS continuing to operate as a single entity league. The players wanted improved movement and they got that. It may not be free agency but what they got is better than nothing.
I’m going to church tomorrow! Thank The Lord!
Good news. A strike would have been bruttle!
Stevie Nic by a mile!
If I were an owner that couldn’t generate a crowd I would definitely move, regardless of a SSS. How many owners actually own the stadiums anyway?
15,000 is not too much to ask. St. Louis and Montreal would be able to pull that off.
Can’t please everyone.
st louis? really? they got 2500 for a superliga game. great support for the game
league profits are not in danger as no team can exceed the salary cap with or free agency.
It doesn’t matter to me if the players are happy or not. One they could be naive, two they could be being positive to make it appear that they came out the winner to keep a positive face on the whole thing. and the same can be said for the owners comments. I’m not in the “just work it out I don’t care about who get’s paid what or what rules exist i just want to see MLS” camp. MLS struggle to hold my attention. I’m thinking about what will get it to a place where it will.
my point was about what is best long term professional soccer league. And there is more then the short or long term “happiness” of either side to consider. they may be happy now but if it deters growth, competition, and makes the league less enticing to both domestic and foreign players and permanently makes the league a second or third tier league i don’t think that’s good regardless of whether the players or owners are happy.
What’s to stop the team that wins the draft lottery thing also offering a take it or leave it lowball contract?
Like let’s say Robbie Findley comes off contract and Real Salt Lake don’t want to pay him but LA Galaxy do. What if the rights go to Columbus but he doesn’t want to go to columbus and/or Columbus offers him less then the Real Salt Lake or some lowball number, like say 60K cause they don’t have cap room or something? Then isn’t that player stuck still if Columbus says, we won and we aren’t giving, trading, selling away your rights? Seems really what the lottery does is prevent a situation like say same as above but both LA and Chivas want Findley. If Chivas wins the lottery findley has to go their. with free agency the player could go where the best deal is. I mean what if LA get him and they already got no cap room? Again he’s gonna get some lowball fee. I mean seems to me the lottery system is not too great for players.
F#!%! YEAH!!!!!
I was really getting worried….
Sounds like a decent deal for both sides. Bring on the season!!!!
In all of the ongoing talks I have heard no mention of the discovery player rule. Please for the love of God, that HAS to be gone now right??
ya, they almost screwed this thing up.