A positive sign ahead. A teleconference has been called today for 1PM ET to discuss the CBA with Don Garber, Bob Foose, and mediator George Cohen. The AP is reporting that is will be a new five year deal.
I’ll have more later on the new details of the CBA.
Major League Soccer tried with Real Madrid, then they tried again with Barcelona. Now MLS commissioner Don Garber is hoping he can get at least one English Premier League owner to invest into the league.
“We think it would be smart for us to have an international team sitting around our board table and helping to influence the way we think and perhaps connect us even more closer with the international community,” Garber said in an interview with The Associated Press at SoccerEx.
“We tried with FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, and we will continue to talk to the Spanish clubs while finding some way to see if there is an investment opportunity with any of the English clubs. We are not anywhere close to that on any level yet.”
One club sounds interested, Manchester City. Garber met Monday with City chief executive Garry Cook. No word yet on how those talks went.
I like this idea for Garber to target EPL owners here. I do wonder if he will try to put pressure on some of the Americans that already own EPL sides. He has one owner already with a EPL side (Colorado Rapids owner Stan Kroenke has a majority stake in Arsenal), so maybe he’ll have an easier time getting one of them to invest in MLS.
It won’t be easy though as a lot of clubs in England and in Europe are losing money left and right these days. Getting the right group like the Man City owners may be the right way to go here. Its still very early in the process here but I do like this step taken by the league.
Don Garber and the league need to resolve the CBA quickly. (Getty Images)
Let’s face it folks, 2009 is just a couple weeks from finishing here. With that means 2010 and all its glory but even more important is the month ahead for MLS fans. Not only is it the SuperDraft month, a transfer window opening up, some international friendlies but the end of the current CBA.
Yes it seems the closer we get to 2010 the more the CBA resolution becomes less clear. It’s almost like the two sides are waiting on 2010 to arrive so the thing will be an actual resolution. The current CBA deal runs until the end of next month, January 31, which means we are headed towards a very interesting month and a half here.
One thing comes to mind that no one wants on either side and that is the dreaded “S” word, strike. Its ugly and something we all don’t want to see. Continue Reading…
We’ve known for several weeks months that the next round of expansion in Major League Soccer would start with Montreal. The league has taken another step closer to getting to that point today as MLS commissioner Don Garber has traveled to Montreal to meet with Joey Saputo and some local government officials.
“We continued our discussions with the Saputo family about a future MLS expansion team in Montreal and had very productive meetings with Minister Bachand about securing funding for the expansion of Saputo Stadium,” Garber said following his morning meetings. “We’ve stated many times that Montreal would be a great market for MLS and we look forward to continuing our discussions.”
“We are very happy with the visit of the MLS executives in Montreal,” declared Impact President Joey Saputo. “The meetings this morning with Minister Bachand and Mayor Tremblay were very positive. It’s clear for us, and now more than ever, that the arrival of MLS in Montreal is only a question of time. We are hoping to have news in the first quarter of 2010.”
We all know it comes down to the stadium for Montreal and getting it expanded just enough to be MLS ready. In all honesty I would argue its MLS ready right now even at 13,034 seats. I mean a full Saputo Stadium will look better than a nearly empty Pizza Hut Park. I’m only half serious on that comment.
Expanding the stadium is a big deal though and I don’t mean to poke fun at any of it here. Its really a dealbreaker for MLS. But what I kind of find interesting is that why is Garber taking time away from dealing with the CBA to go visit Montreal here? That part seems weird to me.
Don Garber is set for a raise. (Getty Images)
MLS owners have offered Don Garber a contract extension, the only catch is if a new collective bargaining agreement can be reached with the players this according to the Sports Business Journal (subscription, sign up for a free trial).
Garber will make some good money too if a deal is finished. According to the report he could be set to make up to $3 million per year for four years.
There’s no doubt that since Garber took over as league commissioner back in 1999 the league has taken off in bigger and better ways than imagined a decade ago. With expansion, to soccer specific stadiums to jersey sponsors, the league is doing much better than it was back then.
Giving him a contract extension is really a no brainer. No one right now is really fit to replace Garber as league commissioner, though I’m sure there are some out there that would probably like a change. I think putting a new deal towards Garber shows the owners have faith he will get a new CBA worked out with the players here.
Some will be quick to point out, just like the report did that Garber could end up making more than an entire MLS roster’s salary cap after everything is said and done. Honestly, I don’t have a lot of issues with that because I do believe the cap will be raised enough to make folks happy here.
Garber sees growth in MLS. (Getty Images)
I’ve spent a good portion of the day collecting my thoughts on a couple subjects and then it happen to be the same day that MLS commish Don Garber had his State of the League address. Yeah, let’s just say some of his comments just made my head go nuts (and your’s too judging by some emails).
For a full rundown of comments made by Garber head over to the Soccer Insider blog for lots of good quotes. Anytime The Don speaks we seem to listen and then discuss at length.
One big item that got a lot of people going loco today was the comment made about a single table format. Basically Garber bluntly told people to it’s not gonna happen next year so shut up. While I think the idea of single table is the right step for the league down the road I totally agree with not doing it next year.
The only thing I do disagree is not going to a single table format for the playoffs. What I mean by that is the league should restructure the current format to include the top eight clubs no matter the conference and get rid of the eastern and western conferences for playoff purposes. Keep the conferences for schedules and what not but let’s get rid of them for the playoffs. Basically I am tired like some of you of seeing a team from New York win the western conference and a team from Salt Lake win the eastern conference. What is this Major League Baseball 1992?
Garber also had a nice mention of future expansion to Montreal. That’s news we already knew right? Continue Reading…
I know today has been a little light from me. I’ve had a super busy day at my normal day job so posting items on here kind of went out of the door. I came close to posting an updated MLS playoff scenario chart but I will be honest there are so many damn tiebreakers that could happen it will make your head spin. I just didn’t want to post something that wasn’t entirely correct as I wasn’t totally sure about a couple items in the tiebreakers.
Instead I held off to talk about a few different items that caught my eye today. The first being an interesting article on ESPNSoccerNet today that talked about the economy and MLS. As we all know the economy hasn’t been all that great this last year but somehow the league has been able to withstand it and grow. Sure ticket sales have been down but then again they’ve been down in nearly every league.
The modest decline in MLS ticket sales reflects two things, in my view,” said Raymond Sauer, a professor of economics at Clemson and the renowned guru behind the Sports Economist blog. “First, MLS ticket prices are relatively modest in comparison with the more established sports, who became oriented toward the premium end of the market in recent years.”With the sudden emergence of the budget-conscious consumer in the midst of the recession, MLS was well placed relative to the big four professional leagues. “Second, the fact that the decline was so modest is another piece of evidence pointing to the long-term growth potential of soccer in the North American market.”
The thing is the league cold be much worse if it weren’t for the Seattles and Torontos of the world. But the league is known for their cost-cutting ways and you have to think that those kinds of ways have helped the league stay above the Mason-Dixon line and not be fully in the red like say the Arena Football League.
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