MLS is one of the few soccer leagues in the world that can pride itself on parity, but is there a chance that parity is dwindling.
Other than the anomaly of Leicester City winning in 2015, the Premier League usually has the same “top six” competing for Champions League places. In the past ten years, only Chelsea, Manchester United, Leicester City, and Manchester City have won the league.
The same goes in all of the top leagues. Spain has only had three teams win the league in the past ten years – Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid – and is dominated by those three teams year after year.
The German Bundesliga and Serie A are even worse.
Juventus has won Serie A, and Bayern Munich the Bundesliga, for seven straight years.
The last team to win Serie A that wasn’t Milan, Inter Milan, or Juventus was Roma in 2001. While in Germany only Borussia Dortmund has challenged and won the title in the past 10 years.
But MLS is different.
Looking just at the regular season tables, as they are the best direct comparison to a European league, it’s clear that teams at the top don’t always stay there.
In the Western Conference, six teams have finished in first: Sporting Kansas City, Portland Timbers x2, FC Dallas x2, Seattle Sounders, San Jose Earthquakes, LA Galaxy x3.
(Kansas City swapped from the east to the west for the 2015 season.)
In the Eastern Conference, only five teams have finished in first over the past ten years: the New York Red Bulls x5, Toronto FC, DC United, Sporting Kansas City x2, and the Columbus Crew.
Combining the two conferences, seven teams have won a Supporters’ Shield – New York Red Bulls x3, Toronto FC, FC Dallas, Seattle Sounders, San Jose Earthquakes, LA Galaxy x2, and the Columbus Crew – though only twice has a team won the Shield and MLS Cup, Toronto in 2017 and the Galaxy in 2011.
MLS, like many U.S. leagues, was designed so that an upper echelon didn’t develop.
Salary caps, draft picks, and the single-entity structure ensure an even playing field for each team, granted that they actively seek out success.
That bubble, however, could burst soon.
As MLS continues to grow (we’re at what, MLS 4.0 now?) so does its competitive structure.
A recent report showed that MLS had the seventh highest revenue among soccer leagues world wide, behind the top five European leagues and the Brazilian league.
Despite the revenue, MLS spends just 28 percent of its revenue on player compensation, the other top leagues in the world spend between 52 and 72 percent of their revenue on player salaries.
The single-entity structure allows MLS to retain its money, and prevent it from going directly to players, but with the Collective Bargaining Agreement set to expire at the end of this year, there could be big changes on the horizon.
The league minimum is one item up for discussion, among others that are meant to improve quality of life and raise the competition in the league.
Player representatives want the league minimum to increase to $100,000, while other changes could be made that make it easier for players to negotiate for money on their second and third contract negotiations.
Many of the current rules were made to protect the clubs, so that talent could be attracted to the league, but as a result, U.S. players couldn’t demand exorbitant fees for their craft.
It has caused many young talents to seek transfers abroad, where they can develop in more challenging leagues while also earning more money.
If MLS does change its CBA to allow its developing stars to earn more with subsequent contract negotiations, it will surely lead to higher average wage in the league, and result in a higher salary cap.
The rule was originally meant to protect a league that was in its infancy. Currently MLS is beyond even childhood, and is closer to a middle schooler, rapidly developing into its adult form and full of angst.
As players become more expensive in the future, clubs will have to made more difficult decisions. Do they start spending rapidly as more money comes into the league, or retain the current spending habits? Do they accept mediocrity, or push early to become an elite team?
In just the past few years we have seen teams that are willing to spend a lot of money to instantly be a winning club. Atlanta United (9th highest wage bill in MLS with $11,306,330.49), LAFC ($13,432,052.68), and New York City FC ($14,147,632.75) have all entered the league as teams to be feared though early, extravagant spending. Meanwhile, clubs such as the LA Galaxy ($17,502,008.29), Toronto FC ($26,167,498.69), and Seattle Sounders ($11,376,125.36) are established teams that have shown a desire to spend big bucks so as to be consistently challenging for top of the league. (Wages are reported from May 2018.)
Likewise there are teams that are hesitant to spend, and a gap has already started to develop between these two groups, with a couple of exceptions.
The Philadelphia Union ($8,915,987.84), New England Revolution ($6,818,556.10), Houston Dynamo ($5,673,471.62), San Jose Earthquakes ($7,787,252.57) and Columbus Crew ($6,971,083.47) have struggled to stay relevant in the playoff picture while these big teams continue to outspend them. (Columbus has done exceptionally well despite its low budget).
Some, like the Union, FC Dallas ($9,333,819.28) and New York Red Bulls ($7,689,313.93), have found ways to compete against those with massive spending.
These teams have started investing money in facilities and youth academies (and aren’t the only ones to develop elite academies and facilities.)
Already, the Red Bulls have products bearing fruit such as Tyler Adams, who left for RB Leipzig for $3 million.
Meanwhile FC Dallas has played eight homegrown players this season (Reggie Cannon, Edwin Cerillo, Jesus Ferreira, Jesse Gonzalez, Paxton Pomykal, Bryan Reynolds, Thomas Roberts, Brandon Servania) and given starts to six.
The Union, likewise, have had its academy grow quickly in a very short time, with two homegrown players consistently starting (Brenden Aaronson and Auston Trusty) and another two in Poland with the U-20 team (Mark McKenzie and Matt Real who join Pomykal and Servania).
An added bonus to investing in an academy system is that all homegrown players do not count toward the salary cap, so teams can spend elsewhere.
But let’s reel it in for a second. Increased salary cap will certainly lead to big spenders buying more, but won’t force the little guys to spend as well, as many teams aren’t even close to the cap just yet.
That could certainly lead to more disparity in the league, but it appears that a few of the cheaper teams are happy to find talent in other ways.
After all, the Red Bulls has been one of the consistent regular season performers from the past ten years.
But it greatly affects the MLS Superdraft, an institution that is the primary entry to the league for most U.S. sports leagues.
In football or basketball, a franchise that performs poorly is rewarded with good draft picks. Eventually that team will stock up on some of the most talented players entering the league.
With the academy system on the rise, young players are less likely to star in college and get drafted to the most recent Wooden Spoon winner. Instead they can sign on with teams at an early age and make the jump to first team soccer when the team decides they are ready.
With the two avenues of player entry to the league – purchasing from other leagues and academy products – overtaking the Superdraft as the best way to choose players, those that finish bottom get no tangible reward.
The Union didn’t pick a single player in this draft, and of the 24 picks in the fourth round, 13 teams passed on a selection. Eight passed on a selection in the third round.
Drafts are simply a system that rewards teams for being absolutely awful the season before. Does MLS, an entity that wants to catch up to the worlds best leagues, even want to stick with a system that could hold it back?
With the Superdraft slowly losing value, and big money becoming more prevalent, teams with small purses could find it challenging to stay relevant.
MLS is getting to a point where it will become difficult to rise through the ranks, but not impossible.
Minnesota United and Orlando City are two teams that have never made the playoffs in their two and four year history. Philadelphia has only qualified three times in 10 years.
Meanwhile, Atlanta is two for two in its playoff qualification, and LAFC seems set to do the same in its second season. Many of the new expansion teams show ambition to immediately join the leagues elite.
The Seattle Sounders, the Red Bulls, and Sporting Kansas City represent three other elite teams that have qualified for the playoffs in 10, 9 and eight consecutive seasons, respectively.
As the second half of the season approaches and the table starts to take shape, it appears that there is once again a cream of the crop that we have seen in the past few years.
Atlanta United, the Red Bulls, and New York City –potentially soon to be known as a “big three” in the east – started the season poorly and slowly but surely have worked their way back into a playoff position. Atlanta and the Red Bulls are even nearing striking distance of first place.
Over the past five years in the Eastern Conference, nine teams have ever failed to make the playoffs at least once (Chicago x4, Orlando x4, Montreal x3, New England x3, Philadelphia x3, Toronto x2, D.C., Columbus, NYC).
Outside of a few outliers, there has been a fairly consistent group of teams who fail to qualify, while the likes of the Red Bulls, Atlanta, New York City, and D.C. – Toronto depending on the year, as well – are consistently fighting for top spot in the East.
The west has a smaller, but more consistent group that falls below the playoff line(Houston x4, Colorado x4, San Jose x4, LA Galaxy x2, Vancouver x2, Minnesota x2, Salt Lake x2, Portland).
Of course there are caveats and outliers to this information. For example, the Galaxy’s two seasons of missing the playoffs accounts for half of qualification failures in the Galaxy’s 22 year history (18/22 in playoff qualification).
The Union, likewise, were perennial losers, but after a few front office and strategic changes, are currently in first in the East, just above fellow underdogs Montreal.
Compared to other soccer leagues, MLS is still the one with the most parity, and like many U.S. leagues has teams that are poorly run (see Cleveland Browns).
But the challenges these teams face will only get tougher as the league grows.
Just looking at last year’s average attendance shows the gap in a few teams.
Atlanta (53,002) and Seattle (40,641) are so far ahead of Columbus (12,447) and Chicago (14,806) that it would appear obvious that those two are the more successful teams, not even taking market and stadium location and size into account.
It’s tough to make predictions in sports, that’s possibly why betting is such a lucrative business. The peaks and troughs come around as unexpectedly as the stock market.
So claiming that MLS is moving toward a league with less parity is a tough one.
But given the league’s growth, ambitious new expansion teams, potential changes to the salary bill, and the myriad of ways players can enter the league, there is reason to believe that disparity will grow in the league.
Unless teams can pick up the model that made Dallas, the Red Bulls, and Philadelphia successful, or spend like the big teams, there is a real chance that there becomes a set of consistent bottom dwellers.
A Second Look 