Comments on: The Difference Between an American Sports Contract and a European Football Contract

By: cheap uggs

cheap uggs — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 03:04:27 +0000

smart man

By: Charles

Charles — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:54:24 +0000

Maybe a little off topic, but then again money is the topic, right ?
I just renewed my Sounders season tickets.
They are expecting 30,000 season tickets, with sell outs of 38,000 or so.
100% of the luxury boxes sold again this season.

IF you are on board with the MLS and not hoping it is second tier or worse that it fails….
PRAY the MLS does the smart thing and puts out as much money as they can to get the best talent they can. w
They need to while competiting with Europe for American soccer fan’s dollars.

By: Lars

Lars — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:37:07 +0000

You lack the understanding of Labour economics.

The reason why the US leagues do player trades and not cash trades is that a cash trade demonstrates exactly how much a player is worth and when it comes to renegotiating contracts they can play hardball, especially with things like restricted free agency. If you trade a player for a 1st and 2nd round pick, it’s much more difficult to gage how much he’s actually worth, as you don’t know the quality of the picks…

By using cash transfers you hand power to the players by giving them the information on how much they’re worth. Otherwise they’re throwing darts and picking their best option.

By: Rex

Rex — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:51:18 +0000

Good points in the article and at minimum, it prompted the discussions that followed.
Bottom line is that money talks. True manU isnt forced to trade the player, but you cant turn down tens of millions of dollars. I am fine with single entity ownership but MLS has to allow free agency within this ownership.

By: Charles

Charles — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:30:33 +0000

Matt,
You always have great points, I like your posts.
And I think we agree as I am not looking for MLS Western Division 2009 parity every year, just not looking for teams to have NO chance of winning, year after year after year. It only works in Europe and I am still not sure how.
But look at the pre-season odds of winning the EPL and look at the odds of the Browns to win the SuperBowl…at the start of the season I guess, huh ? The odds of Everton were like 250-1, even though they were like 6 or 7th highest at the beginning of the season.
Maybe one team was worse than that in the NFL….maybe. 30+ teams.
Playoffs are part of that, but a bigger part is even at 500-1 you would have never have put money on Everton, but you might have on my Seahawks..who finished WAY lower in the standings the year before.

Full disclosure reply: I lived in Cleveland way before you were born and rooted for all the teams you root for.

By: CoconutMonkey

CoconutMonkey — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:38:29 +0000

Re: 1

Oh man, if the Cubbies won the World Series there wouldn’t be an upright car from Addison to Halsted!

Anyway, I see your point though. It’s tough to START supporting your local team when you know that they suck. Us Cubs fans have the luxury (or curse I guess) of being from a long line of fans. It’s a lot tougher to say, “Hey! come watch your 5 year old hometown soccer team! We SUCK!”. Well, that might get ME to buy a ticket or two. SAGANTOSU FTW!!!

By: CoconutMonkey

CoconutMonkey — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:18:59 +0000

Huh, with all the articles talking about United’s 80 million spending spree during the off season, I was under the impression that transfer fees go directly to the club, with salaries/transfer bonuses being handled separately. Is that not the case?

By: ddtigers

ddtigers — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:38:57 +0000

This is going to be a long winter for MLS, I have a bad feeling that this is going to be a big blow for Soccer and will take years to recover when to dust finally settles.

By: Eric Altshule

Eric Altshule — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:04:05 +0000

Chapka-

I think you are incorrect on several counts. Firstly, the Yankees could not just hand the Giants a blank check. Apart from the fact that it violates several unwritten, and possibly several written rules, baseball would never allow it. The purchase would be invalidated by the Commissioner, and I think the last time that was tried was when the A’s Charles Finley tried to sell Vida Blue to the Yankees that way in the 1970s. The Commissioner vetoed the trade because he thought trades of money for players were bad for the game. Players never move in baseball unless they are traded for other players, released or become free agents.

Secondly, all those examples you gave of deals that never materialized were because the players were not interested. Man City wanted to sign all those superstars, but the players did not want to play for man City. On the other hand, Berry told everyone that he would stay at Villa until the season was over, and then picked Man City over Liverpool because the money was better. This only validates my point – the players have all the power and get to decide whether to go or not. The team holding the contract has little say in the matter.

By: Chapka

Chapka — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:48:09 +0000

Sorry, but this is just silly. It is actually harder for a European team to sign a player from a team in another league than for an American team.

Baseball teams can throw money at players they want just as easily as soccer teams can, from millions of dollars in cash to the proverbial “bag of baseballs.” It’s just not usually the best move, because if you’re adding salary it’s usually in your best interest to dump salary as well, and an even more important consideration is roster size limits–no point in signing a new starter if it means one of your current starters is going to end up in the Rule 5 draft.

But there’s no earthly reason the Yankees couldn’t just hand the Giants a blank check in exchange for Lincecum. It just makes more financial sense for them to wait until he’s a free agent. And they could just buy him; he’d have no say in it. Compare this to a European transfer, where you have to agree on terms with the player on a new contract as well as with the club on a transfer fee.

As for big-name signings getting turned down…it happens all the time. This offseason alone, Man City tried to sign Didier Drogba, David Villa, Kaka, and Thierry Henry. What happened? Their clubs asked for more than City was willing to pay. Gareth Barry all but threw a tantrum in the press asking to be transferred to Liverpool, and he stayed put.

The major difference is that in soccer, a team can buy a star without giving something up, because there are no roster limits and no salary cap or luxury tax–and it’s harder to ship a prospect off to a Siberian club than it is to send a baseball prospect off to the Twins. So deals tend to be in cash rather than trade. Other than that? No real difference.