This is either going to result in an title or much more likely, an absolute disaster.
They’re dead last in their conference, it’d take a miracle. I’d love to be witness to that though 😅
That said, isn’t that how leagues work in the US for most sports? The bottom teams are constantly given legs up to keep the winners cycling. That’s what the whole draft system is about, right? Full disclosure: I know close to nothing about US sports.
No disrespect to US sports fans or athletes but over there it seems more like the brand they care about is the league itself, as an entertainment product, compared to football teams in most of the world which are much more independent. Even just the name “franchise” says something.
In general, yes; however, that leg up in most of our sports leagues is through player drafts. Since most good players in soccer don’t go through US college athletics, that usual leg up doesn’t mean nearly as much.
And yeah, you’re right on the money on the teams vs leagues thing; the leagues in most US sports tend to wield quite a bit of power over franchises, and negotiate labor contracts directly with player unions. MLS is a wonky outlier in many ways (largely because America doesn’t have a near-monopoly on top talent like it does in some other sports), but the league itself is definitely seen as a priority over any one club.
To add on, MLS is even more league-centric than other American sports leagues. Many other leagues in the States utilize salary caps and luxury taxes along with other mechanisms to try to maintain parity and competitive balance.
MLS, however, operates under a single entity model. As per Wikipedia:
Major League Soccer owners own a share in the league and are granted right to operate a team. Major League Soccer (MLS) operates under a single-entity structure in which teams and player contracts are centrally owned by the league.Each MLS team has an investor-operator that is a shareholder in the league.In order to control costs, the league shares revenues and holds players contracts instead of players contracting with individual teams.
So this sort of structure definitely incentivizes stuff like setting aside all sorts of existing rules to let Messi and his buddies team up. A rising tide lifts all boats and whatnot. As an MLS fan (Sounders), I have to say that I’m actually ok with it - if it grows the league and the sport in our country, so much the better!
(Also I think that Miami is still going to struggle even with this new core, but we’ll see!)
