Our need to go into the worldwide market and spend on players internationally – at some level – is largely going to be driven by the quality of players that we’re producing.
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MLS officials have a stated goal of becoming one of the top leagues in the world by 2022. That added investment will allow teams to pay Homegrown Players as much as $175,000 per season without them counting toward the team’s senior roster. This allows a team like the LA Galaxy to sign Mexican star Giovani dos Santos to a contract in the $7 million a year range, with only $457,500 of that salary counting toward the team’s $3.66 million salary budget.
Perhaps of more interest to clubs could be the additional $125,000 on Homegrown players in each of the next two seasons.
The additional investment includes the expansion of the Targeted Allocation Money initiative ($32 million) and the introduction of $125,000 per year in additional funds to sign Homegrown players ($5 million) over the next two years.
In a press release, MLS deputy commissionerMark Abbott said, “We saw immediate dividends this past season with the initial investment in Targeted Allocation Money, and our owners believe that additional spending – especially for players who will impact the middle of our rosters – will make MLS even more entertaining and compelling”.
Targeted Allocation Money is great for MLS because it’s going to require MLS teams to spend money.
Of note to D.C. United fans is that the team used TAM money this summer to reduce Chris Pontius’s impact on the salary cap.
MLS announced its latest infusion of allocation money today – and the number’s staggering.
Teams have the option of using all or part of the available TAM money to convert a DP to a non-DP by buying down his salary budget charge.
“We have to accelerate the quality of league in two ways”, Durbin said.
A team must use the 2016 money by the summer transfer window in 2017, and it must use the 2017 money by the summer transfer window in 2018. Although those funds still exist, they are now augmented by this new influx of TAM to increase spending power.
With this new cash, Seattle theoretically could offer Morris a contract paying up to $175,000 a year and still keep the striker on its supplemental roster, where he would not count against the senior roster budget. The minimum budget charge for a player compensated with Targeted Allocation Money is $150,000. “We want on a team-by-team basis”, Durbin explained in a conference call. In simple terms, it means more ability for teams to sign players who might otherwise be low-end designated players. These funds can be spread across multiple Homegrown players.
The new TAM will allow teams to buy down designated player salaries that are between $457,500 and $1 million and allow those players to no longer occupy one of the three DP slots allowed to teams.
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What exactly is Targeted Allocation Money? That kind of restriction could cause a player to leave for another league for more money and MLS would lose some talented players simply due to salary restrictions. Orlando City now has three designated players – Kaká and young DPs Carlos Rivas and Bryan Róchez – and could also use the TAM to buy those players down to add a new designated player.
