In this post I wanted to bring up a very interesting point- the 4 finalists of this year @MLS cup are ranked 10-14 in spending.
All of them together are spending roughly $13-14 million this season… Just to make things clear, this is equal to the salaries of Robbie Keane, Thierry Henry, and Clint Dempsey alone (together making $13,721,899).
For years I argued that until the MLS will allow teams to spend more money on their players, we won’t see this league flourish… However, the recent results truly makes me rethink it all. One can argue that having only 2-3 DP players on your team cannot make a difference for the entire 11 and guarantee the team an easy walk to the final of the MLS cup.
However, when you look deeper into the recruiting process of teams such as KC, RSL, and Portland you understand that there is a well thought process of acquiring the right player for their club, their style of play, their culture, and its all within a budget.
No one can argue against the fact that the MLS level of play is getting better each and every year. The interest in the league has grown tremendously and the average crowd per game has risen for the fifth consecutive year http://www.socceramerica.com/article/52384/some-bright-spots-on-mls-attendance-front.html.
Did the teams that made it all the way this year figure out something the other teams didn’t? NY has Thierry Henry and Tim Cahill, LA has Landon Donovan and Robbie Keane, Seattle has Obafimi Martins and Clint Dempsey, yet they all lost last week
in a two leg conference semi final to Houston Dynamo, RSL, and Portland Timbers. The fact that one player on the other team is making the same amount of money as all the players combined on another team is just crazy to me.
I don’t claim to have the answer. I’m yet to conclude myself whether spending the money will promise championships in the long run (worked with David Beckham), but I do know it is a fascinating topic that raises many questions…
What are your thoughts? Why do you think the top spenders are already out of the race?
Team |
Total Base Salary | |
| 1 | New York Red Bulls | $9,981,939.42 |
| 2 | Seattle Sounders | $9,674,975 |
| 3 | LA Galaxy | $9,128,430 |
| 4 | Montreal Impact | $4,373,316 |
| 5 | Vancouver Whitecaps | $4,233,008.04 |
| 6 | Chicago Fire | $4,108,545 |
| 7 | FC Dallas | $4,076,343.50 |
| 8 | Toronto FC | $3,680,399.86 |
| 9 | San Jose Earthquakes | $3,605,241.50 |
| 10 | Real Salt Lake | $3,503,642 |
| 11 | Sporting Kansas City | $3,388,335 |
| 12 | Philadelphia Union | $3,322,942 |
| 13 | Houston Dynamo | $3,288,333 |
| 14 | Portland Timbers | $3,277,250.96 |
| 15 | Columbus Crew | $3,169,668 |
| 16 | D.C. United | $3,122,138 |
| 17 | New England Revolution | $3,047,932.63 |
| 18 | Colorado Rapids | $2,802,901.20 |
| 19 | Chivas USA |
Kalil Konate
Nov 19, 2013 -
One would think that the more money a team spends on its players, the better the team will perform. Right? Well, this doesn’t necessarily seem to be the case with teams in Major League Soccer. In fact, in some cases it appears to be the opposite.
To investigate this link between team salaries and performance, I looked at data for MLS teams from 2007-2011.
According ” Do Higher Team Salaries Affect MLS Success?,” written by Andy Green, compiling salary data on every player in the league and summing up each team’s salary by year. Then, he plotted these numbers against the total number of points that each team earned that year and ran regression analysis. (To account for league-wide differences in points from year to year as a result of a different number of games, he divided each team’s points by the total points possible that year. To account for league-wide differences in salary expenditure from year to year—it increases significantly over time—he divided each team’s salary by the total league salary that year.)
The results were very interesting to say the least. He looked at the entire data set, and looked at each year individually, he even tried excluding the outlier teams (usually LA and NY with their disproportionately high salaries)—and not one of these analyses came up statistically significant. This means that there is no statistical link between team salary and performance in Major League Soccer. *
In less than half of the data sets, including the set of all teams over the entire period (Exhibit A below), there was a VERY slight positive relationship between the variables. This would imply that spending more money would improve your performance. However, the regression analysis showed that these results were not statistically significant.* In the rest of the data sets, including all of the teams in 2008 (Exhibit B below), there were negative relationships between the variables. This would indicate that spending more money actually hurts your performance. Of course it is important to note that these results were not statistically significant either, but it is still a fascinating relationship. *
So why do teams spend so much money on players if they don’t improve the team’s performance? Well, it may not help the team on the pitch, but it does seem to have a significant effect on the team’s performance off the pitch—specifically, with attendance at their home games. There is a positive and statistically significant relationship between how much a team spends on players’ salaries, and how many fans attend their games. ** A plot of the salary expenditure of each team against their average home game attendance for 2007-2011 can be seen in Exhibit C below.
All of this analysis begs the question, should teams spend large amounts of money on players? Will it really help them out? Those are difficult questions to answer, as there certainly are examples of teams that defy the analysis he has done here (and would have loved to have access to salary data from before 2007). However, Andy Green, believes that that if a team is looking for a quick fix to catapult themselves to the top of the league, just throwing money at players is probably not going to cut it.
It is obvious that better quality players equal higher level of play. However, the clubs as LA, S. Sounders FC, and N.Y.R, are based on a single player which of course is one reason for their lost this season. A team has to have a complementary players not the opposite. I think that the teams that are in the semi finals deserve it ’cause they played as a team: as result, they are in the semi finals. For the upcoming season, the MLS league must give the opportunity to all the team to buy any players they want. The clubs also need to be smart in spending their money.
Itamar Keinan
Nov 22, 2013 -
Great insight Kalil, thanks for sharing!!
Kalil Konate
Dec 14, 2013 -
it’s my pleasure, keep up the good work!