Gettin' blessed by Joe Biden from Space

Richard Whittall over at Pitch Invasion draws an interesting conclusion from the salary cap debate that's been going on, characterizing yours truly, among others, as American Exceptionalists:

For the former group—let’s call them MLS Exceptionalists (includes Dan Loney, Fake Sigi and Bill Archer)—MLS should be the embodiment of an exceptional American Soccer identity.
. . .
The latter group—let’s call them Northern Internationalists (prominently including but not limited to Duane Rollins and Ben Knight)—believes MLS will not maintain sustainable growth unless something is done to loosen or eliminate wage restrictions in order to attract better players and, in turn, bigger crowds.

Yeah, we the promised land, a sacred place, gettin' blessed by Joe Biden from space.



The problem for Whittall is that it's not the nicotine that kills, it's the smoke.

I think the debate is better characterized as next year's collective bargaining negotiations playing out among basement bound nerds and noble defenders of the MLS way of life. The "internationalists" in particular seem to be making whatever argument they can to get the players more money, while I'm trying to point out those demands are unrealistic in light of the current wage structure. Management vs. labor, if you will.

Regarding Bill and Dan, their arguments are nuanced enough that I'm not going to try lumping them into a stance on this issue in few sentences. I'd like to think Whitall goes much too far in attributing promotion/relegation to Ben and Duane - although hell, you never know what's going to come out of BA's mouth. And yeah, BA Duane was in fact stupidly arguing for moving to a winter schedule:

If some levels of the game moved away from playing their season over the summer would that, in turn, eventually get people used to watching the game through the winter? Down the line -- way, way, way down the line -- enough people might be willing to turn out to watch a MLS game in winter and you could finally align the league with the rest of the world (which is important not because that's how they do it in Europe. Rather because currently playing through the summer forces us to do things like play games during the Gold Cup).

At least he admitted he was stupid in the post title. For what it's worth, Sweden and Russia play the same schedule as MLS (mid-March through October/November) for the same reason - the weather. As far as I'm concerned, that consideration outweighs vanity competitions like the Gold Cup or Confederations cup any day.

Then there's this from Whittall:

But as more and more franchises enter the fray in strong markets with younger, urban football fans—Philadelphia, Montreal, Portland—the Exceptionalists may find themselves further entrenched. Watch for the debate to intensify in the years to come…

Go back and read what Nick Sakiewicz had to say to Bill. Read what Ben said about TFC's owners loving the current financial restrictions. The new owners coming into the league don't want to loosen the pursestrings. Quite frankly, it doesn't matter what young urban fans think (as though the original MLS teams had none) because they're coming to games anyway and the owners are making money. I think Division I college football is more likely to adopt a playoff scheme than MLS is to do away with single entity.

The salary cap is going to go up. Not a whole lot after this round of collective bargaining. In some instances, yeah, you need to spend money to make money, but MLS is spending plenty right now and getting heavy subsidies from Soccer United Marketing - it doesn't need to spend more. And I think "internationalists" are going to be very sad to see the single entity model continue year after year so long as it continues to provide stability to the league. This isn't the NFL where owning a team gives you a license to print money.

Finally, there's this foolishness:

The San Jose Earthquakes reveal the design for the new stadium. Don’t tell the MLS Exceptionalists, but the photo captions reads “The new stadium will bring the feel of a European soccer facility to San Jose.”

WTF is this about? MLS stadiums have had "European Flair" since Crew Stadium was compared to Leverkusen's ground. As far as I'm concerned, every new MLS stadium should be cantilevered the fuck out like it's 1975 in Sheffield.

So there you go Richard. You can be Lady Gaga, I can be T-Pain, we can be bringing on the boogie, dropping rhymes like rain.

Fake Sigi out.