A sound business plan. Quality of play should be the focus for a while now. As much as I want to I still can hardly watch a full match between most teams.

New MLS owners should have to show they could afford to pay at least 5-6 mil a year on salaries. This should allow a player to buy a house and food. Seems like the right thing to do, no?

Although the EPL has only been around officially for 16 years they had established leagues for over a hundred years. This has to be kept in mind. I do like what the MLS are doing and they continue like this, 50 years from now it'll be a heck of a league.

"...a highest-ever average player salary of $115,000..."

That works out to, like, one guy getting $2,000,000, and 19 guys getting $16,000 per team, right?

Basically, Becks has skewed that number.

England also doesn't have the NFL, MLB, the NBA, NASCAR, the NHL, and college football and basketball all to compete with.

As long as MLS takes a slow steady approach and keeps quality ownership as a priority then they will be fine. If they get antsy and the owners want to start spending way more than they can make then they will be in trouble.

There have been any number of start-up leagues in the US that have said they will take the slow & steady approach; the MLS seems to be the only one that's been able to stick to it.

Also, building soccer-specific stadiums is a must. 15,000 people in a 16,000 seat stadium looks like a sellout. 20,000 people in a 70,000 seat football stadium with yardline markings looks like a team that nobody cares about.

With that said, they need to stop throwing money at guys like Beckham and worry more about developing the talent in the US.

The MLS is going in the right direction.. It really needs to up the salarie though for young talented Americans to stay in the league and not go to Europe. $17,000 a year salary is an embarassing salary for a suppose professional player... I mean some college players opt out to go the USL becuase they will get a better salary there. Something has to be done.

Here is a perfect example, they probabley offered him $17,000 salary: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/soccer/03/28/fire.cervi.ap/index.htm l

Here is the headline: "Fire lose Cervi after goalie decides not to sign"

MSFC3221-

Exactly.

does this mean after they hit 20 they stop expanding and do what I've been hoping they do for a long time and buy the USL's that way they have a built in relegation/promotion league.

If they indeed do that, they should run the relegation like Mexico and have minimun of three years in the league and then average out their finishes before they boot them.

It's funny how all the articles of the MLS in general have pictures of David Beckham next to them...

You guys all brought up really great points. Cervi didnt sign? THats a disapointment. Yes, the DP has great advantages, but you gotta thing the pay difference leaves a little bit of resentment in the locker room, dont you think? DPs (especially Cuauhtemoc Blanco and Beckham, bring in lots of money for the teams that they can then give to the players. Most teams can afford bigger paychecks but they're saying $$$ in case they want a DP.

That might be another reason as to why more younger players head over to Europe. Not only is the chances of having a better career better, but so is the pay. Significantly.

I think we need to both develop talent over time, but to get attention now stars need to be brought over so fans can be born who will reckognize up and coming stars.

It's true the Premier League is really like a 70 year old league, as it used to be part of the Football League. So saying it's 16 years old is a little decieveing. But they gained money through stars and marketing and television contracts. MLS needs money, needs more DP slots, so eventually we can be mostly "self sustaining" in well known home grown talent in the future.

Wages can increase as will popularity, etc. etc., but we need time. All these American sportscaster are already hittin low blows on MLS saying no one cares about soccer and stuff. They need to **** if we want some popularity.

Ya, I'm sick and tired of these media pricks on ESPN or on sports talk radio talking crap about soccer. I could give a rats ass about NBA until playoffs start, I don't like Tennis, Golf isn't a sport, and MLB is BORING yet all these sports get a ton of positive attention.

These media folks need to respect the game of soccer as well as soccers fans and cut the negativity out.

Frigg'n morons. Would love to get them out on the field and obliterate them in a game.

"I could give a rats ass about NBA until playoffs start, I don't like Tennis, Golf isn't a sport, and MLB is BORING yet all these sports get a ton of positive attention. "

Hahaha, you sound like one of those media pricks on ESPN talking about soccer.

I'm finding that the over/under on the number of comments published before discussion on T&R Soccer degenerates into semi-literate, tangential irrelevancies is about "9". To GET BACK TO THE ORIGINAL OBSERVATION-- Mr. Gazidis may not have said anything about a "model" as the headline suggests. As an experienced business professional, he wouldn't use such a term loosely, because he knows that Major League Soccer's business model is vastly different from the EPL's, as well as every other established league on earth. I DO believe he said to "follow the Premier League's lead ..." (sic-- it should be "Premiership"), because all that really means is, he wants MLS to be like the richest, most televised, most respected league anywhere. Which is really not saying much at all. It's like admitting I want to look like George Clooney, (a point with which my wife agrees).

Relegation will never work in the US. Can you imagine the money the league would lose if a large market team got relegated? As much as I like the idea, it would never happen.

The MLS is trying not to be the NASL. Smart move. It sucks the salaries are so low, but you have to start somewhere and work your way up. I would imagine this will be fixed over the course of the next decade.

Also, Cervi didn't sign because the league wouldn't grant him the same things as the Generation Adidas players because he didn't sign before the draft. Speaking of which, they need to get rid of the single entity system... which will also probably happen soon enough.

Steady and methodical. I approve. Intelligent, prudent people are handling MLS's long-term plan.

We fans just need to have patience. Luckily, I'm young, and I'll probably live to see the MLS become one of the world's great leagues.

On the subject of relegation, Brown and others are right -- it will never happen in the MLS. American sports, unlike European football, favor parity-encouraging systems in their professional sports leagues, which indirectly works against the use and the point of a relegation system.

And I personally approve. In a lot of ways, I think it's pretty lame how European football has created leagues where a select few teams hold a monopoly over all the sport's greatest players, due to a basically unassailable financial advantage.

Sure, on one hand it creates dream teams of superstars, and that's nice and all... but on the other hand, it ultimately stagnates the overall competition, and as a result, the integrity of the sport itself, I think.

Parity encouraged by mechanisms like salary caps is definitely the way to go. With skillful management, you can still have teams that enjoy dynastic success, but that's the point... it's a result of skill. Greatness and and status of being a perennial contender isn't merely bought -- it's earned.

MLS is underpaid the avg salary should be 300k to 500k. The one who get paid 12k to 17k a year are delevopment players most player who get paid 50k or lower have to work a second job in the offseason which is a thing that not oppose to happen. the lowest salary cape for the mls in 10 years or beon should be aleast 50k. I mean soccer player dersever the best too. Is a hard,tough,and you get boos and people cursing at you too.

and yes is does sound like player are getting paid 20k and some 500k and up to make it look like it. some of it is true with the salary. The LA Galaxy are the richest team in the league and can spent alot of $.