MLS Fan Central

The juice: The league’s board of governors has proposed raising each club’s salary budget to $2.3 million, an increase of 4 percent, according to SportsBusiness Journal.

The judge: At first glance, MLS fans are bound to be angered and confused. After such a great year on the league's bottom line, with clubs seeing substantial increases in average attendance and increased interest in the league abroad, one would think that the increase would be a little more than a mere 4%. However, the proposal makes business sense, and thats what the league should be after.

Previous leagues have failed because they were too aggressive with salary caps, and the MLS knows this. Their insistence for history to not repeat itself is what is allowing the league to continue to move forward. This proposal is consistent with the league's growth policy: slow and steady wins the race, careful and articulated matches the pace. The increase has very little actual impact on anything significant, but it is careful business decisions like this that will give the league much more room to work in future years when they are ready to really expand.

There are arguments that the MLS is being shrewed in increasing the cap to improve their stance against clubs and the union in discussions about future labor agreements, but I do not believe this to be the case. Labor agreements are going to deal with specific things like free agency, minimum salaries, and retirement and health benefits. Dangling a raised cap in front of the labor union isn't going to count for much, since it is such a broad number and it doesn't deal directly with the specifics of labor issues. Besides, many owners are operating way below the limit, which means to them this increase is meaningless.

Final thoughts: This isn't the first place I've seen a 4% increase, because my college tuition is raised by this much every year. The number is closely correlated with the rate of inflation, meaning this news isn't really as significant as we all make it out to be. The MLS appears to just be keeping up with the times, and anyone looking too far into it is only asking to stir up troublesome rumors about the league and their labor agreements.