Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber delivered his annual State of the League address on Tuesday, utilizing a new format featuring questions from a roundtable of reporters and broadcasters from MLS broadcast partners in New York City.
Garber addressed a wide-range of topics – many that could be relevant to Vancouver Whitecaps FC.
See below for a summary or watch the full-length video above.
On “Decision Day:”
“We want to have one weekend at the end of the year where we’re going to have all of our competition focused on what the best matchups are during that period of time in that last weekend. We want all of those games to potentially take place at the same time, which is what they do in the World Cup. If we can’t do it all at the same time, we want to have at least the games within the same conference at the same time. Our marketing guys are going to market it as Decision Day.”
On flex scheduling:
“Why do we have certain games on at the end of the year, that are scheduled at the beginning of the year, that aren’t as compelling from a national perspective? We’re looking at ways that we can have the second to last weekend be a flex scheduling weekend, like the NFL just announced. We’re working on ways that we could have those games perhaps moved around from our Univision Friday night schedule to our FOX and ESPN Sunday schedule so that we have a compelling story to be able to talk about.”
On the status of any talks surrounding a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA):
“We’ve started discussions, they’ve been formal. There have been a number of meetings with the league management and then leadership of the players’ union, including some players. This process now is just the beginning stages. Every league goes through it. We went through it five years ago and the agreement prior to that. It’s sort of talking about what our respective priorities are and that’s where we are at this moment. There will likely be another meeting in December and then we’ll get down to the negotiations in earnest and I’m confident that we’ll be able to reach an agreement that will be good for the league and good for the players.”
On the potential of a work stoppage:
“At this point, I don’t think they or we are thinking about a work stoppage. You never go into a negotiation thinking, ‘We have this date and if that date doesn’t get hit, it’s Armageddon.’ You go into these discussions with an open mind and a desire to reach an agreement … you’ve got to just be, smart, focused, and recognize that we’re all in this together to grow the game.”
On how many teams MLS can sustain (with two expansion teams on the way in 2015):
“Clearly, we’ve had this goal of being 24 teams by the end of the decade. We will be 24 teams before the end of the decade. I don’t know the answer to [whether or not we need to go beyond 24] … we don’t have all the answers about what our future will look like. We’ve had presentations from four different ownership groups: two from Minneapolis, one from Sacramento, and one from Las Vegas. We know that LA is going to be coming in 2017. We’re not quite sure yet what’s happening in Miami. We need to make some decisions and come out of that board meeting with a point of view on timing. Our goal is to be able to put a stake in the ground on when the next team or next two teams are coming in. Then we need to determine how many more teams can come in after that.”
On potentially expanding the number of playoff teams:
“We are looking at that, but we have not made that decision. That decision won’t be made until our ownership has an opportunity to evaluate that. That will happen Saturday during our meetings. What’s compelling about that idea is that today you have three teams that are basically guaranteed a playoff spot. Today, what we’re looking at, is that if we go to those 12 playoff teams, that would go down to two. So while there would be more teams in the playoffs, a higher percentage than we have today, we believe once we have 24 teams that it makes more sense, rather than constantly changing it, to change it now, which is what the league will recommend. Keep that for as long as we have 24 teams, which will be for some time and then in essence be at that percentage of playoff qualification that exists in the NBA and NHL, which is 50 to 54 per cent.”
On Canadian players potentially being considered domestic on all teams:
“We have this rule of having American players counting as domestics in Canada because we don’t have enough Canadian players that are good enough yet to be able to allow those teams to be competitive. Our goal as a league should be, with the CSA, to change that issue. When that issue changes, we’ll be the first ones to say that rule should change as it relates to Canada. Now going back to the United States, unfortunately we can’t from a labour perspective treat a Canadian citizen different that we treat any other non-American citizen. All the other rules about border issues aside. A Canadian in the U.S. is no different than a Mexican, a Honduran, or a Brit. So we cannot do that. What we can do is find ways to address the opportunity for the Canadian player. One of the things we’re talking to Victor Montagliani about is, can we provide more opportunities in MLS to Canadians? Can we give our clubs an incentive to sign Canadian players? Could we provide them with more opportunities to train and develop? Those are the things we’re talking about.”
On whether the away goals will continue to be used in the playoffs:
“Yes. If you’re a Seattle fan, you may not have liked the away goal rule when you lost out to LA but you really liked it when you were playing Dallas. We believe that rules can help games become more competitive. Also, we’re trying to attract the large soccer market that we only have a portion of. I might get that a baseball fan doesn't understand why Seattle won the second leg but isn’t going to be playing in the MLS Cup, but there’s no soccer fan in our countries that doesn't understand that. So for now, it is going to be a part of our rules.”
On whether or not there will be updates to the Designated Player rule:
“There’s nothing coming down the pipe where all of a sudden there will be a dramatic change. We’ve been able to evolve how we attract players to our league and how we accommodate them on our rosters in a way that our clubs can be competitive with each other … We continually need to be committed to this idea that on any given day, any club can win if they’re smart. We’ve got to evolve this system so that we can continue to attract an-ever growing knowledgeable fan in these two countries, at the same time not putting ourselves in a situation where fans don’t believe their team is both committed to and has the opportunity to win the championship.”
On becoming more transparent with league mechanisms like allocation money:
“We recognize that things aren’t as easy for people to understand as they need to be. We look at the Jermaine Jones situation. We had a mechanism, the only mechanism that we could have put in place, to have Jermaine Jones signed in MLS. There was no other way to do it based on the rules that we have, but the public doesn’t understand our rules and most of the media don’t either. As I did say in 2014, transparency is a priority. Transparency is a big priority in 2015 … all of those mechanisms will be shared with the public after we’ve come up with a way to organize it in buckets so people can understand it. Whether that’s allocation, priority order, all of that stuff the hardcore fan is trying to figure out today, you have a commitment from me that at least a heck a lot more of it will be more transparent than it is today.”
On whether or not there will ever be promotion and relegation in MLS:
"Ever is a long time, because I don't know what will happen after they kick me out of here. It's not happening any time soon."
