November 16, 2009 THE COMMISH SPEAKS Garber on CBA, expansion, future MLS Cups, CONCACAF Champions League, Beckham
By Michael Lewis BigAppleSoccer.com Editor
MLS Commissioner Don Garber spoke out on the state of the league on Monday afternoon. Linda Cuttone/Sports Vue Images
The clock is ticking.
Major League Soccer's current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires Jan. 31, and so far there has been no meeting of the minds between the league and its players.
The impasse is not for the lack of trying. The league and players have met six times over the past six months trying to hammer out a new agreement.
"Like all leagues and unions, they have ebbs and flows, and at times they become heated," Garber said of the talks during Monday’s State of the League address. "I expect that this will be a difficult agreement to finalize, but I am very confident that we will be able to reach a productive agreement. Both we and the union are committed to that."
Garber, however, downplayed reports about players striking or work stoppages.
"Any discussion about a strike or work stoppage is totally premature. It's way too early for anyone to come to that conclusion. It's counterproductive to what has been a very mutual commitment with our union to reach an agreement that will be good for management and good for players."
With expansion wrapped up through the 2011 season -- Portland and Vancouver will bring membership to 18 -- MLS plans to stop at 20 teams. Garber said that Montreal could be the 19th team, with no city listed as a 20th possible franchise.
"Today, we believe we are going to be a 20-team league," he said. "What we think in 2020 or 2025, I can't answer and won't be around to have to address.
"This is a big country, it's the size of a continent, and along with Canada, it gets even bigger. We're covering 300-plus million [people], which is far bigger than any other country where you have the 18- or 20-team leagues in Europe or other parts of the world. We don't have promotion and relegation, so the size of the league is less relevant than a league that might have a second and third division.
"We have had productive conversations with Montreal to be our 19th team. We have not put a timetable as to when that team would enter the league if we reach agreement with them. We don't have any active discussions for the 20th team."
This could be the last year MLS Cup will be hosted by a predetermined host. Future championship games could be hosted by one of the finalists.
"There is support to strongly consider moving MLS Cup away from a designated site and into a market where the team that earns the right to host it does so," Garber said. "We obviously have a lot of logistical challenges that we are working through to figure out whether or not we can pull it off.
"Years ago it wasn't really a possibility because we didn't have enough stadiums where we could even control the dates. We also had a handful of markets where we questioned whether we would be able to get the support, and I don't believe there is any market in this country that, if they got MLS Cup, wouldn't be able to do a terrific job in a short period of time and get a very big passionate fan base. Look what Chicago did [for the Eastern Conference final] in just four days."
Outside of the league, Garber felt an MLS team must win the CONCACAF Champions League, to show the rest of the world it can play soccer.
"We need to win the Champions League," he said. "Those opportunities to compete in a global competition are important to show how far we have developed as a soccer nation, and the opportunity to do it on the pro club side is with the world club championship. We've got to win the tournament. We've won it in the past as the Champions' Cup. We need to prove that we can be among the best teams in the region, and that means beating Mexico."
But beating not just Mexico. MLS teams have struggled getting out of the group-round matches.
"It certainly means beating teams from smaller countries that don't have our resources," Garber said. "What we've got to look at, clearly it is almost a disincentive for clubs when they finish in the top four [in MLS] and they play right now in so many different tournaments and competitions. We are trying to mix that up between Champions League, SuperLiga and the U.S. Open Cup."
But if you are Houston, you are playing in a lot more games than Salt Lake is, and that's probably not fair. There are things we have to look at so we are not penalizing those clubs and be disadvantaged in the league tournament, but probably more importantly, what do we need to do to ensure that these teams make it a priority? Right now, not all of our clubs believe it is a priority."
Garber doesn't have any favorites on which teams reach MLS Cup, even ones that boast David Beckham, but he was gratified to see a big-market team such as Los Angeles reach the league's championship game.
"Obviously, it's hard to say that you prefer to have one team over another and still keep your job as commissioner," he said. "But I certainly look at what other leagues have been able to achieve when their most popular teams in their largest markets with their largest fan bases get into their championships, envious when you see the Yankees and Red Sox and the New York Giants and the Cowboys and the Lakers who seem to consistently be in their most important events.
"So it's good to have a team like L.A. with David Beckham and Landon [Donovan] and a guy like Bruce [Arena] in the championship game."
And its good to have an enthusiastic host for MLS Cup, as Seattle will be as the venue for the Galaxy and Real Salt Lake in this year's championship game Sunday. The expansion Sounders FC averaged 30,897 for 15 games, doubling almost the league average of 16,037.
"The launch of the Sounders will go down as one of the key moments in the history of this sport in this country, Garber said. "The credibility that we have, the awareness that we have of the great success in Seattle -- on the field and off the field -- gives us something that we have never had before, and is a real indication as to what this sport can be in this country.
"That team was just plain relevant. People cared about it, from the governor to the mayor to the man on the street to those people who love the game. That's what we need: We need more relevance for our teams, and we now have a great case study. . . . That was an important lesson to our clubs, particularly some of the clubs that have been around for a while and are struggling in their markets."
Many fans have been clamoring for a single table, but it won't happen for 2010.
"Not next year, no," Garber said. "And whether or not it's in the near future, we haven't gotten that far."
