3515_garberkraft_isi_mlsmj120714122 Michael Janosz/isiphotos.com
3.5.15

ASN Morning Read: Losers, Winners, and Play Ball

The labor issues are over as management and the players agree to a new five-year CBA with only a couple days to spare. The season will start. Is everyone happy? Of course not.
BY Noah Davis Posted
March 05, 2015
7:34 AM
  • Deal done: "According to a source with direct knowledge of the deal, the new collective bargaining agreement is a five-year deal that creates free agency for players 28 years of age or older, with at least eight years experience. According to that source, a players' raise through free agency is capped depending on salary. Players who are making less than $100,000 can make up to 125-percent of their salary, players making between $100,000-$200,000 can make up to 120-percent, and those making more than $200,000 have a cap of up to 115 percent of their current base. In addition, the new CBA includes a minimum salary of $60,000, a substantial step up from the 2014 minimum of $36,500."

  • More simply:
  • Some groups are already feeling regret: "The new collective bargaining agreement hammered out here tonight after several tense days of negotiations between Major League Soccer and the union that represents its players left many of the players unhappy with the terms of the deal and livid with union management."

  • More simply:
  • Bye bye Bob Foose: “We had a bottom line of what we would strike at. We continued to make concessions without seeing their hand,” the player said. “Then after the last talks, our own union president and the mediator, who is supposed to be a middleman, is telling us not to strike.”

  • Three more thoughts:
  • Meanwhile, the United States women's team got two goals from Carli Lloyd to defeat Norway in the opening match of the 2015 Algarve Cup. That's a strong win for the Americans who controlled most of the match against a strong Scandinavian side.

  • "As the summer of 1995 came to a close, Luis Orozco, a Colombian-born student living in Akron, Ohio, popped a letter in the mail that was bound for his local newspaper. He was overcome by two emotions: pessimism and intrigue. The latter of the two was fueled by Orozco’s love of football, which, to his delight, was welcoming a yet-to-be-named professional team to his area, set for a place in the newly formed Major League Soccer league. The pessimism: that came from Orozco’s belief that his suggestion for the Columbus slot’s name, contained in the letter that was now on its way to the Columbus Dispatch, may not be chosen, thanks to a wave of competition." And begins a fun story about how the Columbus Crew came to be named.

  • But of course:
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