Besides another convoluted way for MLS to control how clubs spend their money?
TAM is an investment of money into the salary budget of MLS designed to be targeted to a specific type of player. This is not money Nathan Sturgis is likely to see. No, it’s a set amount designated for players that in the past would have been lower priced DPs – i.e. guys making more than the maximum ($457,500) but less than $1,500,000.
In practice these will be European players that have some name recognition, but aren’t attention grabbers like, say, Jermain Defoe.
Before we get into the pros and cons further, let’s take look at MLS’ wording:
“Each MLS club will receive an additional $800,000 in Targeted Allocation Money for the 2016 season and an additional $800,000 for the 2017 season. Targeted Allocation Money is used by clubs to add depth to their rosters by strategically investing in players that make more than the 2016 maximum budget charge of $457,500 (but who are not Designated Players). Unlike the Designated Player initiative, all MLS clubs are provided an equal amount of funding…
“In addition to the increase in Targeted Allocation Money, an incremental $125,000 per season will be made available to each club to sign Homegrown Players…
“Additional terms of the increase in Targeted Allocation Money include:
· Clubs may use a portion of or all of the available Targeted Allocation Money to convert a Designated Player to a non-Designated Player by buying down his salary budget charge to at or below the maximum salary budget charge. If converted during the Secondary Transfer Window, the Designated Player may earn at maximum $1.5 million on a prorated basis. If Targeted Allocation Money is used to free up a Designated Player slot, the club must simultaneously sign a new Designated Player at an investment equal to or greater than the player he is replacing.
· Clubs retain the flexibility to convert players bought down with Targeted Allocation Money into Designated Players if they have a free Designated Player slot.
· Targeted Allocation Money and general Allocation Money may not be used in combination when signing or re-signing a player, or when buying down the budget charge of a Designated Player. Either Targeted Allocation Money or general Allocation Money may be used on a player in a single season, not both.
· A Player must earn more than $457,500 per year (2016 maximum budget charge) to qualify for Targeted Allocation Money. The compensation ceiling for such players is set at $1,000,000 per year, unless amounts are applied midseason to an existing Designated Player adjustment to Targeted Allocation. The minimum budget charge for a player compensated with Targeted Allocation Money is $150,000.”
Got all that? Don’t worry, no one else does either and even if you do they’ll likely tweak the rule without telling us anyway.
The bottom line is that there is additional money that can be used by each team. It’s also money that isn’t coming out of owners pockets (directly, anyway) so cheap teams like Colorado have no reason not to spend it. That’s a big part of this. MLS wants more star power in markets that are too cheap to keep up with the high spending teams and this was a way to do it without expecting a change in behaviour.
It’s also a way to level the playing field even more. Since every team has the same amount of the money, no team can eat all the candy. MLS does love its forced parity.
In many ways it punishes teams already with expensive DPs. TFC can’t use it as effectively as a team coming in fresh, since its DPs make too much money to buy down.
That said, you can use the money to overpay middling European talent from the Big 5 leagues. So, if you’re an agent representing Ligue 1 players it’s spelled V-A-N-N-E-Y.
I’m going to go ahead and coin the term “Jordan Morris Rule” to describe the extra $150,000 available for academy signings right now.
The sensible question here is why not just add $800,000 to the cap?
Because you can’t market a team full of guys making $200,000. That team could, however, kick the ass of the majority of Marketing Soccer League sides.