From: MLINDROOS@FINABO.ABO.FI (Marcus Lindroos INF)
Subject: US Soccer Proposal (part 3 of 3)
Organization: Abo Akademi University, Finland
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 09:40:12 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.24

WHAT WOULD IT COST?
------------------

  Running a major professional soccer league is obviously going
to be a lot more expensive than anything tried before, save
possibly for the NASL. Nevertheless, it will be a bargain
compared to other sports as far as expenses are concerned.
  A rough outline of what sources the average pro soccer team
would expect to get the money from-

-NATIONAL and CABLE TELEVISION will be counted on to supply some
2-3 million dollars annually. These are not very large sums
compared with the kind of money each pro football ($21 million),
baseball($14 million) and pro basketball ($8 million) team is
receiving. In all the soccer league is asking for 1/5 or about
$45 million of the sum the cheapest established sport
(basketball) is pulling down. By contrast, ABC alone paid the
World League of American Football (very much a minor league) some
$40 million - shared by ten teams.
---
The best bet for a national TV contract appears to be ABC, the
company that is going to broadcast the World Cup nationally.
Soccer should try to get one regular season game per month on
national television (perhaps more in March and April, before the
baseball season starts), plus both semifinal games and the league
championship game (perhaps the NASL's "Soccer Bowl" could be
revived?) in September/October. ESPN, the sports cable network
owned by ABC, will be counted on to show at least one regular
season game on weekends, plus a "soccer highlights" summary of
all games played that week.
---
The "experts" claim that any league without a lucrative TV
contract is doomed. They are right. Perhaps after ten years, when
most of the pro teams have solid fan support in the 20,000 range,
local television and pay-per-view deaks will be sufficient to
keep the league afloat even if there is no national coverage of
the sport. But the cost of building am entire league almost from
scratch and the relatively small crowds that will attend the
games in the first few years means that the pro league MUST get
as much money from TV as possible. The league might even be
forced to change some rules (i.e., dropping the current 2*45min-
format for pro football's 4-quarters-of-15-minutes format) in
order to create breaks for TV to insert commercials. Not a
popular move among soccer purists, but the alternative might well
be no pro soccer at all.    

-LOCAL TV & RADIO accounts for an additional $1 million, perhaps
more. Almost all North American sports teams have local cable TV
companies show away games on television to the fans back home.

-ATTENDANCE? Assuming the average team attracts NASL-size crowds
of 12,000 about twenty times (preseason+regular season+playoff
games) and the average ticket costs $15 (halfway between
baseball's $11 and the other sports' $20-$30)), revenue from the
turnstiles brings in $3 - $3.5 million a year. This sounds
reasonable enough and might even represent and underestimate of
soccer's appeal. The seventeen markets we have chosen have an
all-time NASL average of 13,500 but this includes the "dark
years" from 1969 to about 1973 when the league did not even
pretend to be a major league operation.  It is interesting to
note that the clubs get almost as much from TV as they are
getting from ticket sales!

-CONCESSIONS, assuming the club owns the stadium, brings in about
$2 million. In any case the local community will be counted upon
to offer some modest financial support as sports franchises
create lots of jobs, both directly and indirectly (for local
hotels, restaurants etc.). For this reason, most cities try to
prevent their local sports teams from moving.

-LICENSING from jerseys, sweaters, umbrellas, baseball caps etc.
could be a lucrative business if the marketing and product are
good. Baseball gets about $9 million from this, soccer should
begin by aiming for $2 million.

-SPONSORSHIP DEALS: Unlike European soccer, pro sports teams in
America are not allowed to display the names or logos of their
sponsors - even if that company owns the franchise. This makes
sense from an estethical point of view, but financial realities
might well force the US league to follow the example of its
European and South American brothers. In Europe, a good
sponsorship deal can bring a major soccer club an additional $2 -
$3 million annually. If the sponsor owns the team as well (the
preferred option in Alan Rothenberg's plan), the sum of money
will of course have to be much higher. Corporate ownership does
have some advantages (especially when launching a new sports
league), but it is important to keep commercialism in check. For
example, naming soccer teams after their sponsors should be
avoided at all costs. The Italian basketball league is currently
the only major sports league in the world which allows this.
Consequently, there are teams like Benetton (clothes
manufacturer) Treviso, Knorr (food products) Bologna, Il
Messagero (Newspaper syndicate) Rome, Philips (home electronics)
Milan . . . Not only does it sound like all Italian basketball
players are employees by big business rather than exciting sports
profiles in their own right, most teams change names several
times during their existence. Since 1986, the Milan-based team
has been known as Tracer, Simac and Philips because of new
sponsorship deals. This can only confuse the public and does not
make it easy to market products wearing the logo of the team. 
---
All in all, we might expect an annual income of some $14
million - 20% of baseball's total. Then again, the average soccer 
team will have fewer expenses than MLB clubs - who pay the
players on the team some $25 annually. Important costs include:

-TRAVEL. Not much of a problem for soccer as there will only be
perhaps 17 away games per regular season and because of the
comparatively small number of players on a soccer team (13-16).
That translates into 250 air tickets, while baseball's average is
700 (=26 road trips * 27 players), pro football consumes about
400 tickets (=8 * 47) and pro basketball needs about 500 (41 *
12). This estimate does not include team officials, coaches and
others who accompany the players on road trips. Unlike football
and hockey, there is no need to haul around truckloads of heavy
equipment either. The resulting price tag of perhaps $50,000
annually is a major problem for a minor league operation such as
the APSL, but any major pro league troubled by minor expenses
like these is in serious trouble.    

-PLAYER SALARIES, with 18 full-time professionals on the team,
account for some $3 million - translating into an average salary
of $160,000. This is only about half of what NHL players
(currently the lowest paid athletes in pro sports) are getting
for their efforts, but still represents 50% more than the best-
paid players of the defunct MSL were pulling down. These numbers
are inflated somewhat by the four "established" foreign-born star
names who might get annual average salaries of perhaps twice the
league amount. The best American players, like John Harkes, Eric
Wynalda and Roy Wegerle, will get around $200,000 or the kind of
money paid by their current European employees. In all, the
salaries will be quite competitive especially as income taxes are
much lower in the States and there is no reason why several
foreign star players shouldn't want to play stateside if the
league is good. Incidentally, the world's best soccer players
receive far less money than their baseball and basketball
counterparts! Soccer's best paid player last year was Real
Madrid's Yugoslavian star Robert Prosinecki at $2.5 million -
excluding bonuses and endorsement contracts. Sharply rising
salaries in Italy almost certainly means there are better paid
players than Prosinecki today, however.

-Paying TRANSFER FEES to foreign clubs for the stars we buy is a
necessary evil that can be minimized by carefully choosing the
players to sign. Hiring players on loan from Italy, England,
Germany and Spain (but for the ENTIRE season only!) is one
possibility. Because of the huge expenses that every team will
have to cope with during the first few years, the teams will have
to keep a close eye on their wallets. The average team should
begin by signing mostly local, promising players and four
modestly well-known priced foreign veterans. Every year there are
countless "bargain buys" available including these transfers that
took place the past season:

+Andy BREHME. A 1986 and 1990 World Cup veteran, the legendary
German left back moved from Italian giants Inter Milan to Real
Zaragoza of Spain for a paltry $350,000 this summer. A bargain
for a player who, even at 32, still is a regular on the German
national team. Voted one of the world's seven best by WORLD
SOCCER in 1990.

+Sergio GOYCOCHEA. The Argentina international goalkeeper was the
main reason why Maradona & co. managed to qualify for the finals
of the 1990 World Cup. His spectacular saves against Italy and
Yugoslavia provided some of the few exciting moments in the
finals tournament. Transferred to Brest of France for $400,000
and returned to Argentina this summer. Not much for a 29-year-old
top-class goalkeeper.

+Carlos VALDERRAMA (midfield, 30 years) and Rene HIGUITA (goal,
26 years). Both from Colombia. Valderrama was the 1987 South
American player of the year but failed to settle with Valladolid
of the Spanish league, despite possessing excellent technique and
organisational ability. His last transfer was $500,000 - a
ridiculous sum for one of the game's most colorful profiles.
Known as the "South American (Dutch star Ruud) Gullit" because of
his Bob Marley hairstyle. Rene Higuita returned home to Colombia
with Valderrama from Valladolid, his flamboyant sorties in
midfield not being suited for the Spanish game. The transfer fee
was a modest $400,000. Another underappreciated World Cup'90 star
who might make a wonderful marquee name in America. 

+Dariusz "Jackie" DZIEKANOWSKI (midfield, 30 years). Perhaps the
most technically gifted of all Polish players, "Jackie" had a
fallout with  Glasgow Celtic management and was transferred to
lowly Bristol City of the English 2nd Division in January 1991
for a paltry 400,000 dollars. Has been a huge hit there and is
still playing occasionally for Poland. A veteran international
with more than sixty international games under his belt.
---
Marquee names? The NASL was hell-bent on assembling teams of big
stars in the twilight of their careers and why not? Real
superstars are significant contributors even in their 30s, and
Pele, Beckenbauer, Cruyff, England, Best, Ball, Chinaglia etc.
were sound investments as major European clubs dislike signing
older players because the European game is physically demanding
due to the huge number of games played. Players who will be
thirtysomething in 1995 include Maradona, Holland's star trio of
Ruud Gullit, Marco Van Basten and Frank Rijkaard, Italian stars
Walter Zenga and Franco Baresi, Brazilian veteran Careca, German
legends Brehme, Rudi Voller, Jurgen Klinsmann and Lothar
Matthaus, French superstar Jean-Pierre Papin, England's Chris
Waddle, Bryan Robson, Gary Lineker and Peter Beardsley . . . All
well-respected and well-known players among soccer fans around
the world. Chances are that their current teams are prepared to
release them outright for a modest fee by the time the new North
American league is a reality. Lineker only cost Grampus Eight of
Nagoya $1.5 million, and Beardsley and Waddle moved to new teams
for similar sums this year.
---
As American players improve, persuading the ever-growing
contingent of players under contract with European pro teams will
not be as easy as it once was. Most of the players can still be
bought for relatively insignificant sums of money. Five players
are an exception, though. Goalie Kasey Keller (Millwall,
England), midfielders John Harkes (Sheffield Wednesday, England)
and Tab Ramos (Real Betis, Spain) and forward Eric Wynalda (a
scoring sensation with Saarbrucken of the German league) are
generally regarded as four of the more promising young players on
the continent and their value on the transfer market has risen
accordingly. Stupidly, the United States Soccer Federation chose
to release the players outright rather than retain their rights
while borrowing them to foreign clubs. The fifth player, striker
Roy Wegerle, cost Blackburn of the English Premier League almost
$2 million a year ago although his value probably has gone down
somewhat. Yet these five Americans are more important to the
league than any foreigner and must be bought back. 

       
Newsgroups: rec.sport.soccer