Am I the only one amused by Clark acting like HE was the one that was there in the beginning. It’s the LAMAR HUNT trophy, Clark, you were just along for the ride. I appreciate what you’re doing now, but don’t play the sob story over a decision you had about pissall to do with.

Clark has played a pretty siginificant role in the whole thing from the get go, along with Lamar.

I think if the players strike, maybe, maybe a third of the players strike. The fireign guys and the cheap players won’t participate in a strike.

He’s an owner. I’m sure he learned plenty from his dad. Plus he was a player. That’s important because it let’s us know he respects the game. Don’t discount his comments just because he’s not his dad. That’s silly James.

James, to answer your question:

You are the only one! ;- )

(just teasing you).

This strike threat is getting to be annoying.

(Below is what I posted–more or less–to the blog linked above).

If I were 18-22 years old, I would give my eye tooth to play professional soccer for a living, no matter what the salary is! The fame, the ability to play international teams, to play on TV, etc. is alone worth the lower pay compared to other pro sports. The players union are completely unrealistic here from a standpoint of pure economics.

There is plenty of time for these kids to take night school, work in the off-season, etc. There is no reason to cry boo-hoo for the players, most of whom are making over $90k as a median.

If the owners were making profit hand-over-fist, everything would be different, but the league is still in the red as it is being established. So here is my ultimate analysis (for what it might be worth):

(1) If the players are shadow-boxing here to lay-out the foundation for financial conditions in the future (as in “we backed down in 2010, do not forget that!’), then I applaud this brinksmanship as a shrewd political move. However…

(2) If the players actually DO strike, then they are clearly acting in bad faith given the economic reality of MLS. Given it that this IS also a World Cup year, they are ultimately causing US Soccer a lot of damage with this little charade, and I would be 100% against them for that reason alone, not to mention the fact that until the quality of their play attracts more fans and more revenue, they are not WORTH more income!

This is not a moral issue of what conditions they “ought” to play in, but rather the reality of the sport in the USA, where curling is still more popular than the beautiful game.

^^^it pains me to type that last sentence, but this is the reality of it…the players need to understand this, instead of pretending they work for the Yankees and thus should be free agents.

Each player works for the same company….MLS. There are not 16 separate companies involved. Everyone is contracted with a single entity.

On the purely selfish side of the fence, I will be pissed if the season is canceled because of a strike, and I will not pay to watch a pick-up game of amateurs. I can only hope that the number of players willing to go through with a strike is too low to stop the season, as some have suggested…

Anyone else wondering if the STH party on Saturday will contain any player (or owner) propaganda? My guess is no, but things could be a bit more tense.

As a reletive newcomer (this will be my 2nd season) to the US version of the greatest sport of them all this whole thing is a really interesting case study and not something that i’ve ever heard of happening in any other football league in the world. While i’m very sympathetic to the players, particularly around the issue of free agency, where they’re royally shafted compared to almost ever other pro soccer player elsewhere in the world, from everything i’ve read over the last three months it boils down to one simple point: The league loses money every year, has done for every year of it’s existence and will continue to do so for the near to medium term future therefore I can’t see how the players union can genuinely expect for MLS to change the one rule that goes furthest towards ensuring it’s continuing survival, the single entity/no free agency piece. It won’t happen, and I don’t think it should happen yet. Absolutely it should do at some point, when the league hits profitability of a certain threshold, but right now a change like this could tip the league down the slippery slope of further financial instability which finishes with it ending up in the same place as the old NASL and every other US pro soccer league of the past.
A strike now will benefit no one

English James, this is pretty much exactly my thought on the matter.

Hopefully this is all just posturing by both sides as the deadline approaches, but from everything I’ve seen (Buzz’s summary was the best thing I’ve seen written) this would be a fruitless strike for the players and the awful timing. But trying to figure out how/why the players might do something like this:
- These guys have a competitive nature (or at least we hope they do!). Sometimes the juices just get flowing. Think how many times you see players perform a stupid foul in the heat of the game.
- There is now the sense that the league is here to stay, so some may think a strike is possible.
- Few people believe the owners of any sports team when they talk about how much money they are making or losing. There is a lot of creative accounting around sports. This is because agents try to figure out how much money the owner is making because it tells them how much money they can try to get. This is not as true for soccer as basketball, etc. but it is becoming more so.
- A player’s career is short. Gotta get the money while you can…

People do stupid things all the time (except me, of course) and they almost always have good reasons why they do the stupid things they do. This is just a possible list of player’s rationalizations. Hopefully they don’t walk off the cliff…

Player salary is not even the issue that is driving these players to strike. They want basic rights that everyone else has in the sports industry.. Even the WNBA has better rights than MLS players. Personally I do not think what they are asking for is over the top..

The owners are playing hard ball because they can. The reason a strike will not work is because Sportscenter will not run this everyday and make it there main story if they strike like they would if baseball or football would.