Will MLS Spend more before the 2026 World Cup? | with Taylor Twellman

Its been over one year since Lionel Messi signed with Inter Miami and came to MLS. This past winter many fans including myself were disappointed with the lack of rules changes in MLS. We all know how important of a soccer year 2026 is for the US I brought on Taylor Twellman to talk about the whether MLS is capitalizing on Messi and ceasing the moment.
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[@ElondonOSRS]

Another big guest! This channel is growing like crazy! Very happy for you moves. Also teams need to spend more!

[@MLSMoves]

Thank you! Glad I could get him on!

[@mrmr5580]

I think we'll see over the next couple of summers, we'll see what other names go across to America, it's now easier to see MLS (im in the UK, I get AppleTV here) now I think it's now time to boost the Salary cap, even if they don't get to $25m (where id like to see it) raise it bit by bit, like $10m next year, $15m the year after, etc, personally I'd just like to see you guys bring in more quality, you guys have built a fun league to watch, improve it's quality and it'll benefit you long term, I know MLS is worried about going like the NASL, you wouldn't have to go nuts like that, but allow clubs to get a little closer to that $25m

[@MLSMoves]

Doing this alone would increase the quality significantly! We don’t have to spend 100m on salary’s to see a huge jump but a 15-20m sales cap would do wonders for this league

[@mrmr5580]

@MLSMoves that's why I said $25m, spending over here, even with FFP is almost limitless, we can handle that though, the Premier League tv rights are about £5.5B worldwide and they're probably going to go up again, for you guys football (soccer, as you guys call it 😆) is still relatively small by comparison but its growing, with more quality Apple's TV deal will probably go up next time around, over here I can remember Roy Keane getting over £50k a week and people thinking that was insane, nowadays for a star you're looking at about £250k minimum, im not suggesting you go to that, but a jump to even $10m-15m would help you no end...also good work getting Taylor Twellman, I'm glad, it'll help your channel grow

[@dannyangeleno]

@mrmr5580 love how our buds across the pond love to take the piss about us calling it soccer when we got the name from them (Association Football -> Soccer)

[@mrmr5580]

@dannyangeleno I'm not taking the piss, it's just your guys word for it, I'd just never call it that, we even have a show during the season on Saturdays called "Soccer Saturday"

[@dannyangeleno]

​@@mrmr5580alrighty then. Except it's not our word... it's yours

[@davidday2373]

Salute to you, getting great guests on this channel.

[@MLSMoves]

Thank you!

[@favianrenkel5486]

Big Guest after Big Guest! MLS MOVES IS BIG TIME!

[@DarvinLemus]

Explain the fact that San Diego is going to be paying Chuky Lozano 9 millions???!! Exactly what you were saying about expending wisely!! 🤬

[@michaelpeli2429]

Even worse would be spending 9 million for a 38 yr old defender. At that point spending multi millions on a coach/manager would probably be a better investment. I'm actually surprised mls does go all out on coaches considering it doesn't count towards the spending cap.

[@rmmvw]

MLS needs to do more in pressuring the USSF to encourage growth of the sports in the country to increase the talent pool and working with USL rather than against them. I don't believe importing a ton of foreign players is the most sustainable strategy in the long run.

[@CoachSeanUT]

Well, you've got it a little backward... USSF needs to pressure MLS to work with USL in growing the game at the youth level and lower/remove the pay for play.

[@rmmvw]

@@CoachSeanUT I'd love to think so, but that won't happen given that the USSF has been completely beholden to whatever MLS wants. If USSF grew a spine I'd say the same thing but unfortunately it's not that way.

[@MrLuvFishing]

I am extremely excited about the WCC. It should be called, "World Super Tournament". The apple broadcast quality is at 60 FPS. Nobody is doing this type of video quality for sports. As an American, I am finally happy to see some of my Conconcaf teams play Euro teams. I will pay for it, The Apple fee is extremely reasonable and cheap to get such broadcast quality

[@kelvinloyola6070]

If I were to tell everyone that Federico Redondo, one of the biggest prospects of the Argentine youth NT plays at Inter Miami and ONLY makes less than 300,000 a YEAR! What would you say? Inter paid $8M to buy him but wage wise the kid is cheaper than Diego Luna, Brian Guittierez, and some of his YOUNG Inter Miami teammates. get rid of Transfer fees to count against the cap.... Facu Torres only now makes over $1M, his first two years in MLS he made less than $1M!!!!

[@MLSMoves]

This is the way to raising the quality

[@HarveyWallbangers2]

Transfer fees don't count for U22 signings, so Redondo's transfer fee doesn't even count against the cap.

[@fit_man_cam1713]

It's absolutely NOT difficult to quantify whether the leagueis doing enough. The MLS salary cap is criminally low and is holding this league back big time.

[@joeyfosterWVU]

MLS needs to spend more! Taylor is compromised since he works for the league!

[@MLSMoves]

I think he was pretty fair in this interview. He agreed we need to spend differently atleast

[@WhoTFisGreg]

I think he made a good point when he talked about the blind test for spending. If you look at the pay role for some of these team you will see that they are spending; the roster rule are the issue. If a team is paying 15 million, 7-10 million could be going just to the DPs.

[@HarveyWallbangers2]

@@WhoTFisGreg There are very few DPs that are getting exorbitant salaries. There are only 11 teams that are paying a player even $3 million. There are 91 players making $1-3 million. The effective salary cap with the rule changes going in this summer is around $15.1 million + 3 DPs (3 U22s) OR $17.6 million + 2 DPs (4 U22s). By 2027 that would rise to $18.2 million + 3 DPs OR $20.9 million + 2 DPs. I think it should be raised, but these are the numbers negotiated with the players' union.

[@HarveyWallbangers2]

I hate to say it, but MLS doesn't bring in enough revenue for teams to pay $10m for 6 players. Most teams don't even make that much in revenue for a year. If those that supported EPL, Liga MX, or other leagues supported MLS, it wouldn't take long for MLS to challenge Ligue 1 and Eredivisie for 5th-6th best league in the world.

[@oyaml1211]

MLS doesn't make enough money to pay 6 players $10M but MLS does make enough money to pay 3 player $10M+ 😂 or.even 1 player $7+ million! Poor MLS doesn't make enough money to pay those fees! 😂

[@MLSMoves]

MLS could definitely afford 6 10m transfer fees. That was just an example… it doesn’t have to be that much but it sucks a fee dictates if a player is a DP

[@playedout148]

I don't care about "big names" like Beckham and messi. Mls needs higher salary cap to raise the floor of player pool. The playoff format needs updated as well. Not sure how but imo it takes away from having the best record.

[@HarveyWallbangers2]

Technically, Messi signed with Miami on July 15th last year and played his first game on July 21st.

[@MLSMoves]

Technically

[@Jadentheman]

By the time he comes back to Inter Miami it will have been a year

[@alflores161]

We need to tip liga mx first, then start to top conmebol.

[@rayes7331]

No, i don't think they're utilizing Messi properly but at least he bring eyeballs but at this point hes like a show pony which is unfortunate but at least him and com are making a difference in miami cuz the players have gotten better. That said hopefully the people at the top will make good decisions and capitalize on these football summers in the USA but theres still a lot for this federation to do to have football be #1 in the USA. There's a list but one thing that could be good imo would be to have all clubs of each country be under the same confederation so they can all compete with each other on the club level at least etc......

[@alexz.8302]

MLS's success for the next decade lies on how USMNT performs in the WC.

[@alvarez.l9422]

Teams need to be allowed to fail and succeed, the roster rules are way too conservative for a league that supposedly has ambition and want's to be respected in the world stage.

[@Coolwhip899]

Time for mls to take off the training wheels!!!

[@ronridenour243]

We need the ability for teams to have at least 3 more DPs and 3 more international spots. If that means we need to split off 15 teams into an MLS Premier with pro/rel. my thought would be to have 15 teams pay 200 million to join MLS Premier and use the 3 billion raised to add 10 million TAM for each team for 10 years.

[@MichaelWalker-wu2pq]

Such a system will confuse the hell out of average Americans considering no such system exists for the other American leagues. We just need to raise salary caps from this paltry $5 million to $15 million. It will have an immediate impact.

[@ronridenour243]

@@MichaelWalker-wu2pq if you can get MLS to pay each of the 30 teams an extra 10 mill per year for 300 million total per year then more power to you.

[@CoachSeanUT]

I'm not so sure Apple is going to help them as much... Americans are turning away from Apple products. With the American economy sagging people want free viewership more

[@TheWarriTiger.]

MLS will never compete with the EPL or Europe and South America

[@MichaelWalker-wu2pq]

Never is something we'll never see. As mere mortals, we have no idea how MLS will look 100 years from now.

[@USC9210]

Guys: many Americans can't afford Apple TV+ or refuse to subscribe to the Jobs/Cook business model of overcharging for their product. What good is being in 100 other countries if the penetration in America is miniscule? How are you going to grow the diversity of the sport if the communities most in need to be exposed to soccer (urbanites, new arrivals) are priced out?

[@HarveyWallbangers2]

Season Pass is awesome. I'm a Sounders fan living outside of Washington. I used to watch a handful of games/year. Now, I watch that every weekend. I can watch anytime, anywhere. $99/year for 600+ games is a great deal compared to other US sports leagues.

[@MichaelWalker-wu2pq]

Season Pass is great. Some of the games are free to watch. They're usually advertised well ahead of the game. Out of all the other season passes for the other leagues, NONE are as generous as MLS. NBA and MLB both have blackouts for your local teams despite charging so much money for a year subscription.

[@1donjuego]

Crazy. The two worst TV commentators in American soccer: Alexi Lalas and Taylor Twellman. In the case of TT he was really good when he first left the field for the commentary booth. But Taylor like Lalas got ESPN'd. Their view went from that of a sportsman to carnival barker -- to WWF promoter. Twellman's most significant moment as a commentator "What are we doing?" was proven stupid -- but no one cares or remembers. Guy -- you have a choice before you. Be another vapid stupid soccer channel spoon feeding whatever makes people feel good -- or try to add real value to the discussion around American soccer. You are doing the former with TT and Lalas. I've liked some of your stuff, but this recent stuff is empty.

[@brijean5865]

MLS won't even be a top 10 league.

[@MLSMoves]

Not at this rate

[@brando7266]

Within a decade it will, alot of money coming in,

[@MichaelWalker-wu2pq]

If they don't seriously raise the salary cap then I agree with you. These rosters are not international completion level. They need to go to at least $15 million salary caps.

[@brando7266]

@@MichaelWalker-wu2pq they r headed that way,