By Ben Knight

 

And as long as I’m writing emotionally ….

A few small things are clear, seeping through the smothering silence that has long engulfed Major League Soccer’s hunt for a new collective bargaining agreement with the guys wot actually kick the ball and stuff.  The salary cap isn’t going up very far, and what ye have seen is what ye will get.

Oh, joy!

Three years into this thing up Toronto way, and you could still run the same eleven guys every week in different visiting-team shirts, and not a lot of fans would really know the difference.  And since better than half of TFC’s opponents wear all white on the road, you don’t really have to change those, either.

Sure, the Los Angeles Galaxy have big names on the roster, but David Beckham has never appeared at BMO Field, except for the 2008 all-star game.  Landon Donovan’s Toronto non-appearance for L.A. that same summer utterly crashed the local market for pink streamers – but that’s another story for another time.

The wisdom of MLS’s uber-control of the purse-strings is clear.  In the worst economic times since the 1930s, every team in the league survived and $70-million (U.S.) in expansion fees poured in.  There was a thrilling playoff race and a good upset in the cup final.

That’s more than enough for some folks.  But an serving sixteen versions of the same dish does not satisfy my appetite for all-you-can-eat buffets. 

I had naively hoped the new CBA would widen the gap a little.  I don’t want rich teams that never lose and poor teams that never win.  All I want is somewhat-richer teams which, when they lose, are clearly victims of an upset.  The playoffs are the great equalizer anyway. 

So – one more time – I’m going to argue for the one best hope for creating some spread in this artificial universe of limited competitiveness.

A second designated player – with no hit to the salary cap.

In three years, the DP rule hasn’t had a whole lot of effect on the league.  Beckham, Blanco, six games of Julian de Guzman – I over-simplify, but no DP has ever made his team clearly and presently better than the rest. 

Part of the snag is the $400,000 cap hit, which puts a sixth of your entire player budget in one place, in a sport where a single player hardly ever lifts a team to glory on his own. 

A second DP slot would allow each ownership group the option of investing their own money (gasp!) to create a tandem of talent that might actually make a team noticeably better.  Donovan-Beckham had a good year in L.A. last year.  TFC fans are hoping De Guzman and Dwayne de Rosario will do something similar now.

DeRo’s not a DP, of course.  But he would be in an instant if the rules allowed it.  He has a case for thinking he’s worth more money, too, what with leading the team in scoring a season ago, and being one of the finest players in MLS for years.

MLS is obviously going to maintain the guts of its present system, apparently for another three years.  But a second DP would be an intriguing operational experiment, as well.  It allows a simple, limited move away from utter parity, without trashing the status quo.  It could result in big teams that aren’t really that big, and small teams that can still kick can in the playoffs.

And it would make things more interesting.  Why not have a team fans everywhere love to hate?  L.A. hasn’t achieved it.  Neither has TFC.

It makes no difference to me – at all – which teams decide to invest in this idea.  I just want fans to look at the schedule for the upcoming season, see that Team X is coming through in August, and already start gearing up for the grudge game against the hated foe.  It simply doesn’t happen enough in this league, and three more years of “this” seems a pretty heavy burden to have to bear.

Give us something, MLS.  A little tease … a different flavour ….

Honest to mercy, y’all – how many two-scoop vanilla ice cream cones can any human being stand?

Onward!