Tim Leiweke, the head of AEG and all around bad guy, has a little message for the MLS players that would make Paulie Walnuts proud.
Are you guys sure you want to do that? Because I’d hate to, you know, see something bad happen if you know what I mean.
“When I hear them talk about striking and shutting the league down, I’ve got to tell you, they’re going to lose us when they talk like that. We do this out of passion. If this were a business, we would have quit this 10 years ago.”
Hear that? It’s the sound of a thinly veiled threat.
Leiweke is a smart guy. I met him once when he was running the L.A. Kings. Some guys in his position are smooth and silky in public, then they unleash their a-hole nature behind the scenes. Not Tim. He oozes a-hole 24/7.
He goes on to say that AEG won’t close up shop if the players strike, that they are in it for the long haul and that the MLS product isn’t fully developed yet. The fact that he comes out and says that means AEG is threatening to close up shop.
This is about money. But for the players, it’s about more than that. It’s about freedom… to make more money. And who can blame them? For the owners, this is also about money, but it’s also about maintaining this system of no movement and total player control. The players are assets, like tractors or widgets.
It’s just not a very “American” model.
The real losers in the MLS row are the guys making less than a living wage. The players have listed everyone’s salary, and it’s pretty depressing to know that I make more at my job than at least 40 MLS players. Who knew cleaning gutters was the right choice?
Leiweke has done stuff like this before. He’s a trained attack dog. But this was about as subtle as a heart attack.
The closer we get to D-Day in the MLS, the less faith I have that it will all work out. To quote another famous scoundrel, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
Ladies and Gentlemen, the NFL circa 2015.
@Phil NFL, NBA, MLB, circa 2011, owners dont want to spend more money, players want more money. We think this clash is epic, the Big 3 could all go an entire year (if not more) without playing. That is kind of why I’ve argued that the players lack perspective in regards to the growth of the game. What will the Big 3 fans do when there is nothing but MLS and NHL? If MLS survives this, they could be headed for an epic opening in the american sports scene.
Oh man, oozing a-hole; bad visual image, mate.
It’s true that some of these guys would make better money working full-time at a McDonald’s, and that’s kinda sad. Then again, they get to PLAY SOCCER instead of, you know, working.
In any case, if Tim’s so passionate about soccer, shouldn’t he be trying to come up with a compromise that would see games played this year, rather than threatening to shut the whole thing down?
@Tim: Oh, yes, these poor owners, being gutted by their players. How will they ever survive, the masters of the free market, if they are forced, the poor dears, to pay their players what the market demands? What the NFL is going for is what the MLS has, which is a step or two above indentured servanthood.
I’ve honestly never understood the American sports fans antipathy towards players in sports labor disputes. The owners make far and away more money, but still manage to curry fan support by trotting out trite cliches about greed and financial mismanagement on the part of the players.
@PR: Yes, they *get* to play soccer, but many of them also work *real* jobs, at least in MLS. And this is after they spent 3-4 years in a college program making money for their university, with naught for compensation but a scholarship.
Sorry, my last point was directed ben, not PR. Monster avatar confusion.
@phil – why can’t we just agree that most owners and most players are greedy a**holes.
Some of them oozing.
@NYK: that seems a fair compromise, but I still don’t understand why the players seem to be the ones getting shat on by the fans when these things go down. I mean, the NFL owners are essentially forcing a shutdown and the mantra is player greed, which baffles me.
Phil, I try to choose carefully when crapping on either side in the owner-vs-labor argument. Most people don’t know how much it actually costs to run an organization, and we don’t actually know who is actually being the greedy a**holes most of the time because very few leagues and owners actually open their books for our viewing.
It’s not very American for Blanco to make $3 mil either.
WSR: I’d argue that there’s only one reason for owners/leagues not to open their books – they’re raking in cash at a mind-blowing rate. No other reason to hide them. Especially with all the ways they can “creatively” shift incomes between multiple entities…
@Phil, I agree with you on the idea that owners often get support from fans on lockout/contract negotiations because they pull out the, “he earns $10mil to play FOOTBALL!!” card. For whatever reason, the player’s rep never says, “that’s true, and like a good american I believe in the free market and the market dictates my wage should be $13mil. And hey, guess what, this guy made $80mil last year putting out a 3-13 team!”
What makes it so easy, in my opinion, is that EVERY owner turns around and says, “well, we need to increase ticket prices 7% because these greedy players want to be paid their true value.” As if that ticket price increase, spread out over 60,000 seats and 81 games in MLB doesn’t churn a nice profit for the owner. Of course I wonder if speaking out like this wouldn’t get a player black-balled by his league
note: I don’t watch american football so those numbers are made up. But the point is indicative of the attitude of owners of teams in the “big 3″ in the US.
it’s also not a great time in the US to be advocating for an increase on that $10mil/year salary if you’re not a banker of course
@Whiz: Good point about the ticket prices. If I’m correctly grasping your argument, the idea is that because the fan sees the cost to his/herself for tickets as the cost of a players salary being passed on to the consumer, they hold the player as the object of scorn. All the while the owner is shouting “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” That’s very interesting.
I think we can all agree that Jerry Jones is a terrible person.
This whole strike thing has a little to do with money but EVERYTHING to do with free agency. Free agency is a non-starter for the owners because MLS is set up as a single-entity and thus is exempt from anti-trust laws. Free agency within MLS is a direct violation of what single entity stands for. Thus, it ain’t gonna happen.
The alternative is to get rid of SE all together. That ain’t gonna happen when you’ve got owners for Philly and Vancouver who just plunked down $40mm on a low-volatility investment. Wages would go through the roof, and a near-profitable entity like MLS would go deep into the red.
Ultimately, we don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors. And just so we’re clear, I’m not anti-labor. However, labor’s leadership is sorely misguided in this one. Free agency basically kills MLS and division 1 soccer in this country for a long time. In the end, the loss of MLS hurts the players more than the owners. The owners will move on because they’re multi-billionaires. The majority of players play in MLS because they cannot find similar-paying positions on other teams throughout the world.
@NYK: Well, for that happen we’d all have to agree that Jerry Jones is actually a person.
@New Dan: I see your point, but that was what I was getting at with the NFL. That type of structure is exactly what the NFL owners want.
@New Dan: And the reason players want free agency? That’s right, money. It is about the money and the ability to play market forces off of each other.
>Ladies and Gentlemen, the NFL circa 2015.
Look at the salaries… I think you mean CFL.