MLS, players agree to free agency and raises in new CBA

UPDATE: A few more details of what's in the CBA were released Wednesday morning. In the afternoon, Union player reps Brian Carroll and Danny Cruz spoke with reporters on a conference call. Click here to read a transcript of their remarps.

Major League Soccer and the MLS Players Union came the closest they ever have to the league's first ever work stoppage in its 20-year history. But on Wednesday night - just over 48 hours before the season's first game - the two sides agreed to a deal.

"We are pleased to finalize the framework for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement with our players," MLS commissioner Don Garber said in a joint statement with the union that was posted on the league's website. "This agreement will provide a platform for our players, ownership and management to work together to help build Major League Soccer into one of the great soccer leagues in the world."

MLSPU executive director Bob Foose said his menbership is "pleased to finally turn our fans' attention back to our players and the competition on the field as we get started on the 2015 season."

Statements also came from representatives of the Philadelphia Union at various levels.

"We are very happy for our great fans, and had confidence in the strength of the relationship between MLS players and our ownership that a positive outcome in the CBA negotiations would occur - and it has," CEO Nick Sakiewicz said. "We applaud the leadership of both commissioner Garber and the Labor Committee members as well as the MLSPU for coming to a timely resolution in a professional and respectful manner."

Veteran midfielder Brian Carroll, one of the team's two player reps along with midfielder Danny Cruz, said that they were both "proud of the work that was accomplished today by the Major League Soccer Players Union."

Carroll added that he and Cruz "are extremely thankful for the fans continued support throughout this entire process," and "look forward to a successful season and the growth of soccer in this country."

The deal includes free agency within MLS' single-entity structure for the first time ever, as well as a significant raise in the minimum salary.

"They've got more movement than they've had before, more than we probably thought we would provide when this league was launched," Garber said in an interview on ESPN's SportsCenter late Wednesday night. "They'll be making more money and will have more benefits, and our owners will have stability and a system that will allow them to invest very smartly and strategically."

Many MLS owners - at whose pleasure Garber serves, let's remember - have stood vehemently for years against allowing free agency in the league. The commissioner saluted the players' historic victory.

"It gives players the opportunity to have a bit more choice, to pick the market at a certain age that they might want to play in, to be able to make a bit more more money than they were able to make in the previous system," Garber said. "Changes to our system, which have come in this agreement, are something that our players have achieved. I applaud them for that and I'm pleased and happy for them."

Fox Sports reporter Julie Stewart-Binks was first to break the news of an accord. She was soon followed by Reuters' Simon Evans, who was staking out the meetings at the Federal Mediation and Concilation Service offices in Washington.

The Orlando Sentinel's Paul Tenorio was first to report the key terms of what has been agreed to:

According to a source with direct knowledge of the deal, the new collective bargaining agreement is a five-year deal that creates free agency for players 28 years of age or older, with at least eight years experience. According to that source, a players' raise through free agency is capped depending on salary. 

Players who are making less than $100,000 have a capped increase of up to 125-percent of their previous salary, players making between $100,000-$200,000 have a cap of up to 120-percent, and players making more than $200,000 have a cap of up to 115-percent. 

In addition, the new CBA includes a minimum salary of $60,000, a substantial step up from the 2014 minimum of $36,500. The minimum will increase incrementally per year. The source said there was also an increase in the overall salary cap, though they could not immediately provide that number.

Stewart-Binks soon followed that up with more details:

As Stewart-Binks noted, the players' vote to approve the deal was not at all close to unanimous. Goal.com's Ives Galarcep reported the breakdown:

My take is pretty simple: the players won free agency without having to sue the league to get it, which is almost unprecedented in American sports history. Keeping the CBA's term length to five years is also a victory for the players. And they got a huge raise in the minimum salary, which for years stood as one of the biggest black marks on MLS' labor practices.

For the first time in league history, every MLS player will make a living wage. You might be of the opinion that professional athletes in general make too much money, and it's easy to make that case. But it's not so easy to live on $36,500 a year in many MLS markets - especially New York, Washington, and the Bay Area.

According to the most recent data published by the MLS Players Union, 181 of the 572 players in MLS' player pool last year - 31.6 percent - made under $60,000 in 2014. Every one of those players who's still in the league gets an immediate raise.

Many of them will see a five-figure increase in salary. Of the aforementioned 181 players, 145 would gain at least $10,000, and 54 would gain at least $20,000.

Is the deal perfect? Of course not. The 28/8 service time clause is a steep hill for many players to climb, especially academy products who turn pro at a young age.

But recall Real Salt Lake owner Dell Loy Hansen's remarks last week vehemently denying even the possibility of considering free agency. Hansen and his allies were soundly defeated in that contest.

Collective bargaining is an art, not a sledgehammering contest. The old adage still stands that if both sides come away unhappy, then it probably means the deal is good.

So it will be game on Friday night at the StubHub Center in Carson, Calif., as the reigning champion Los Angeles Galaxy welcome the Chicago Fire to kick off the season (10 p.m., UniMás). Then attention will shift to Saturday's slate of contests, including the Union's opener against the Colorado Rapids at PPL Park (4 p.m., WPVI-6).

On Sunday, all eyes will be on the Sunshine State. Orlando City and New York City FC, this year's expansion teams, will make their MLS debuts in front of over 60,000 fans at Orlando's Citrus Bowl (4:30 p.m, ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes). That's the first game of a nationally-televised tripleheader, kicking off the "Soccer Sunday" campaign that will be a television mainstay throughout the year.

And you can be sure that both of those teams' owners were pressing their colleagues hard to get a deal done and avoid a work stoppage. They have spent big sums on big stars, and they knew they only had one chance to make a first impression. As Brooke Tunstall of American Soccer Now wrote:

After the final whistle in Orlando, Fox Sports 1 and Fox Deportes will take the proverbial baton. Sporting Kansas City hosts the New York Red Bulls at 7 p.m., and the Seattle Sounders host the New England Revolution at 9:30.

The last few weeks have been anxious for a lot of people, and rightly so. Now everyone can exhale, and as Foose said, turn our collective attention to where it should be: the players on the field and the spectacles in the stands.

Here's a look back at how we got here, starting with some stories I wrote during Tuesday's long, dramatic negotiations:

- An exclusive conversation with ESPN's head of global soccer programming, Scott Guglielmino,

- A report from the Union's first practice in Philadelphia after returning from Clearwater, and how the lack of a CBA affected the final stages of preseason traoning.

- A radio show for Backheel.com discussing the news as of Tuesday night and what the implications were across MLS. I was joined by Duane Rollins of Canadian Soccer News, Simon Fudge of Goal Canada, Matt Pentz of the Seatle Times and Paul Tenorio of the Orlando Sentinel.

And here's how Wednesday unfolded, in the form of a running ticker with reports from across North America.