Cavan Sullivan’s first Union salary is revealed, and here’s how big it is

Much-touted Union prospect Cavan Sullivan is earning well into the six figures in his first year as a pro, at just age 15.

Sullivan’s first salary was revealed Thursday by the MLS Players Association, which publishes all players’ salaries leaguewide twice a year. The listed figures are $200,000 in base salary and $364,000 in guaranteed compensation, which is how the labor union lists its figures.

His actual pay likely is smaller than those numbers because salaries are published as annualized values, and Sullivan turned pro in May. But he’s still taking home significant sums to start his career.

We also now know what’s in new defensive midfielder Danley Jean Jacques’ contract: a $550,000 base salary and $602,100 in guaranteed compensation. The Union bought him in August from French second-division club Metz for a transfer fee of around $1.6 million, and he projects as next year’s starter at the position.

The team’s other summer signing was a trade for striker Sam Adeniran from St. Louis City SC, for the last few months of his existing contract. His base salary and guaranteed compensation figure are the same, $93,988.

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Two Union players were promoted from the reserves to the first team in the spring after the last salary data set was compiled in late April. Midfielder CJ Olney and goalkeeper Andrew Rick are on the league-minimum base salary of $71,401, with Olney’s guaranteed compensation at $85,066 and Rick’s at $81,316.

Two Union players had in-season salary adjustments. Andre Blake’s guaranteed compensation rose by $61,875 to $981,250, after he signed a new contract in late May; and Alejandro Bedoya’s guaranteed compensation dropped by $60,000 to $389,996.

Among the big-name summer signings around the rest of MLS, Atlanta United playmaker Aleksey Miranchuk tops the charts with a guaranteed compensation of $3,685,441. Olivier Giroud, the French World Cup-winning striker who joined Los Angeles FC, is close behind at $3,675,000. Vancouver Whitecaps midfielder Stuart Armstrong ranks No. 3 at $2,877,774.

Two of the most famous names to join the league this summer aren’t on as big salaries as fans might expect. German midfielder Marco Reus is on $1,216,667 with the Los Angeles Galaxy, and U.S. national team veteran centerback Tim Ream is on $577,750.

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Each player’s salary figure officially includes two numbers: the base salary and the guaranteed compensation. The latter number includes signing and guaranteed bonuses, plus marketing bonuses and agents’ fees, annualized over the term of a player’s contract, including option years.

For conversational and reporting purposes, the guaranteed compensation number is the one usually used here and around the league.

Note that because the MLSPA’s salary reporting window closed on Sept. 13 (the day of the league’s roster freeze for the season), it does not include new contracts signed after that point to take effect next year. The Union made two such deals with midfielders Jeremy Rafanello and Quinn Sullivan.

Both were in the last guaranteed year of their existing deals.

The annotations in parentheses mean the following:

— (1) Senior roster player; (2) Supplemental roster player; (3) Supplemental roster spot 31, loaned to the Union’s reserve team for the entire year

— (4) Off-roster supplemental player; (5) Designated Player; (6) Cap hit bought down with Targeted Allocation Money

— (7) Homegrown Player status; (8) Under-22 Player status to reduce salary cap charge; (9) Currently loaned out

Note also that Quinn Sullivan will become an Under-22 status player next year, but he is not marked as one above because his salary is from his existing contract.

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Across the landscape, MLS teams are paying a total of $542,566,145 to 910 players. Both of those numbers are increases from the spring.

The average salary continues its positive trend of setting new records, $596,226.53. But the median salary is down slightly to $308,375. The lowest salary in the league, which is set by the CBA, is $71,401. It’s also once again the most common salary leaguewide, with 75 players earning that sum.

The Union aren’t paying any players the minimum, but other teams have a lot of such players. Dallas has seven, the most of any team; St. Louis has six; and Atlanta, Charlotte, Los Angeles FC, Orlando, and Kansas City each have five.

This section often is unpleasant reading for Union fans, and it is again this time. The team’s payroll of $13,813,718 is the second-lowest of MLS’s 29 teams right now. Only CF Montréal, which edged the Union for one of the Eastern Conference’s last playoff spots on the final day of this season, is lower.

In fairness, the payroll is what it is mainly because, during the summer, the Union sold two of their highest earners in striker Julián Carranza and defensive midfielder José Andrés Martínez. We now wait to see how much more of an offseason overhaul is coming, particularly how much the Union will spend on new attackers.

Salary data does not include transfer fees, which occupy a significant portion of MLS team budgets and, these days, are often bigger than salaries. But the payroll comparison is still a snapshot of how teams handle the salary part of the equation. To learn more about teams’ histories with player sales and purchases, check out the data at Transfermarkt.us.

It’s also important to note that players loaned out internationally are usually still counted on the MLSPA’s books. That can have a significant impact on the payroll rankings. For uniformity’s sake, all players listed in the MLSPA’s records are included in the calculations here, whether they’re big names or not.

With that said, the total of seven teams with guaranteed compensation sums over $20 million is a new MLS record. Five of them (Miami, both Los Angeles teams, Cincinnati and Houston) made the playoffs and finished in the top eight of the leaguewide standings. Two (Toronto and Nashville) did not make the playoffs and finished 22nd and 25th.

Click here to see the team payroll comparison from the previous data set in May.

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The number of millionaires leaguewide jumped to 126 this summer, from 115 at the start of this year and 114 at the end of last season.

As with the payroll rankings above, the table below may include some players who are loaned to clubs outside the league, but technically still on MLS teams’ books.

By the way, the positions listed here come from the MLSPA’s database. They might not all be perfect matches, but they’re close enough.

Here are the latest versions of other charts that are recurring features in this analysis. Many of them show changes in key MLS salary metrics over time.

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