MLS and players avoid lockout, but scars of negotiations may last a long time

Major League Soccer once again has labor peace, as the league and the MLS Players Association announced Wednesday that they had rewritten their collective bargaining agreement for the third time in 12 months.

The terms weren’t as bad as had been feared. The centerpiece of the deal is that players agreed to a two-year freeze in the wage scale, which was team owners’ chief demand, in exchange for not taking any pay cuts this year. Players also agreed to a reduction in their share of any media rights revenue increase in the next round of broadcast deals, which start in 2013, from 25% to 12.5% for 2023 and 2024. But the players are now guaranteed 25% for 2025, 2026 and 2027.

There’s also an improvement in the free agency threshold, lowering the bar from 24 years of age and five years of service now to 24 and four in 2026.

The wage scale freeze means the players won’t have the opportunity to bargain their way to better salaries until well after the U.S., Canada and Mexico host the 2026 men’s World Cup. The event is likely to bring a huge influx of cash into American soccer, and the owners will be able to choose how much the players get.

“We have enormous respect and appreciation for everything the players have done helping build the League and the sport throughout the years, and they’ve gone above and beyond during the pandemic,” MLS commissioner Don Garber said in a statement. “We thank the MLSPA leadership and the players for their thoughtful and collaborative approach on the new CBA.”

While teams, players, and fans can now look forward to this spring, it’s necessary to look backward first at how we got here. The scars left by the rancor that preceded this deal could take a long time to heal.

Before the 2020 season started, the league and players agreed to a CBA that produced some of the biggest gains for players in MLS’ 25-year history. There were dramatic improvements in the salary cap, free agency and travel accommodations, plus a first-ever deal for players to have a share of media rights revenue when a new round of deals starts in 2023.

» FROM OUR ARCHIVES: The CBA agreed to last winter brought big boosts to player salaries, charter travel and free agency

At the start of the pandemic last year, both sides knew the league was going to lose a lot of money. So they reopened the CBA, and in June the league won two major gains: a 5% pay cut for players, and the insertion of a force majeure clause that either side could invoke to tear up the deal.

As soon as that clause was agreed to, the clock started ticking on when it might be used. The clock was ignored at times, but as the pandemic dragged on, it got more attention — and the players’ union started to smell the owners’ opportunism.

Invoking the clause could allow team owners to do a lot more than just recoup losses taken in 2020 and projected in 2021. It gave a way out for team owners who didn’t want to stump up the big increases in spending when the CBA was agreed to. So when the league pulled the trigger on Dec. 30, no one was surprised.

Nor was anyone surprised when the shouting turned hot fast. MLSPA executive director Bob Foose repeatedly denounced the owners’ tactics. The league kept claiming billionaire team owners were going to lose vast sums they couldn’t afford. The players offered a one-year freeze, but the owners insisted on two, and demanded that if the players didn’t surrender in full, there would be a lockout.

But it didn’t take long for cracks in the owners’ armor to start showing up. First, if what really mattered was banking cash, why insist on starting the season in early April instead of waiting a few more weeks for further vaccine progress, and thus likely more fans in the stands?

Then came a pile of public statements from other U.S. sports player unions in support of their MLS colleagues. While that might not have had an actual effect at the bargaining table, it’s not often that players in the four biggest U.S. sports leagues — plus the WNBA, NWSL, USL, U.S. women’s national team and Mexican league players unions — speak up together on MLS players’ behalf. Even American soccer’s referees’ union backed the players. (We’ll see if that leads players to yell at the refs less during games.)

» READ MORE: The Union’s new jersey is a Ben Franklin-inspired blast of bright blue and yellow

A statement from the MLSPA on Friday thanked “our brothers and sisters in the Players Associations around North America and the world for your public statements of support and solidarity. Defending and advocating for players’ rights is a collective mission we undertake together, and players’ rights are strongest when we stand side by side. You had our backs — we will always have yours.”

(By the way, the NBA players union’s ranks include two MLS team part-owners, the Union’s Kevin Durant and the Houston Dynamo’s James Harden.)

The supposedly hard deadline of Jan. 29 got pushed back twice, first to Feb. 4 and then to Feb. 5. And within hours of that last one-day extension, the word got out that FC Cincinnati was about to spend a whopping $13 million to buy Brazilian striker Brenner from Sao Paulo.

That was the last straw for any sympathy toward those C-suite cries of poverty. Sure enough, the league and players reached a tentative deal on the 5th.

It’s likely that the start of the season will now be delayed a little bit. The plan had been to start preseason on Feb. 22 (after a quarantine period for players returning from out of town) and start the regular season on April 4. Though with MLS teams in the Concacaf Champions League set for their opening games from April 6-8, those teams — including the Union — could get going earlier than others.

» READ MORE: Kevin Durant became a part-owner of the Union to make an impact in Chester, not just in soccer