MLS owners met in Miami to discuss listing rules, potential for increased investment

A committee of MLS owners met Monday and Tuesday in Miami to discuss roster rules and strategy around league growth, including potential investments in growth and modifying current guidelines.

The meeting was a personally scheduled meeting of the renamed sports and competition committee, formerly known as the product strategy committee. The committee typically meets in person three to four times a year, including once in the spring and once in the fall, as well as around MLS board of governors meetings at the MLS All-Star Game.

like described in a story in The Athletic last year, the committee discusses and debates how to improve the product you see when you turn on an MLS game; which includes everything from roster rules to the salary budget, implementation of VAR and the introduction of the MLS Next Pro development league.

MLS commissioner Don Garber recently restructured the makeup of several owner-led committees, including the sports and competition group. Thirteen owners were present in Miami. Long-time members of the committee remained, including the co-chairs FC Dallas owner Clark Hunt and Vancouver Whitecaps owner Greg Kerfoot, Red Bull GmbH managing director Oliver Mintzlaff, LAFC owner Larry Berg, Seattle Sounders owner Adrian Hanauer, Portland Timbers owner Merritt Paulson, Sporting Kansas City owner Mike Illig and City Football Group CEO Ferran Soriano.

The new additions are Inter Miami owner Jorge Más, Austin FC owner Anthony Precourt, Philadelphia Union owner Jay Sugarman, The real Salt LakeScott Krase and CF Montreal owner Joey Saputo. These owners bring an interesting new dynamic to the flock. Sugarman’s Union team has been among the most aggressive in investing in an academy-led model, but has not been one of the biggest spenders in the international market. Krase, part of David Blitzer’s ownership group, and Saputo bring experience from owning teams abroad.

The committee has long been a target of ire for some of the league’s technical staff, who have felt the committee has not been aggressive enough in its approach to growth. Sources with first-hand experience on the committee, however, disputed that notion and said the committee had a balance between more aggressive-minded and more conservative-minded approaches, with other owners falling more in between. These additions are sure to add to that debate, both within MLS inner circles and for other fans and league watchers.

Others in attendance included Garber; MLS executives Todd Durbin and Nelson Rodriguez; MLS Next Pro President and MLS Executive Charles Altchek; former MLS executive Mark Abbott, who is still with the league in an advisory role; and the two co-chairs of the committee of chief MLS soccer officials, LAFC’s John Thorrington and Colorado Rapids’ Padraig Smith.

“Very, very productive,” Durbin said outside a Miami Beach hotel shortly after the final day of meetings ended Tuesday. “We continue to do a lot of research and look at all aspects of the competition (and) the sports field and continue to move forward. We are making progress and the process, I am confident that when we reach the end, will bring about some fundamental and important changes. But we still have work to do.”

The committee has been researching possible roster rule changes to implement to improve the league at an unprecedented time in North American sports history, with Copa America this summer, the Club World Cup in 2025, the FIFA World Cup in 2026 and the Women’s World Cup to be played in the USA in 2027.

That work began with a study conducted by the Boston Consulting Group that surveyed more than 26,000 fans, the results of which were presented last summer at the board of governors meeting in Washington DC just days after Lionel Messi was introduced as an Inter Miami player. In a media session with reporters earlier this month, Durbin said the committee has an “anticipated timeline” to present “initial strategic conclusions” to the full ownership board at the MLS All-Star Game this summer.

This would involve “determining those areas that we think we need to develop, potentially increasing investment in and obviously if there are areas that we think are not working, either modifying them or in some cases perhaps eliminating them, Durbin said. “That strategic process is ongoing. We are very deep in it now. And we’re hoping that a lot of what we develop and what we’re able to put together will hopefully start coming online later this season.”

Fans were disappointed when the league announced there were no changes to the roster rules after last season. Durbin acknowledged that in “a normal year” the league might have evolved or modified certain rules, and that was part of the discussion, but said they didn’t want to be “backed into a corner or pigeonholed.”

“It was less about resistance to change and more about being broad, deep and quite ambitious,” Durbin said. “And because of that, we were asked to go back and take a look and see if there are ways in which we can move beyond simple modifications to our rules and take a deep look at doing things that can be much more significant to the evil trajectory.”

(Todd Durbin Photo: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports)