MLS Ownership

MLS operates under a single-entity structure in which teams are centrally controlled by the league. In order to keep costs under control, revenues are shared amongst the league, and player contracts are negotiated by the league.

Some critics have regularly alleged that the league showed preferential treatment to big-market or profitable clubs with regards to player allocation and the salary cap. The league also fought a bitter legal battle with its players over its economic system, but this was eventually resolved with the players gaining some improved benefits in return for accepting the single entity structure. A court had also ruled that even absent their collective bargaining agreement, players could opt to play in other leagues if they were unsatisfied.

The league's controlled costs have attracted new ownership that can put more money into the league and improve it by focusing their money and attention on fewer clubs. Examples include the Anschutz Entertainment Group's sale of the MetroStars to Red Bull, "in excess of $100 million," according to the New York Times. MLS Commissioner Garber said to the Los Angeles Times that "the sale was part of a plan to have AEG decrease its holdings in MLS. We're pushing Hunt Sports to do the same thing."

It appears that Commissioner Garber and MLS management has said it is pushing these changes as part of a new ownership strategy, one in which each owner has a single club, and is better able to focus their resources upon that club, as with the owners of the New York Red Bulls and Real Salt Lake. Commissioner Garber has stated that having multiple clubs owned by a single owner was a necessity in the first 10 years of MLS, but now that the league appears to be on the brink of overall profitability and has significant expansion plans, he wants each club to have its own owner.

In order to help bring this about, the league is now giving more incentive to be an individual club owner, with all owners now having the rights to any player they develop through their club's academy system, sharing the profits of Soccer United Marketing, MLS' media and marketing arm, and now for the first time, allowing owners to have individual club jersey sponsors, with the approval of the league office.
AEG, at one time, owned six teams in MLS, and have since sold the Colorado Rapids, MetroStars and DC United to new owners. AEG's remaining teams are the Los Angeles Galaxy, the Chicago Fire, and the Houston Dynamo. The other major owner-investor in MLS is the Hunt Sports, which owns the Columbus Crew and FC Dallas, having sold the Kansas City Wizards in 2006 to a local ownership group. With the sale of DC United in 2007, the league now has 10 owners for their 13 clubs.