Garber recounts losses, successes
Commissioner sees nearly $1B setback in finished season
Commissioner Don Garber said while Major League Soccer is on track to have losses nearing $1 billion this year because of the coronavirus, he’s proud of the way the league was able to navigate the pandemic and complete a difficult season.
Garber gave his annual State of the League address Tuesday in advance of the MLS Cup final Saturday between the Seattle Sounders and Columbus Crew in
Ohio.
The league was shuttered by the pandemic on March 12 but it went on to hold the MLS is Back tournament in a bubble in Florida this summer before returning to local markets for an abbreviated season.
Garber first projected in June that league losses would be $1 billion, and with the season nearing a close he said lost revenues were indeed approaching that number.
“Not only have we lost a significant amount of revenue, as have so many other businesses, certainly in our industry, but we’ve also incurred expenses that we were not intending to incur. We chartered players to every game -that’s not currently part of our CBA. We had the expense of managing the MLS is Back tournament,” Garber said. “And while that was able to allow us to capture some revenue, the expenses of housing so many players and operating those games and creating the virtual stadiums were enormous. So actually, the impact of all this is probably deeper than what we expected and that is concerning to us.”
Garber said the league and its teams have tried to offset the losses with “traumatic” layoffs of 20 percent of the league’s staff, individual club layoffs and a 5 percent pay cut across the board for players. But the reality is the league is reliant on game-day revenue, which has been drastically cut during the pandemic with fewer matches and either no fans or limited crowds allowed at games.
Garber said he’s hopeful that 2021 will be a way better year than 2020, and added that the current target remains to start the 2021 season in early or mid-march.