MLS avoids lockout with labor agreement
Major League Soccer has reached a tentative deal on a collective bargaining agreement with its players’ union, averting a threatened lockout and clearing the way for teams to open training camp Feb. 22.
The union released a statement Friday confirming the deal, which will cover the next seven seasons. It will be submitted to a vote of players this weekend and is expected to receive approval.
ESPN’s Jeff Carlisle said the union’s executive board and bargaining committee voted 24-11 in favor of the deal.
The MLS Board of Governors must also sign off on the contract — something it is expected to do.
The final sticking point was the league’s insistence that the CBA, which normally covers five seasons, extend through 2027; the union wanted it to end in 2026. The date is significant given that North America will play host to the 2026 World Cup, an event certain to provide a spike in both interest and spending on soccer in the U.S. and Canada.
In addition, an extension to 2027 could delay annual jumps in compensation by holding down agreed-upon increases in the league’s salary cap. Carlisle reported Friday the union was won over by more liberal free-agency rules, an overall 10% salary increase in the final year of the deal and improved salaries for other classes of players.
Steven A. Bank, the Paul Hastings professor of business law at UCLA and a close observer of soccer finances, said neither the league nor the union are likely to be happy with the CBA by the time it expires.
“The irony of this is that both sides could claim a win on these negotiations and yet 2027 and future TV money are both so uncertain right now that the present value of either is probably pretty low,” he said — although the freeagency benefits, he added, are a tangible improvement for the players.
The new CBA is actually the third the two sides have agreed to in the last 12 months. The first, negotiated last February, was never ratified. After COVID-19 forced the league to halt play in March, MLS forced the players back to the bargaining table in May, threatening a lockout to win more than $150 million in concessions.