MLS is on track to post losses of close to $ 1 billion this year due to the pandemic, warned Commissioner Don Garber, who was nonetheless proud of the league’s ability to carry out the campaign in the midst of the health crisis.
Garber gave his annual State of the League report on Tuesday ahead of the MLS final between the Seattle Sounders and the Columbus Crew in Ohio on Saturday.
The pandemic forced the league to halt activities on March 12. In the summer, he managed to host the MLS is Back tournament in a “bubble” in Florida.
The teams then returned to their cities and played a shortened campaign.
In June, Garber had forecast the losses to be $ 1 billion. As the end of the season approaches, the commissioner indicated that lost revenue is indeed close to that number.
“Not only have we lost significant revenue, like many other businesses and certainly like our industry, but we have incurred expenses that we did not expect. We send the players to each game on chartered planes – that’s not part of our collective agreement. We had the expense of holding the MLS is Back tournament, ”Garber explained.
“And although this allowed us to capture some income, the expenses of hosting so many players and running those games, creating the virtual stadiums, were enormous. So actually, the impact of all this is probably greater than we had expected, which worries us. “
Garber said the league and its teams have tried to make up for lost money with the “traumatic” layoff of 20% of MLS staff, as well as staff cuts at each club and a 5% reduction in overall pay for MLS. players. But the reality is that the league depends on the revenue it raises on game days.
And those perceptions have been drastically reduced during the pandemic. There were fewer encounters, no fans or with a limited number of them.
“We are concerned about what this is going to look like in 2021, and we are working, as I think everyone can imagine, to define how we can get through all of this,” Garber said. “I am very, very hopeful that 2021 will be a much better year than 2020, because I don’t think any business can withstand the kind of impact that we endure in 2020 for two years in a row.”
The current goal remains to kick off the 2021 season in early or mid-March, Grber stressed.
–
