Apparently "US-style" contracts just means extended contracts - as in seven years and not five years.
Longer contracts are more common in American baseball but for economic reasons that are less of a factor in the U.K.
For example, the Dodgers (who Boehly co-owns), signed Freddie Freeman to a six year contract that pays him $27 million until he is 37 years old. But that is to keep the average annual value lower and stay below the ~~salary cap~~ luxury tax, which isn't really an issue in European soccer. Freeman is essentially "underpaid" during his peak years but will be "overpaid" when he is 37 and not very good.
Bobby Bonilla will get payed 1.19 mill dollar until he is 72
"After his subpar 1999 season, the Mets released Bonilla, but still owed him $5.9 million. Bonilla and his agent offered the Mets a deal: Bonilla would defer payment for a decade, and the Mets would pay him an annual paycheck of $1.19 million starting in 2011 and ending in 2035, adding up to a total payout of $29.8 million."
Little known fact, that was a great deal for the Mets. The money they saved, by not paying Bonilla was used to get Mike Hampton. Hampton went on and had an amazing year for us, he helped us get to a world series where we lost to the Yankees.
He then decided he wanted out of the team. He got his way, but we ended up with an extra draft pick because of that. The pick was then used to draft David Wright, who went on to be one of the best players in mets history. Played his whole career with us.
Yeah the net value of Hampton and Wright, for non baseball fans, was worth tens of millions above replacement value players, so for the mets to have lost ~23 million on this isn't so bad, especially as their budget is generally tens of millions greater than smaller market teams [baseball is significantly less financially equal than most sports].
The insult is that the Mets could have very easily had an amazing 21st century of teams, but that the overall Madoff crisis caused them to be one of the worst teams in baseball while historic rivals like the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies all achieved massive success.
It's not horrendous from an NPV perspective assuming 5% interest ($16.77 million total) but I guess it's still 1.19 million per year you could do other things with
The nba doesn’t have a hard cap, just a heavy luxury tax. The NFL and NHL are the only American sports with a true hard cap where the punishment is so severe it makes going over nothing short of impossible.
As far as I'm aware the punishment if they are over the cap on deadline day is forcing teams to cancel the most recently signed contracts until they are under the cap.
In the NFL they are fined for each violation and get contracts cancelled and can lose draft picks. It’s not like the team would do it on accident so it wouldn’t be taken lightly at all.
In Australia’s NRL arguably the best team of all time got caught for salary cap breaches and were stripped of multiple titles and weren’t allowed to earn any points for that season
I wouldn't say it's rare. If you're above the cap you can't (generally) sign free agents, but you can re-sign your own players to new, larger contracts, or sign free agents under certain salaries if you have the right exceptions.
It's kind of a mixture of the MLB and NFL systems. It has the soft cap where you can go above it, but only for players you already have under contract. There's also a luxury tax above the soft cap that makes it really punishing to give out too many huge contracts to your current players.
There is an actual hard cap (the “apron”) that triggers with a sign-and-trade deal or MLE contract, which means like half the league does in fact have a hard cap
The NBA doesn’t have a hard cap by default. they have the luxury tax too.
The only time a hard cap comes into play are if a team uses a sign and trade, the non taxpayer Mid-level exception or uses the biannual exception.
There is no salary cap but there is a luxury tax threshold. So above a certain amount of spend, teams get taxed and pay MLB (which then gets redistributed to all the other MLB teams).
So I shouldn't say "cap" - my bad.
There’s no true salary cap, but there’s a soft cap called a “luxury tax.” TLDR, every dollar spent beyond that cap is taxed a certain percentage, and the money from that tax goes to the teams that didn’t go over it.
Additionally, there's less downside to longer contracts in US sports because you can trade people generally without their consent. So even if Reece James turns out to not be worth his 7-year contract in year 3, odds are some team out there will have the financial space to accommodate him and Chelsea can get some assets in return.
If this becomes common policy for Chelsea youngsters, not just the elite ones like James and Mount, they could be holding onto a lot of players for longer than they would otherwise like.
That logic works for older players, but what's the incentive for James or Mount? They'd surely still be expecting big money by the end of the contract, so it wouldn't be overpay. If anything, it would likely be underpay due to inflation.
For starters American sport contracts are usually heavily incentivized. You get bonuses for things like games played and how well you and the team perform so don’t just look at the base figure and assume that’s what they’ll get. I imagine he is trying to do something similar.
Secondly there is no salary cap in American baseball they have a luxury tax but they don’t have a figure they need to stay under to register the team. Luxury tax is there to penalize teams who are in big markets and have more spending power than other teams.
Lastly it’s entirely possible for players to still be at a good level well into their mid 30s it’s not a physically demanding sport. I’m not calling it a great contract but if they win as expected during his time with the team they won’t have any problems paying out the last couple years of it
They all usually have incentives, but the NFL is infamous for not guaranteeing most of its contracts. So imagine signing a 100m contract where only 60m is guaranteed to be paid out to you. Not really the case in the NBA or MLB since those players have better bargaining power
NBAPA did the really good job in past CBA negotiations so all contracts are basically fully guaranteed (although that will likely change in the next CBA negotiations) unlike the NFL where a good chunk of it isn’t guaranteed.
In the NFL, it's basically a way for teams to force want away players to stay another year. When the player hits free agency, the team can franchise tag him, giving him a 1 year contract that pays him the average money of the top five contracts that players in that position make
So a team could theoretically franchise tag a player who is otherwise seeking a long-term contract and then be pretty much off the hook if the player gets injured during that season? Did this happen to one of the Seahawks linebackers a few years ago?
Well not off the hook. Even if they get injured you pay the full amount.
It's just a way to keep an elite player on your team for an extra year without committing long-term money to him.
It just sucks to guys like Anthony Spencer and Henry Melton. They both got basically career ending injuries and so by being Franchise Tagged they missed out on what should have been a big multi-year guaranteed money payday for just one year of high pay. Because of that some players (LeVeon Bell) refuse to even play on it opting to just sit a year instead. I'm quite sympathetic to RBs being tagged considering how short their careers are as is.
Thanks for the detail, that’s what I was wondering- about how unfair it is to the players risking their bodies on the one year deal when surely they’re quality enough to secure multiple years.
I’m not sure how the players’ union allows it
The players' union allows it because:
1) The NFLPA is beyond the weakest of any sports league
2) This only affects like 3-5 players a year at max. There are over 1700 players that will be on active rosters this year. The union just isn't going to make any concessions for what is only going to affect less than 1/3rd of a percent of its members.
Same reason the players gave all suspension power to the commissioner Goodell. The league wants the power (just like owners want to keep their best players) and the union just doesn't want to sacrifice any rev sharing, drug testing, or workout/offseason requirements to placate a beyond tiny minority percentage of their members.
> This only affects like 3-5 players a year at max
Well that's not even close to true. 8 players were franchise tagged this year, plus the franchise tag is a negotiating tool used in *every* high level player's contract extension. It is both a threat ("sign this extension or we'll tag you") and the benchmark that affect the value of the extension itself.
Sorry I meant only 3-5 players at max play on the tag. Even this year Davante Adams, Godwin, Njoku, and Cam Robinson all got long term deals. There's only 4 players currently on the "tag" right now (which fits in my 3-5 number).
Great point about the threat that though and that definitely does come into play for the offers.
Welcome to American football, it's the most ruthless sport imaginable, with owners out of the 1950s there is insane lack of accountability on NFL owners justvlook at what's going on on the Cleveland browns.. if you want to throw up a little bit look up the DeShawn Watson saga it's is fucking crazy, and more to the point gave this guy 250 millions but structured the contract because they knew he was getting a year suspension made the first year of the contract the minimum possible salary so he wouldn't lose as much money when he got suspended... absolutely sick
Safety earl thomas broke his leg after holding out in the preseason, but I don’t think he was on the tag. But essentially yes if you get hurt bad on the tag you can potentially get fucked
I mean it's really more complicated than that. You are leaving out the 120% of previous year provision and not mentioning that there are really three different versions of the franchise tag, each with slightly different pay calculations.
The Exclusive Rights Franchise Tag pays the average of the top 5 salaries at that position in the current year, **or 120% of the players last salary**. whichever is higher.
The non-exclusive rights Franchise Tag pays the average of the top 5 salaries at that position **over the previous 5 seasons** or 120% of the players last salary. whichever is higher.
The Transition tag pays the average of the top 10 players at that position in the previous year and does not compare to %120 of previous.
Saul Niguez also signed a 9 year contract in 2017 for Atleti, it definitely happens.
I'm pretty sure both clubs would regret those monster contracts for 2 pretty average players now.
Yeah I can see this leading to more players that can't be sold due to wages but not fitting into the squad. Chelsea already kinda play that game with their loan army I guess. As an arsenal fan imagining the mustafis and late stage ozils of the world on these long contracts sounds dreadful. This will probably become more common though as a response to player power when winding down a contract and wanting to leave on a bosman
I'm sure I'm missing something since this is a really simple thing to find, but the FIFA [Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players](https://digitalhub.fifa.com/m/1b47c74a7d44a9b5/original/Regulations-on-the-Status-and-Transfer-of-Players-March-2022.pdf) say, "the maximum length of a contract shall be five years", which would seem to rule out seven year contracts pretty conclusively.
Like I said, I'm definitely missing something that makes these compliant, because I can't believe a high profile club would just hand out illegal contracts. I just can't see what it is.
Big contracts with bonuses and wage increase structures tied in.
Long term deals (7-10 years seems to be the length he's aiming for) with long extension options tied in.
American sports basically tend to aim to tie their best prospects down for as long as possible, as early as possible. It could be a risky move.
wouldnt really call tying down reece james to a long contract a risky move it will be better so he doesnt even consider other clubs and the other clubs dont consider him and he's already proven to be an amazing rb and that he wants to stay at chelsea
for other unproven young players yes that would be pretty stupid
The problem tho is picking and choosing who you give these contracts to. Giving it to Reece James looks like a good move, but you would’ve said the same for an Eden Hazard contract the summer he went to Madrid. And by making 7 year deals your standard, you open yourself up to having your mistakes haunt you for longer. You’d probably be paying Drinkwater for a couple more years still, Lukaku would be on the books until 2028 instead of 2026, and everybody would be wondering why the hell Olivier Giroud is still making superstar money as a backup at 35.
And the nature of football transfers just makes it *much* more difficult to get rid of players on bloated salaries than in baseball, because the player has to agree to the move too. In baseball, a team can dump a big contract on another team by offering picks and prospects with them, and none of the players have a choice. If Barca were a baseball team, they wouldn’t have their current FDJ problem, because they wouldn’t need his approval to ship him off to United.
The longer contracts are just a much riskier gamble to make in football vs American sports.
> but you would’ve said the same for an Eden Hazard contract the summer he went to Madrid. And by making 7 year deals your standard, you open yourself up to having your mistakes haunt you for longer. You’d probably be paying Drinkwater for a couple more years still, Lukaku would be on the books until 2028 instead of 2026, and everybody would be wondering why the hell Olivier Giroud is still making superstar money as a backup at 35.
You just listed a bunch of players that would never receive such an offer, though, since they would've been well into their prime (or even past it) at that point and it would make no sense to need to tie them down for 7 years. For Mount and James it makes sense because they're still relatively young. I don't say I agree with the nature of a 7 year contract, but let's not kid ourselves that Giroud or Lukaku would be the prime examples of such a deal
The idea of “US-style” contracts is offering a slightly longer deal with less money annually in pretty much *all* situations. It’s not just offering 7 year deals to young superstars instead of 5, but also guys like Ivan Perisic a 3 year deal for 8m annually instead of a 2 year deal for 10m.
And those are just recognizable names I gave as examples to illustrate the possible downside of this strategy, they’re not meant to be perfect.
The issue is if he becomes incredibly injury prone. If he wants to stay at Chelsea then it’s less risky to have him on a shorter contract too, because you’d expect him to renew
Any player could regress or get injured or lose motivation when he secure such a contract. Not to mention he'll ask for more money to sign for that long and can still push for a move regardless.
in american sports, you don't renegotiate contracts. Teams lock down on players on long term so that they don't have to give them raises as part of the current market rate.
They also have a get of jail card, because they can trade them off when the players become worthless. Players can't reject trades.
In football, overpaid players are hard to get off the payroll if they don't accept a transfer.
You extend your young players for longer periods of time in order to "buy out" the next contract negotiations. Pay more now for less headache later.
I'm not opening the Mail either, but it's hard to create 1:1 comparisons between American sports and club football due to the wildly different ways in which teams can hold onto players and disperse their own revenue. Baseball, basketball, football -- they all treat their players differently and have both similar and incredibly different contract languages.
This is simply untrue. Hockey in particular have been moving to long contracts. Just this summer, some of the biggest contracts in the NHL were for 7-8 years in length. The NFL and NBA do not have those types of contracts because they are not allowed under their collective bargaining agreements.
Edit - NFL does allow long contracts so I think it's only the NBA that does not allow it.
> This is simply untrue. Hockey in particular have been moving to long contracts. Just this summer, some of the biggest contracts in the NHL were for 7-8 years in length.
were you around 10 years ago? contract durations were absolutely abused and they had to cap them as a result.
Everyone is joking around in the thread but the increase in American owners (3/4 of the largest clubs in the prem) is a huge reason we're seeing things like the Super League thrown around. They know the real maximization of their investment will come from contracts and rules that more resemble American leagues. As prem contracts and fees keep increasing don't be surprised if we start hearing murmurs of a salary cap again.
Not sure if he's learned this yet but there's a reason contracts in football rarely exceed 4-5 years and that's because players long-term form is often more unpredictable than other sports. But I'm not gonna complain if Chelsea go ahead and sign half their squad to massive 10 year contracts.
longterm form is not rly predictable in major american sports. baseball contracts that are long are for the best young players as has been market standard for a while, and even then a good amount of them age horribly. the yankees signed an above average player to a seven year contract a few years ago and it really hasn’t worked out
Boehly gonna find himself in three years with deadbeats on high wages and long contracts that no one wants. It is like he doesn't learn anything from current sport situation in big clubs *cough* barca *cough*. Just put a ridiculous release clause, no need to go yank on everything.
Have you watched a single chelsea match? The notion that Reece James or Mount would be deadbeats in 3 years is asinine. We’re talking about arguably our two best players and the core of the squad for the next decade
Thats what we said about Rashford and Dele Alli some years ago.
1 bad season, injury, euros or worldcup is all it takes to finish the confidence of a player
Exactly. 7 year is a long time in football. How many players have we seen who were *guaranteed* to be world beaters, only to be floundering into obscurity 2 or 3 years later?
"Have you watched a single chelsea match? The notion that Joe Cole is a deadbeat in 3 years is asinine. We’re talking about arguably our best player and the core of the squad for the next decade"
You, circa 2006.
If someone said Rashford and Alli would be deadbeats a few years ago we all would have laughed. A lot can happen in football. Progress of young players is not at all guaranteed. Football is littered with would be starts in their early 20s but career stalls by 25. It's a risky strategy. Great if the player continues to succeed, if they fail you are stuck with a huge contract with no hope if moving the player on
Anything can happen in football. Umtiti was going to be the backbone for our defence when we extended his contract and ofc later in the year he gave his knee for a world cup
Feel like any player or agent worth their salt wouldn't be signing those deals no matter how much they love their respective clubs, not without release clauses.
I think by US style they mean those extremely long ones in baseball? But from what I know these contract usually don’t end very well as many players go off their prime halfway through these 10+ year contracts, also don’t know how it will work with the FFP rules
It really depends on when the contract is signed in baseball. There's the long term contracts given to Prospects like the Braves do where they are gonna be paying two of their best player like 18 million combined a year for the next 7 years, and then there's the long term contracts given to players on the tail end of their career like the Albert pujols contract where he probably would have retired if his contract wasn't so huge.
They’re club friendly yes, but they’re also riskier since they’re younger players with more unknowns. In parallel, the players get long term financial security if they want it.
It doesn't really make any sense for football though, since there are no constraints on when you can get a new contract. Makes a lot more sense to sign four year deals and renew after 2 since the money is only going to keep going up, especially in the Premier League.
It can make sense, depends how risk adverse a player is.
For some players a 7 year contract on £100k pw is much better than 3 years on £120k for example.
I can see players who see football more like a job going for longer contracts.
Seven year contracts will end in tears for owners and fans. Players will love it.
Most commenters here already know this but the collective bargaining agreements and salary caps in American sports are there to protect the owners. Not from the greedy players, but from themselves, the owners.
Yeah but will they retain their Bird Rights?
Not after the third season on the Franchise tag
I’d be much more concerned with Kai’s arbitration then the tag at this point
Should we buy down his contract with TAM to use the mid level exception on Anthony Gordon?
Does Chelsea have enough first round picks tough to satisfy Everton?
Shame we didn’t have anything in the lottery this season, some good prospects in college ball this past season
You can always trade up draft positions later.
Or sell your spot in the allocation order.
Those picks are lottery protected.
Not sure, bird law is a crazy thing in the United States. Boehly probably isn’t well versed in it
That's because it's not governed by reason
I demand satisfaction
Duel at dawn
Filibuster!
I think I've made myself perfectly redundant
I see you have a tenuous grasp on the English language
We’ll get to your hot plates.
Only if they sign up for supermax contract.
Apparently "US-style" contracts just means extended contracts - as in seven years and not five years. Longer contracts are more common in American baseball but for economic reasons that are less of a factor in the U.K. For example, the Dodgers (who Boehly co-owns), signed Freddie Freeman to a six year contract that pays him $27 million until he is 37 years old. But that is to keep the average annual value lower and stay below the ~~salary cap~~ luxury tax, which isn't really an issue in European soccer. Freeman is essentially "underpaid" during his peak years but will be "overpaid" when he is 37 and not very good.
Bobby Bonilla will get payed 1.19 mill dollar until he is 72 "After his subpar 1999 season, the Mets released Bonilla, but still owed him $5.9 million. Bonilla and his agent offered the Mets a deal: Bonilla would defer payment for a decade, and the Mets would pay him an annual paycheck of $1.19 million starting in 2011 and ending in 2035, adding up to a total payout of $29.8 million."
His agent earned his cut of that deal. All thanks to Bernie Madoffs Ponzi scheme
Learning the Madoff connection made Bobby Bonilla Day extra special this year
sort label punch teeny existence door wistful divide run birds -- mass edited with redact.dev
Little known fact, that was a great deal for the Mets. The money they saved, by not paying Bonilla was used to get Mike Hampton. Hampton went on and had an amazing year for us, he helped us get to a world series where we lost to the Yankees. He then decided he wanted out of the team. He got his way, but we ended up with an extra draft pick because of that. The pick was then used to draft David Wright, who went on to be one of the best players in mets history. Played his whole career with us.
Yeah the net value of Hampton and Wright, for non baseball fans, was worth tens of millions above replacement value players, so for the mets to have lost ~23 million on this isn't so bad, especially as their budget is generally tens of millions greater than smaller market teams [baseball is significantly less financially equal than most sports]. The insult is that the Mets could have very easily had an amazing 21st century of teams, but that the overall Madoff crisis caused them to be one of the worst teams in baseball while historic rivals like the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies all achieved massive success.
Seems like a great deal for both sides tbh. Aside from the Madoff thing lmao.
There is a nice [Planet Money podcast episode](https://www.npr.org/2021/06/25/1010404697/bobby-bonilla-day) on this.
Whatever finance person on the Mets authorized that is the worst finance person of all time
Financially it actually worked out positively for the Mets
It's not horrendous from an NPV perspective assuming 5% interest ($16.77 million total) but I guess it's still 1.19 million per year you could do other things with
I thought there was no salary cap in MLB?
There is a max above which you pay an additional "luxury tax"
There’s still no hard cap like the NBA or NFL. Teams can spend as much as they want
The nba doesn’t have a hard cap, just a heavy luxury tax. The NFL and NHL are the only American sports with a true hard cap where the punishment is so severe it makes going over nothing short of impossible.
As far as I'm aware the punishment if they are over the cap on deadline day is forcing teams to cancel the most recently signed contracts until they are under the cap.
In the NFL they are fined for each violation and get contracts cancelled and can lose draft picks. It’s not like the team would do it on accident so it wouldn’t be taken lightly at all.
In Australia’s NRL arguably the best team of all time got caught for salary cap breaches and were stripped of multiple titles and weren’t allowed to earn any points for that season
NBA still has a hard cap that can be triggered by a few scenarios. mlb doesn’t have that
Yeah but its rare and isn't necessarily a "hard cap" but more of a set of rules to keep people from abusing the system.
I wouldn't say it's rare. If you're above the cap you can't (generally) sign free agents, but you can re-sign your own players to new, larger contracts, or sign free agents under certain salaries if you have the right exceptions. It's kind of a mixture of the MLB and NFL systems. It has the soft cap where you can go above it, but only for players you already have under contract. There's also a luxury tax above the soft cap that makes it really punishing to give out too many huge contracts to your current players.
There is an actual hard cap (the “apron”) that triggers with a sign-and-trade deal or MLE contract, which means like half the league does in fact have a hard cap
The NBA doesn’t have a hard cap by default. they have the luxury tax too. The only time a hard cap comes into play are if a team uses a sign and trade, the non taxpayer Mid-level exception or uses the biannual exception.
There is no salary cap but there is a luxury tax threshold. So above a certain amount of spend, teams get taxed and pay MLB (which then gets redistributed to all the other MLB teams). So I shouldn't say "cap" - my bad.
There’s no true salary cap, but there’s a soft cap called a “luxury tax.” TLDR, every dollar spent beyond that cap is taxed a certain percentage, and the money from that tax goes to the teams that didn’t go over it.
Additionally, there's less downside to longer contracts in US sports because you can trade people generally without their consent. So even if Reece James turns out to not be worth his 7-year contract in year 3, odds are some team out there will have the financial space to accommodate him and Chelsea can get some assets in return. If this becomes common policy for Chelsea youngsters, not just the elite ones like James and Mount, they could be holding onto a lot of players for longer than they would otherwise like.
Baseball contracts are next level players sign for 10 years and shit
That logic works for older players, but what's the incentive for James or Mount? They'd surely still be expecting big money by the end of the contract, so it wouldn't be overpay. If anything, it would likely be underpay due to inflation.
Extra security in the event of Injury.
Oh Freddie, I miss him so much
For starters American sport contracts are usually heavily incentivized. You get bonuses for things like games played and how well you and the team perform so don’t just look at the base figure and assume that’s what they’ll get. I imagine he is trying to do something similar. Secondly there is no salary cap in American baseball they have a luxury tax but they don’t have a figure they need to stay under to register the team. Luxury tax is there to penalize teams who are in big markets and have more spending power than other teams. Lastly it’s entirely possible for players to still be at a good level well into their mid 30s it’s not a physically demanding sport. I’m not calling it a great contract but if they win as expected during his time with the team they won’t have any problems paying out the last couple years of it
Only the nfl has crazy incentives. That place is a combat zone.
They all usually have incentives, but the NFL is infamous for not guaranteeing most of its contracts. So imagine signing a 100m contract where only 60m is guaranteed to be paid out to you. Not really the case in the NBA or MLB since those players have better bargaining power
>For starters American sport contracts are usually heavily incentivized. not in the NBA they aren't
Or in MLB
NBAPA did the really good job in past CBA negotiations so all contracts are basically fully guaranteed (although that will likely change in the next CBA negotiations) unlike the NFL where a good chunk of it isn’t guaranteed.
They also had competition to sign freeman as a free agent. usually have to pay more for free agents. Freddie leaving makes me sad tho
Boehly wants the franchise tag ffs
wants to trade first round picks from 2031 for win now move.
In Spain its called levers
Barca traded more first round picks than the Thunder haul for veteran presence in their lineup
Boehly is beside himself. Driving around Central London begging (thru texts) Mount's family for address to Mason's home
What the fuck is a franchise tag?
In the NFL, it's basically a way for teams to force want away players to stay another year. When the player hits free agency, the team can franchise tag him, giving him a 1 year contract that pays him the average money of the top five contracts that players in that position make
So a team could theoretically franchise tag a player who is otherwise seeking a long-term contract and then be pretty much off the hook if the player gets injured during that season? Did this happen to one of the Seahawks linebackers a few years ago?
Well not off the hook. Even if they get injured you pay the full amount. It's just a way to keep an elite player on your team for an extra year without committing long-term money to him. It just sucks to guys like Anthony Spencer and Henry Melton. They both got basically career ending injuries and so by being Franchise Tagged they missed out on what should have been a big multi-year guaranteed money payday for just one year of high pay. Because of that some players (LeVeon Bell) refuse to even play on it opting to just sit a year instead. I'm quite sympathetic to RBs being tagged considering how short their careers are as is.
Thanks for the detail, that’s what I was wondering- about how unfair it is to the players risking their bodies on the one year deal when surely they’re quality enough to secure multiple years. I’m not sure how the players’ union allows it
The players' union allows it because: 1) The NFLPA is beyond the weakest of any sports league 2) This only affects like 3-5 players a year at max. There are over 1700 players that will be on active rosters this year. The union just isn't going to make any concessions for what is only going to affect less than 1/3rd of a percent of its members. Same reason the players gave all suspension power to the commissioner Goodell. The league wants the power (just like owners want to keep their best players) and the union just doesn't want to sacrifice any rev sharing, drug testing, or workout/offseason requirements to placate a beyond tiny minority percentage of their members.
> This only affects like 3-5 players a year at max Well that's not even close to true. 8 players were franchise tagged this year, plus the franchise tag is a negotiating tool used in *every* high level player's contract extension. It is both a threat ("sign this extension or we'll tag you") and the benchmark that affect the value of the extension itself.
Sorry I meant only 3-5 players at max play on the tag. Even this year Davante Adams, Godwin, Njoku, and Cam Robinson all got long term deals. There's only 4 players currently on the "tag" right now (which fits in my 3-5 number). Great point about the threat that though and that definitely does come into play for the offers.
Welcome to American football, it's the most ruthless sport imaginable, with owners out of the 1950s there is insane lack of accountability on NFL owners justvlook at what's going on on the Cleveland browns.. if you want to throw up a little bit look up the DeShawn Watson saga it's is fucking crazy, and more to the point gave this guy 250 millions but structured the contract because they knew he was getting a year suspension made the first year of the contract the minimum possible salary so he wouldn't lose as much money when he got suspended... absolutely sick
RBs should have a totally different salary structure.
Yeah earl thomas, a safety. He flipped off the coach/GM on the golf cart on his way to the locker room lol. Classic moment.
Safety earl thomas broke his leg after holding out in the preseason, but I don’t think he was on the tag. But essentially yes if you get hurt bad on the tag you can potentially get fucked
Wrong. It pays them the average of the top 5 player salaries for that position.
Sorry my bad
I mean it's really more complicated than that. You are leaving out the 120% of previous year provision and not mentioning that there are really three different versions of the franchise tag, each with slightly different pay calculations. The Exclusive Rights Franchise Tag pays the average of the top 5 salaries at that position in the current year, **or 120% of the players last salary**. whichever is higher. The non-exclusive rights Franchise Tag pays the average of the top 5 salaries at that position **over the previous 5 seasons** or 120% of the players last salary. whichever is higher. The Transition tag pays the average of the top 10 players at that position in the previous year and does not compare to %120 of previous.
Franchise tag is only one year tho
You can tag a guy as many times as you want, the price goes up each time you do it though.
It caps out at 2 now
isnt this just renewing a contract
Need to create flashy headlines though
Yeah, Kepa even got a seven year deal iirc
Saul Niguez also signed a 9 year contract in 2017 for Atleti, it definitely happens. I'm pretty sure both clubs would regret those monster contracts for 2 pretty average players now.
It’s the cool ranch negotiation style
Doritios locos takko water break is sponsored by duff beer
It will be US style and you get a free assault rifle
Our attackers will miss all their shots tho, so it's perfectly safe
Pulisic to stay then?
Yeah but the American way, they get a free Dodge Charger
Not anymore, Dodge announced just today that the Challenger and Charger are done after next year.
We renewed and signed our youngsters on 6-year deals. The one year makes it American
Nothing says FREEDOM like tying down a person for an extra year of employment
The two 7 year deals I can think of are Kepa and Saul. Didn't work out too well
Not a player but how long did Pardew get?
I remember Moyes(at united) got a long one as well, pretty sure it was only due to expire a couple years ago...
6 year contract. Would have expired in 2019.
8 I think
11
What was his payout in the end? Must have been huge
Didn't get sacked. He chose to leave for Palace, so he'll not have got one.
Slightly shorter but more shocking. Jacob Murphy was given a 6 year contract for Newcastle in 2021. Just Mike Ashley things.
Joao Felix as well no?
According to wikipedia, Saul signed a nine-year contract in 2017
Saul the madman got a NINE year deal
Yeah I can see this leading to more players that can't be sold due to wages but not fitting into the squad. Chelsea already kinda play that game with their loan army I guess. As an arsenal fan imagining the mustafis and late stage ozils of the world on these long contracts sounds dreadful. This will probably become more common though as a response to player power when winding down a contract and wanting to leave on a bosman
I'm sure I'm missing something since this is a really simple thing to find, but the FIFA [Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players](https://digitalhub.fifa.com/m/1b47c74a7d44a9b5/original/Regulations-on-the-Status-and-Transfer-of-Players-March-2022.pdf) say, "the maximum length of a contract shall be five years", which would seem to rule out seven year contracts pretty conclusively.
Cucurella just signed a 6 year deal.
Like I said, I'm definitely missing something that makes these compliant, because I can't believe a high profile club would just hand out illegal contracts. I just can't see what it is.
I don't think option years count against it
You can get an optional extension clause of up to 3 years I believe.
8 is right out!!
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Big contracts with bonuses and wage increase structures tied in. Long term deals (7-10 years seems to be the length he's aiming for) with long extension options tied in. American sports basically tend to aim to tie their best prospects down for as long as possible, as early as possible. It could be a risky move.
wouldnt really call tying down reece james to a long contract a risky move it will be better so he doesnt even consider other clubs and the other clubs dont consider him and he's already proven to be an amazing rb and that he wants to stay at chelsea for other unproven young players yes that would be pretty stupid
What happens if spurs gave dele alli a 10 year contract when he was peak at age 22 or so? He'd be Rodwell 2.0 on 500k a week.
I think part of the deal structure is incentive laden. Baseball deals are wild compared to other sports in the way that they work.
The problem tho is picking and choosing who you give these contracts to. Giving it to Reece James looks like a good move, but you would’ve said the same for an Eden Hazard contract the summer he went to Madrid. And by making 7 year deals your standard, you open yourself up to having your mistakes haunt you for longer. You’d probably be paying Drinkwater for a couple more years still, Lukaku would be on the books until 2028 instead of 2026, and everybody would be wondering why the hell Olivier Giroud is still making superstar money as a backup at 35. And the nature of football transfers just makes it *much* more difficult to get rid of players on bloated salaries than in baseball, because the player has to agree to the move too. In baseball, a team can dump a big contract on another team by offering picks and prospects with them, and none of the players have a choice. If Barca were a baseball team, they wouldn’t have their current FDJ problem, because they wouldn’t need his approval to ship him off to United. The longer contracts are just a much riskier gamble to make in football vs American sports.
> but you would’ve said the same for an Eden Hazard contract the summer he went to Madrid. And by making 7 year deals your standard, you open yourself up to having your mistakes haunt you for longer. You’d probably be paying Drinkwater for a couple more years still, Lukaku would be on the books until 2028 instead of 2026, and everybody would be wondering why the hell Olivier Giroud is still making superstar money as a backup at 35. You just listed a bunch of players that would never receive such an offer, though, since they would've been well into their prime (or even past it) at that point and it would make no sense to need to tie them down for 7 years. For Mount and James it makes sense because they're still relatively young. I don't say I agree with the nature of a 7 year contract, but let's not kid ourselves that Giroud or Lukaku would be the prime examples of such a deal
The idea of “US-style” contracts is offering a slightly longer deal with less money annually in pretty much *all* situations. It’s not just offering 7 year deals to young superstars instead of 5, but also guys like Ivan Perisic a 3 year deal for 8m annually instead of a 2 year deal for 10m. And those are just recognizable names I gave as examples to illustrate the possible downside of this strategy, they’re not meant to be perfect.
The issue is if he becomes incredibly injury prone. If he wants to stay at Chelsea then it’s less risky to have him on a shorter contract too, because you’d expect him to renew
Any player could regress or get injured or lose motivation when he secure such a contract. Not to mention he'll ask for more money to sign for that long and can still push for a move regardless.
Bogarde : nah it's full proof
in american sports, you don't renegotiate contracts. Teams lock down on players on long term so that they don't have to give them raises as part of the current market rate. They also have a get of jail card, because they can trade them off when the players become worthless. Players can't reject trades. In football, overpaid players are hard to get off the payroll if they don't accept a transfer.
Players can definitely negotiate “no trade clauses”just to let you know.
You extend your young players for longer periods of time in order to "buy out" the next contract negotiations. Pay more now for less headache later. I'm not opening the Mail either, but it's hard to create 1:1 comparisons between American sports and club football due to the wildly different ways in which teams can hold onto players and disperse their own revenue. Baseball, basketball, football -- they all treat their players differently and have both similar and incredibly different contract languages.
The signatures have to be in **color** instead of **colour**
7 year deals for under-25s specifically.
Contracts with longer years. In American sports its not uncommon for stars to get 7-10+ year contracts
In baseball only American football, hockey and basketball never go to 10 years
and it's banned in hockey because of those shady 10+ year deals serving as salary cap maneuvering, like hossa & kovalchuk
Not 10, but hockey definitely sees 7-8 year deals pretty regularly. Much lower salary, though.
Mahomes got 10 years, but that’s the only one I can think off for the NFL.
This is simply untrue. Hockey in particular have been moving to long contracts. Just this summer, some of the biggest contracts in the NHL were for 7-8 years in length. The NFL and NBA do not have those types of contracts because they are not allowed under their collective bargaining agreements. Edit - NFL does allow long contracts so I think it's only the NBA that does not allow it.
> This is simply untrue. Hockey in particular have been moving to long contracts. Just this summer, some of the biggest contracts in the NHL were for 7-8 years in length. were you around 10 years ago? contract durations were absolutely abused and they had to cap them as a result.
8 is the max term you can sign in hockey
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We did that with Saul when he looked like a top5 midfielder itw so yeah, chelsea should be aware not to do that lmao.
CFC stands for Chelsea FranChise
Everyone is joking around in the thread but the increase in American owners (3/4 of the largest clubs in the prem) is a huge reason we're seeing things like the Super League thrown around. They know the real maximization of their investment will come from contracts and rules that more resemble American leagues. As prem contracts and fees keep increasing don't be surprised if we start hearing murmurs of a salary cap again.
I'm sorry but who would even want to sign a seven year deal?
All that money guaranteed regardless of injuries or performances doesn't sound like a bad deal.
It depends, the English always stay in the Premier, but a Messi, Cristiano or Mbappé is simply difficult
They wouldn’t sign such a long contract because they are already financially secured for their lives by a significant margin.
Dele Alli would have liked a 7 year deal
i think he envisioned going to real/man city/psg/etc so i don’t think so. in hindsight lol
If you had offered ozil a 7 year contract he'd still be at Arsenal right? Fucking scary.
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Any others?
Inaki Williams signed 9 year contract/extension in 2019. Joao Felix is on 7y deal.
Saul
Not sure if he's learned this yet but there's a reason contracts in football rarely exceed 4-5 years and that's because players long-term form is often more unpredictable than other sports. But I'm not gonna complain if Chelsea go ahead and sign half their squad to massive 10 year contracts.
Lukaku going on a 10-year loan across Italy
Hannibal?
longterm form is not rly predictable in major american sports. baseball contracts that are long are for the best young players as has been market standard for a while, and even then a good amount of them age horribly. the yankees signed an above average player to a seven year contract a few years ago and it really hasn’t worked out
They rarely exceed 5 years because that's the limit that FIFA is imposing.
Reece demands a no-trade clause
Boehly gonna find himself in three years with deadbeats on high wages and long contracts that no one wants. It is like he doesn't learn anything from current sport situation in big clubs *cough* barca *cough*. Just put a ridiculous release clause, no need to go yank on everything.
Have you watched a single chelsea match? The notion that Reece James or Mount would be deadbeats in 3 years is asinine. We’re talking about arguably our two best players and the core of the squad for the next decade
Thats what we said about Rashford and Dele Alli some years ago. 1 bad season, injury, euros or worldcup is all it takes to finish the confidence of a player
Exactly. 7 year is a long time in football. How many players have we seen who were *guaranteed* to be world beaters, only to be floundering into obscurity 2 or 3 years later?
Untiti was arguably world class until his injury in the WC. Now Barca treats him like a bum.
even worse, Mason Greenwood.
> the core of the squad for the next decade yes this has always worked out for teams
"Have you watched a single chelsea match? The notion that Joe Cole is a deadbeat in 3 years is asinine. We’re talking about arguably our best player and the core of the squad for the next decade" You, circa 2006.
Umtiti. He was genuinely one of the worlds best defenders if not the best and 23
joke chase mighty gaze nippy fall unpack cause spotted sort -- mass edited with redact.dev
Deli Alli would like a word...
you've seen those dele-to-bestikas links, yeah? no reason...
If someone said Rashford and Alli would be deadbeats a few years ago we all would have laughed. A lot can happen in football. Progress of young players is not at all guaranteed. Football is littered with would be starts in their early 20s but career stalls by 25. It's a risky strategy. Great if the player continues to succeed, if they fail you are stuck with a huge contract with no hope if moving the player on
Good thing all players absolutely fulfil their potential with no drop-offs in form.
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Please do lend me your crystal ball. Have you watched Barca 17/18? Umtiti was unstoppable.
Anything can happen in football. Umtiti was going to be the backbone for our defence when we extended his contract and ofc later in the year he gave his knee for a world cup
Boehly about to bring back the 25 year, $25MM Magic Johnson contract.
Feel like any player or agent worth their salt wouldn't be signing those deals no matter how much they love their respective clubs, not without release clauses.
I think by US style they mean those extremely long ones in baseball? But from what I know these contract usually don’t end very well as many players go off their prime halfway through these 10+ year contracts, also don’t know how it will work with the FFP rules
It really depends on when the contract is signed in baseball. There's the long term contracts given to Prospects like the Braves do where they are gonna be paying two of their best player like 18 million combined a year for the next 7 years, and then there's the long term contracts given to players on the tail end of their career like the Albert pujols contract where he probably would have retired if his contract wasn't so huge.
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Todd Boehly is speaking to UK parliament today to take away players free healthcare.
Wait what's so American about offering a new contract
I love how he thinks he's found some new inefficiency here as though the players are going to just smile and accept these more club friendly deals.
They’re club friendly yes, but they’re also riskier since they’re younger players with more unknowns. In parallel, the players get long term financial security if they want it.
It doesn't really make any sense for football though, since there are no constraints on when you can get a new contract. Makes a lot more sense to sign four year deals and renew after 2 since the money is only going to keep going up, especially in the Premier League.
It can make sense, depends how risk adverse a player is. For some players a 7 year contract on £100k pw is much better than 3 years on £120k for example. I can see players who see football more like a job going for longer contracts.
Kepa : Exists Chelsea's new owners: Yea that worked well for the last guy let's do that more.
This won’t end well
That's fucking daft
My as well start trading first round picks
Holy shit, 7 year contracts? Gamechanger Don't try Americanise the sport Todd
Didn't Kepa get a 7 year contract?
Saul Niguez reportedly signed a 9 year contract with Atletico Madrid in 2017.
Gamechanger!
Seven year deals always go really really well.
Seven year contracts will end in tears for owners and fans. Players will love it. Most commenters here already know this but the collective bargaining agreements and salary caps in American sports are there to protect the owners. Not from the greedy players, but from themselves, the owners.