NISA player salaries: low wages discussion with Commissioner John Prutch and some perspective
In recent weeks, reports of NISA clubs including two league-operated clubs (Atlanta and Savannah)paying players below a living wage has surfaced- first reported by Protagontist. While the initial reports created a degree of outrage among fans and media alike, the 40,000 foot view and historical perspective tell us that this is more common in lower division US Soccer than many want to believe. It’s unfortunate, but a reality of the closed-system of US Soccer where the principle of solidarity, a fundamental governing principle of the sport is not honored.
During my tenures both at NASL’s league office and with various clubs at the lower division level, low pay for some players toward the bottom of the roster was an automatic assumption. The one exception to this in my personal experience, was Miami FC, but many could argue that the salary structure of that club in the period that I worked for them, was not anywhere close to being sustainable.
But at the time some of NASL’s wages were not significantly lower than MLS’ - in fact there are several examples of mid-level players who choose NASL clubs over MLS ones. The same had happened with USL in the 2002-2009 time period, when the USL First Division as it was then called, often got players “dropping down” a league that were paid more in USL than they would have in MLS.
Generally in NASL and USL during the 2010’s you would find a handful of players per club on high salaries and then a number of players who were locally-based with lower salaries, held second jobs at local youth clubs or worked in something soccer related. If the clubs paid for housing they could save on the local players as well.
Sometimes players would try and make ends meet by volunteering for sponsor-mandated player appearances at local events - this was worth a couple hundred dollars a pop in some cases, which often was more than that player's individual weekly wage.
Heck, MLS prior to the 2010 CBA with the MLS Players Union paid a substantial amount of players the equivalent of less than $15,000 a year. Even after that CBA, the minimum salary was in the $35,000 range forcing players in some places to get second jobs (San Jose, in particular comes to mind with this).
This is not intended as a defense of what is happening in NISA currently, but it would be unfair to single out NISA in 2024 and not point similar fingers at MLS, NASL or USL in the past. NISA very clearly has a problem with some players not being properly compensated for their services. But if they didn’t have this problem, they’d be the first pro league in modern US Soccer history to not have experienced it.
I do think however we’ve had a revival in socioeconomic and political terms of the woes of the working class in recent years - something I personally embrace and consider important. Because of that, NISA is under more of a microscope than NASL, USL or MLS were at the times they were paying similarly offensive low wages to players.
We sat down this week with NISA Commissioner John Prutch to discuss this situation.
BT90: Commissioner, so there have been reports out there about player salaries on NISA clubs and obviously there are differences in pay scales, established clubs like Michigan Stars and LA Force, they obviously probably can pay more, they have more revenue, maybe have wealthier owners also.
So what is your response to the critics who say that NISA players or many NISA players are not making a living wage?
JP: Yeah, so I think it's somewhat unfortunate that they would say that, but the way our clubs work is each of them have their own budget, each of them make their own decisions on how to spend their money, but their single largest line item of their budget probably is in each of the club's player salaries.
And I think with the coach or technical director, what they're doing is they're trying to figure out how to put the best team on the pitch and so they'll have three to five players that are key players for them probably, and that they pay very well, probably in many cases or some cases championship style wages.
And then you'll have another three to five that are good players that are making decent money or good money for our level, and then you'll have the players that are support players or players that are at first year contracts that are just trying to make it in the professional ranks.
And so they graduate those pay rolls down so that they can have a competitive team on the pitch. It is unfortunate that some players at the lower end don't get paid more. Maybe some people think they should get paid more but they're trying to make it into the professional ranks and they're trying to move up the pay scale as well.
A lot of our clubs also provide other benefits to to players some have living expenses some have other jobs you know coaching opportunities for academies inside their academies or youth clubs that they provide so it's just not what they're making on the pitch and so I think it's and a lot of times those players they may make not a lot of money initially but two years from now they could be making some really good money right they worked their way up the ladder so I think so it's unfortunate that that we're under the microscope like that but I get it but it's every club makes their own decisions on the player payroll.
And, but that's basically how it works. How they kind of view the world as they're building their squad.
BT90: What is the league's role in terms of the two clubs that we know have had ownership issues, Georgia and Savannah in setting the pay scale and paying salaries?
Because I do know when we had this similar situation to NASL and we, when I was in the league office, we ran Minnesota for two years, which is of course now a MLS club. We found an owner (Dr. Bill McGurie), that owner took them to MLS.
So that sort of thing can happen. It might happen to one of these two clubs for all you know. But what we did is we paid the salaries, but the decisions within the budget were made by the people on the ground in Minneapolis, St. Paul, right? They weren't made by us in the league offices. Is this a similar situation where Georgia and Savannah, yes, the league is paying for these things, operations, et cetera, but you've given them a budget and they make decisions?
JP: That is correct. And we didn't actually even give them the budget. They came to us with the budget. Oh, okay. And we may have adjusted it a bit, but it's entirely up to them how that budget was spent.
And so it is very similar to the situation that you had in Minnesota because we don't, to sit in the league office and dictate how much someone should get and what it's gonna take for them to be competitive in the marketplace.
Let's just use Georgia as an example. We don't want Georgia to go out and not be competitive on the pitch, right? And so that's really up to them. And it's up to them how they spend that money.
Some great historical insight here. Agsin, not to defend the low salaries, but the same kind of thing has been true up until very recently in things like Rookie league baseball. Hardly any money there.
The thing that really jumps out in his comments is the situation for Georgia. Who owns that club? Does the league own it, and the money to operate comes from the league, or not? That felt like a dodge, since the impression has been that the league is funding the team.
Successful, sustainable leagues NEED to have standards met, even beyond ;priority access to a stable venue (the latter which is a major source of revenues). These standards include "reputable", accredited owners with deep pockets and political good will. These are critical ingredients for attracting further public & private investments. NISA seems to have NEITHER STANDARDS) (e.g. George Lions' debacle) NOR STABLE VENUES. And no possibility of a Women's side --growth potential greater than that of men's side! For all these fundamental reasons, NISA is ultimately doomed to fail.
p.s. Would love for a separate article discussing the possibility of the best run NISA teams becoming USL League One or MLS Next Pro in the near future??