From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Don Garber (born October 9, 1957) is the commissioner of Major League Soccer, succeeding Doug Logan in 1999. Previous to this, he was employed by the National Football League as head of NFL International.

His first move as commissioner was to bring the league more in line with the international standard, eliminating the shootout and letting the referee keep the time on the field. Overtime and a fourth keeper sub were the only surviving non-standard rules, and both would go after the 2003 season.

After the 2001 season, Garber contracted two teams, the Miami Fusion and the Tampa Bay Mutiny, which helped lead to the financial stabilization of the league.

Among his accomplishments is creating a consistent timeslot for league games (MLS Soccer Saturday), and putting an emphasis on soccer-specific stadiums, especially if a team is not subsidized by a National Football League franchise, such as the New England Revolution (operated by the owners of the New England Patriots). He has also played a big role in the improving financial shape of the league, which lost $34 million the year before he arrived. The league now sells more than it buys in the transfer market; Garber admitted that one of his biggest mistakes was buying Luis Hernandez for $4 million. He has been nicknamed "The Don" by his colleagues.

Contents 1 Garber as Commissioner of Major League Soccer 2 Criticism 3 Vision 2010 4 External links

Don Garber appears to be following a much longer-term growth strategy than all previous soccer league commissioners of the NASL & MLS have taken. He has emphasized slow, steady growth of the league over many decades rather than attempting to force its way into the headlines (Beckham deal included) like the NASL did. Before Garber came into the Commissioner's office, the league had only one team in its own soccer-specific stadium, the Columbus Crew, whose Crew Stadium was built by Lamar Hunt in 1999. Despite this, the league was bleeding money at an unsustainable rate (34 million dollars in 1998). Garber met with league owners Philip Anschutz, Lamar Hunt and Robert Kraft around the turn of the millennium to decide what future actions should be taken to insure the league's survival. Their decision was to build the sport following the model given by Lamar Hunt's Crew Stadium, and also added a few elements to what might appropriately be called the "Garber League Building Plan". One of the pillars of the strategy rested upon the creation of Soccer United Marketing, a commercial soccer company with rights to all commercial soccer properties in the United States. This company would then be owned by all the owners of Major League Soccer and even if their MLS teams didn't make them a profit yet, SUM might.

In 2003 another portion of the plan began to be implemented. This was the building of soccer-specific stadia for all the league's teams, and in 2003, the "cathedral of American Soccer", the Home Depot Center, was built to house the LA Galaxy, and both senior national teams. It is the first of what is to be many soccer stadiums in America, with another four stadiums expected to be in place for the start of the 2007 MLS season. There are currently plans for several more stadiums already in progress, and one of which is currently being constructed for the 2008 season, Red Bull Park, a 25,000 seat stadium for the New York Red Bulls.

In order to address the complaints over the quality of the league's play, Garber & the owners embarked on a multi-pronged strategy. The first step taken was the creation of the MLS Reserves Division in 2005 that would give additional playing time to players not starting or playing much for the first team. Along with this new Reserve division the MLS expanded its team rosters to 28 from 24. This would give the league's teams more flexibility and ability to compete over the season.

At the end of the 2006 MLS season, several more measures were introduced to improve the quality of play. The league mandated the creation of a youth development system, with U-14, U-15, U-16, U-18, U-20, and U-25 development squads [1]. Further, the league said that any player a team developed could be signed without giving them up to the MLS SuperDraft. A maximum of two per year are allowed to be signed after two years of development play for their respective MLS team. Further increasing the incentives of MLS owners to invest in the mandatory teams is the increased portion of the transfer fees some of these players may bring, which will help a club's finances.

Another new competition initiative the MLS undertook at the conclusion of the 2006 season was the creation of the Designated Player Rule, or "Beckham Rule". It is nicknamed after David Beckham as his signing with the LA Galaxy was the first use of the rule by the league. He will be coming to the league in the summer of 2007 thanks to a record $250 million dollar, 5 year deal. This may be an acknowledgment by Garber and the league's owners that it needed a few more "marquee" players to boost interest and the long-term strength of the league in a quicker fashion.

The latest competition initiative the league has taken under Garber is the creation of Superliga ^[1], a new North American Championship tournament with a 1 million dollar prize, the richest ever for North American soccer. In the initial tournament, 4 sides from the Mexican league and MLS each will compete on American soil for the ultimate prize. It is hoped that this increased international competition will help develop American players to higher calibers of play and lead to increased interest in both American and Mexican soccer clubs.

Commercially Garber has also made huge strides over a long period of time. One of the most important of those commercial landmarks for the league was the first-ever TV rights deals that Major League soccer agreed to with ABC/ESPN, Univision, Fox Soccer Channel, and HDNet. Between them the league will take in approximately 20 million dollars of money each year and no longer be responsible for producing the games. This appears to be a key turning point for the league's financial state towards overall league profitability, which Garber has predicted by 2010.

Furthering the league's financial well-being is the landmark decision to be the first large professional league to allow sponsor's names on the front of jerseys [2]. Real Salt Lake signed the first agreement with Xango, an energy drink company for an estimated 4-5 million dollars over 4 years [3]. With a floor of $500,000 dollars per year for a shirt sponsorship, and 200,000 of that going to the league as a flat fee, this is thought to be a sure-fire way to increase owner's incentives to invest in their team(s).

Soccer United Marketing has further increased incentives to be in league ownership, as it recently sold the US rights to the 2010 & 2014 World Cups for some 425 million dollars.

Recently though that ownership has been dramatically diversified. In 2001, there was just three owners in the 10 team league: Philip Anschutz's Anschutz Entertainment Group (6 teams), Lamar Hunts' Hunt Sports (3 teams), and Robert Kraft (owner of New England Patriots & Revolution). Since then the league has diversified to 10 owners of 13 teams under Garber's careful guidance.

Garber has many critics as well, who maintain that through his years as head of MLS, attendance and tv ratings have been stagnant and have even decreased in many markets.

Also, his legacy with NFL Europe has greatly been seen as a failure. NFL Europe has contracted to 6 teams with teams only in German and Holland.

Futhermore, people have criticized the fact that Garber makes 1.2 Million, over half of the leagues salary cap, while making 100X more than many of the players in the league who make less than $50,000

People have also criticized Garbers strategy of building stadiums, when newly built stadiums in Dallas and Chicago struggle to sell tickets, and are often half empty during games.

Commissioner Garber has stated he hopes to see 16 teams in 2010 playing in 10 soccer-specific stadia, and also believes the league will be generating an overall operating profit. While ambitious, it is not unrealistic, and appears to be somewhat on track. Even if this goal is not reached by then, Don Garber will be responsible for the league a great deal farther than where it started under his tenure. Time will tell if Garber's ultimate goal of making America a "Soccer Nation" will pan out however, as much of the criticism of the league under Garber is merited (see main MLS page attendance figures).

• Don Garber bio from Major League Soccer's official site