Thanks for sharing this information. It would be interesting to know what TAM and GAM are and how these are used by a club, as well as budget caps and any additional sources of revenue that are available/limit the ability to fill out a roster. For example, how is it that Miami seems to have unlimited resources (i.e. On your podcast your guest mentioned that they are able to spend several million dollars on a defensive player) when they already have a number of big names on their roster. Compare this to the Union who seem to be constrained by a salary cap when it comes to signing a big name player.
Really good questions and be prepared for a long answer... MLS doesn't make this stuff easy.
The 2025 salary budget is set at $5,950,000.
The TAM available to clubs for 2025 is $2,225,000 per club.
MLS released a list on December 19, 2024, detailing how much GAM teams had available. The Union had $4,220,769.
Targeted Allocation Money (TAM) is used to "buy down" players' salaries from the maximum salary of $743,750.
We won’t know how much money players are making this season until the MLSPA releases the spring salary guide, but we can use last year’s numbers as an example:
The maximum salary charge was $683,750 in 2024.
Last year, the Union had six players on TAM contracts: Tai Baribo, Andre Blake, Jack Elliott, Jakob Glesnes, Danley Jean Jacques, and Kai Wagner.
Baribo, Blake, Elliott, Glesnes, and Wagner were all making over the maximum salary charge last year, while Jean Jacques qualified as a TAM player due to his high transfer fee ($1.5M).
Without buying those players down, they would have qualified as designated players.
The New York Times published a strong article last year highlighting which teams spent the most on TAM, with the Union ranking among the highest spenders.
General Allocation Money (GAM) is more flexible, as it can be used for multiple purposes:
To buy down a player’s salary budget charge, making it easier to fit higher-salary players under the salary cap.
To sign new players, re-sign current players, or acquire players via trade.
As for Inter Miami, they effectively utilize their U22 Initiative spots. They can pay as high of transfer fees as they want for players under 22 because the budget charge remains fixed:
If a player is 20 years old or younger when they sign as a U22, the cap hit is $150K.
If a player is 21 or 22 when they sign, they can retain U22 status until age 25, with a cap hit of $200K.
Thanks for sharing this information. It would be interesting to know what TAM and GAM are and how these are used by a club, as well as budget caps and any additional sources of revenue that are available/limit the ability to fill out a roster. For example, how is it that Miami seems to have unlimited resources (i.e. On your podcast your guest mentioned that they are able to spend several million dollars on a defensive player) when they already have a number of big names on their roster. Compare this to the Union who seem to be constrained by a salary cap when it comes to signing a big name player.
Really good questions and be prepared for a long answer... MLS doesn't make this stuff easy.
The 2025 salary budget is set at $5,950,000.
The TAM available to clubs for 2025 is $2,225,000 per club.
MLS released a list on December 19, 2024, detailing how much GAM teams had available. The Union had $4,220,769.
Targeted Allocation Money (TAM) is used to "buy down" players' salaries from the maximum salary of $743,750.
We won’t know how much money players are making this season until the MLSPA releases the spring salary guide, but we can use last year’s numbers as an example:
The maximum salary charge was $683,750 in 2024.
Last year, the Union had six players on TAM contracts: Tai Baribo, Andre Blake, Jack Elliott, Jakob Glesnes, Danley Jean Jacques, and Kai Wagner.
Baribo, Blake, Elliott, Glesnes, and Wagner were all making over the maximum salary charge last year, while Jean Jacques qualified as a TAM player due to his high transfer fee ($1.5M).
Without buying those players down, they would have qualified as designated players.
The New York Times published a strong article last year highlighting which teams spent the most on TAM, with the Union ranking among the highest spenders.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5499548/2024/05/16/mls-salary-release-takeaways/
General Allocation Money (GAM) is more flexible, as it can be used for multiple purposes:
To buy down a player’s salary budget charge, making it easier to fit higher-salary players under the salary cap.
To sign new players, re-sign current players, or acquire players via trade.
As for Inter Miami, they effectively utilize their U22 Initiative spots. They can pay as high of transfer fees as they want for players under 22 because the budget charge remains fixed:
If a player is 20 years old or younger when they sign as a U22, the cap hit is $150K.
If a player is 21 or 22 when they sign, they can retain U22 status until age 25, with a cap hit of $200K.
The formatting is weird for the comments, hopefully this helps... maybe it's worth an article someday?
Thanks & Very interesting. How about the Barcelona boys on Miami? They wouldn’t qualify for U22. How did they get around the salary budget limit?