By Ben Nicholson
September 12 – Don Garber has signed a contract to continue on as MLS Commissioner for another five years. The deal will keep him as the head of US’s premier professional league until 2018, which would mark his twentieth year in the job.
Having started in the position in 1999, Garber has seen the MLS expand vastly. Particularly in recent years the league has started to enjoy commercial growth, facilitated by foreign investment and interest.
As a result of the swelling interest of soccer across the nation, Garber is well prepared to increase the number of clubs in the league to 24 by 2020. It seems like he could even go beyond this number thanks to the expressed interest of multiple cities that are currently vying for the final expansion spots.
All of Garber’s previous contracts with the MLS have been three-year deals, and the penning of a five-year contract this time round speaks of the long term vision and stability that the league now harbors. Testament to this is the statistic that Garber is only the second Commissioner the MLS has had since its inception in 1995.
“It’s the first five-year deal I’ve signed in 15 years. Every other deal was a three-year deal. I had always been of the mind that you sign three-year deals so you can give everybody the flexibility to determine what you want to do,” said Garber. “The league was younger and less mature. Now we’re teeing up a long-term commitment to each other.”
Under Garber’s guidance, the MLS has created a sustainable business model out of nothing. At the beginning of his reign only one club was playing in its own stadium, and almost all clubs were losing money. Since then, he has channeled the investment into soccer-specific stadiums.
He has also focused on the development of youth systems by mandating that each club have its own academy system, encouraging the investment by allowing an unlimited amount of homegrown players in the first team (as opposed to an over-reliance on the draft system as in other US major leagues). Other areas that Garber has significantly enhanced are in sponsorship and television deals, which have provided the necessary finance to ensure the continuing success of the league.
Garber was diagnosed with prostate cancer in July but recently received news that he is now cancer-free, and after taking the month of August off to recover has returned to work.
Garber, currently 56, has previously expressed his vision for the MLS to be one of the world’s top soccer leagues by 2022. Unless he plans on achieving this a few years premature, he will likely have to extend his contract some more to actualize his goals.
On this point he stated, “At some point in year three or four I’ll sit down and determine whether I go beyond twenty years, but twenty years is a long time to do any one job.” In any case, he will have spent more time in this job than he did serving as an executive on the NFL, which spanned sixteen years.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1734801099labto1734801099ofdlr1734801099owedi1734801099sni@n1734801099osloh1734801099cin.n1734801099eb1734801099