MLS salaries not so inequitable

With the recent slew of Designated Player signings there have been a fair number of people fretting over the possible stratification of MLS. 

They see teams like the New York Red Bulls spending nearly $16 million on player salaries while others like the San Jose Earthquakes are barely spending $2.5 million and are worried that MLS is headed down the dreaded path of haves vs. have-nots.

With the MLS Player Union releasing updated salary lists yesterday, I figured now might be a good time to take another look at this issue.

Right away, you notice some obvious things. The Red Bulls basically lumped on $10 million in salary by signing Rafa Marquez and Thierry Henry to $5 million-plus annual salaries. We also see that the Fire have leapfrogged the Sounders and Toronto FC for No. 3 on the list with a combined total of about $5.7 million. There's also an obvious gap from Nos. 4-5 with TFC spending about $5.2 million and the Sounders are down to about $2.9 million now that Freddie Ljungberg is off the books (although I assume the Sounders did have to pay about half his salary). Alvaro Fernandez is on the books for $300,000.

If you look a little closer, though, I'm not sure the problem is so glaring. 

Sure, the top-end salaries stand out like broken noses, but they are only two or three players on a 24-man roster. As we're reminded time and time again, roster depth is at least as important as high-end talent.

Once we look at median salaries, for instance, the inequities are not so clear.

The team with the highest median salary, for instance, is the Philadelphia Union at $119,000 annually. The top three median-salary teams, in fact, are all outside the big four spenders. Philadelphia, Columbus Crew ($112,000 median) and Kansas City Wizards ($110,000) all spend less than $3 million on player salaries. 

The Sounders are actually among the lowest median salaried teams at $73,000, more than only the New England Revolution ($71,000) and Chivas USA ($68,000).