No Major Changes in '09 for MLS

Friday in Los Angeles, MLS commissioner Don Garber held his annual State of the League address ahead of Sunday's MLS Cup final. Unlike previous seasons, there were few noteworthy nuggets of information dropped by the commish -- unless you count the elimination of the MLS reserve division as big news. (Admit it, like most people you had no idea the reserve league even existed.)

Probably the most important thing said by Garber Friday was that the league hasn't lost any corporate sponsorship due to the ongoing worldwide economic crisis.

On the expansion front, Montreal officially dropped out of the running for 2011 due to the wintry economic climate. That leaves Vancouver, Miami, Portland and, yes, Ottawa as the front runners. The prospect of another team in Canada is a double-edged sword for the league.

On the plus side, Toronto FC have been a smash at the gate and the atmosphere at BMO Field puts everything else in the league to shame. On the other side, the league wants to continue to grow the sport in the States, and putting another team in Canada would hurt television ratings.

In my mind, passion is passion. MLS is never going to set the Neilsen ratings afire, so if you can get around 20,000 truly passionate fans in the gate, that should offset the allure of say, South Beach.

Other stuff from Garber included that, like it or not, playoffs and the needless conferences are here to stay. The rosters have been cut, but teams can now have up to 20 senior players. The salary cap might go up, but Garber was mum on how much. The designated player, aka the "Beckham Rule," will be addressed after the 2009 season. Relocation, cough cough Chivas USA, Kansas City, wasn't addressed.

Until the league picks its teams for 2011 and gets 18 franchises on board, it's hard to see the powers that be making any major changes. By then, with 18 teams and hopefully 18 different owners, there will be some new voices -- Barcelona perhaps -- that might force the league to take a serious look at how it does things, particularly the single-league entity where MLS holds all player contracts, not the teams. This model has worked for almost 15 years, but eventually you'd think it would have to change and allow the teams to operate on their own. Going forward, individual ownership of teams and player contracts will be the biggest hurdle and change MLS will face. It'll have to happen sooner or later, right?