When the possibility first arose that Lewis Wolff and John Fisher might exercise their $20 million option for an expansion team in 2007, several MLS governors balked. Some thought the price was too low; others said the market was still weak.
“I understand your concerns,” Commissioner Don Garber said, “but we made a commitment and we should honor that commitment.”
The remarks assuaged the governors’ concerns, several board members said, and led to a unanimous vote of approval for the addition of an expansion team in San Jose in 2008. It also set in motion the first of three expansion teams Garber would add to MLS in 2007.
Investor interest in MLS spiked shortly after the Los Angeles Galaxy signed David Beckham. Garber fielded calls of interest from Los Angeles to Portland and St. Louis to Philadelphia. But the commissioner recognized that before he could add a single expansion club, the option in San Jose had to be exercised.
The league had sold a three-year option for a team in that market to Wolff and Fisher for $20 million in 2006. It seemed like a great deal at the time, considering the league had just added expansion clubs Real Salt Lake and Chivas USA for $10 million. But the $20 million option became less attractive in early 2007.
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Garber has an 1,100-bottle wine cellar in his home and keeps about 300 additional bottles at an off-site storage facility.
Following the sale of D.C. United for more than $30 million, Garber wanted to raise expansion prices to $30 million, but he recognized that if the option in San Jose went unexercised, the league would leap from a $10 million expansion fee to $30 million. It was a jump he felt might be difficult to justify to new investors.
The commissioner dealt with the challenge by allocating league money to fund marketing, promotions and some staffing in San Jose. He didn’t push Wolff and Fisher to exercise early, but made sure that when they did they could hit the ground running. “He and his staff provided so much help during the option period we decided to exercise early,” Wolff said.
Within months of that decision, the league came to a verbal agreement on $30 million franchise fees with investor groups seeking expansion clubs in Seattle and Philadelphia.
Expansion wasn’t the only thing Garber accomplished in 2007. He also continued to decentralize the league.
The single-entity league gradually has become less involved in player contracts and other issues under Garber’s leadership, but he took that to the next level in 2007 after the board approved a rule allowing clubs to keep three-quarters of any transfer fees they make selling rights to players overseas. He also oversaw the board’s decision to relinquish the league’s exclusivity in the auto category, which would allow clubs to sell auto sponsorships for the first time in 2008.
“One of the things I generally respect about Don is his willingness to recognize when it comes to commercial activity that maybe as an enterprise it’s not best to have everything run through the league,” said D.C. United President Kevin Payne. “We’re really taking the point of view of what’s best for the entire enterprise now, and that’s a credit to Don’s leadership.”
Perhaps the 2007 achievement Garber took the most pride in was the creation of MLS WORKS, the league’s first charity foundation. The organization became involved in the United Nations’ Nothing but Nets campaign to fight malaria and helped raise $500,000 for a new youth soccer field in Harlem.
“If we want to be a legitimate major league, we have to be embedded in not just sports but society as a whole,” Garber said. “It can help position the league as active corporate citizens and give us a seat at the table on important issues.”
Expanded the ownership base of MLS by encouraging the sale of AEG clubs in Chicago and Washington, D.C.
