MLS General Allocation: First Look at Team Spending Flexibility

More transparency is a good thing.

It’s important that we start there.

On Thursday, Major League Soccer made public for the first time the amount of general allocation each team has in its respective coffers. This is another step toward the type of transparency that has long existed for every other major men’s professional sports league in the United States.

In the NFL, NBA, MLB, and more, fans have access to salary cap numbers with just one click. The release of these general allocation numbers is designed to bring MLS fans closer to this level of access, giving them a better idea of ​​how much money and flexibility teams have to spend above the cap , and how they could spend it.

It’s a step in the right direction for MLS, but it’s not quite yet. As such, it is important to understand the extent to which we can use these new data points when discussing MLS teams, roster construction, and salary cap dynamics. If we think of MLS rosters as an answer to the Wheel of Fortune, we just fill in R, S, T, L, N, and E. For some teams, if we buy the right vowel or guess the right letter, it might be enough to solve the riddle. For others, we will still be a little far from being able to solve the problem.

This explainer will attempt to break down all the important information you need to understand the numbers MLS released this morning. For those new to the world of MLS roster rules, we’ll start with the basics to understand what general allocation money (GAM) is and what it can be used for in MLS. For those who already have their PhD in the GAM/TAM universe, you can skip ahead to where we’ll delve deeper into what we can actually learn from this information – and what slices we’re still missing to get the big picture.

---

What is General Allowance money?

Extra space for the cap. This is the best, simplest and most direct way to think about it.

The league distributes a specific amount of GAM each year – for 2025 it stands at $2.93 million – and teams also receive a bonus GAM for missing the playoffs or qualifying for the Champions Cup. CONCACAF. Teams can also convert up to $3 million per season from transfer income into GAM.

The main objective of GAM is to reduce capitalization costs. So if a player counts for $1 million against the cap, a team could use $700,000 in GAM to “bring down” the charge to $300,000.

Teams can also use GAM in transactions, which is the public money allocation function. This is the most common way to trade players in MLS. (However, GiveMeSport reported that the league is close to allowing internal trades/money transfers for the first time in its history, which could reset the trade market internally and begin to put real monetary value on players.)

Below are conference-by-conference figures for each team’s available GAM for 2025. All charts in the article are from Athletics Jeff Rueter.

---

---

What do these numbers tell us about each team’s cap flexibility?

A lot…and not enough.

Having an overview of each team’s GAM bank vault is a good thing. We now know that Atlanta United has more room to maneuver than Houston Dynamo, for example. But it will take us some time to start getting a more complete picture of how teams are using GAM and how long those numbers will last. How much GAM do teams spend on average over a season? We will know.

In an ideal world, the MLS would release automated updated numbers every day. Realistically, hopefully they will release regular updates of these numbers at key points in the season: roster compliance, primary window closure, secondary window closure, and end of season. Once we have a chance to look at a full year cycle, we will have a much better idea of ​​how teams are using GAM.

Additionally, without knowing what each player’s salary budget burden is, we still have to do a lot of guesswork if we want to talk about what teams can do, which players they can target, and which teams are good trade partners. We can piece together some of it by combining MLS Players’ Association salary figures and reported transfer fees, but that still involves some guesswork. Without knowing exactly how each team uses this GAM and which players they apply it to, we don’t have a clear understanding of whether teams are using the allocation effectively and how different strategies might work (or not work).

It’s also a bit more difficult to assess a player’s trade value without knowing his total cap hit. How can we know, for example, whether a team with $2.5 million in GAM should trade for Leo Campana if we don’t know whether his cap charge is $600,000 or $1 million? This is a very different calculation, so we have to guess Campana and the other players.

---

So how can we move forward with this information?

We do our best to get as clear a picture as possible. The picture is less murky thanks to efforts by some within MLS headquarters and across the league to bring more transparency to the league. Last year, we saw these GAM numbers made public, as well as the roster profiles the league began compiling and releasing last year.

Now at least we have player classifications (TAM, DP, U22, locals); the number of years guaranteed in a contract (which facilitates budget calculations and also takes into account commercial value) and option years; we also know how much GAM each team should play with.

We can at least start playing with whatever flexibility teams might have.

Let’s take Miami as an example. Using the MLSPA numbers and the MLS cap rules and trying to use a bit of guesswork (and, possibly, reporting and sourcing), we can give a better idea of ​​what Lionel Messi is with and Co. need to work to build their roster next year. , and we will discuss it below.

While a TAM player like Campana is a question mark cap-wise, we can use his MLSPA numbers and reported transfer fee of $2.7 million over his initial guaranteed term to add $900,000 per year at his salary. We know where the DPs and U22s are hitting, we have an idea of ​​the salary for the rest of the squad and we can be pretty confident in the max TAM numbers for Jordi Alba and Luis Suarez. An X factor is what Alba’s option year looks like. Is there still TAM? Does this number change to a DP configuration?

The sale of Diego Gomez was crucial because if they recouped all their personal expenses, Miami could convert up to $3 million of GAM into their coffers in January.

If we assume Alba remains a TAM player, that should give Miami about $4.78 million to play with before choosing a roster construction method. If Miami sticks with the “two DP-four U22” setup, they would get an additional $2 million in GAM to use. If they move to a “three DP-three U22” format, that $4.78 million figure would represent their cap flexibility.

We should be able to make similar educated guesses around the league. The hope is that this begins to generate substantive new conversations about rosters, front offices, trade markets and transfer windows.

MLS may not be there yet, but we can take advantage of the progress made this year.

(Top photo: Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Imagn Images)