MSL NOTEBOOK : Grousing Is Preview to League Meetings

SAN DIEGO —  The MSL owners meetings are two weeks away, but already arguments have commenced:

Existing teams need to commit to next season in order to gain expansion cities. Expansion cities need to commit now so the existing seven teams have reason to go forward. . . . The salary cap needs to be lowered again. It’s time to raise the salary cap. . . . Commissioner Earl Foreman is overpaid. Foreman isn’t fairly compensated.

Foreman’s salary has been questioned by Stan Naccarato, who became vice president of the Tacoma Stars in early November after 21 years with the Tacoma Tigers, a triple-A baseball team. He called Foreman’s base salary of $175,000 plus a $25,000 expense account exorbitant for a struggling league.

Foreman would not comment on the matter or confirm the $200,000 figure.

“While we keep cutting salaries, the commissioner should say, ‘It’s going to start with me,’ and cut his salary until we get this thing going,” Naccarato said.

Randy Bernstein, Socker executive vice president, retorted on behalf of Foreman.

“Earl Foreman is not stealing money from the league,” Bernstein said. “He works very hard and I’m sure he wants the league to succeed more than the people in Tacoma do.”

Oscar Ancira, Socker managing general partner, will use the meetings to try to convince other owners to commit for next season, which Ancira says is a prerequisite to expansion, and also to spend more money on a league-wide basis.

On the first count, Ancira will receive heavy opposition from teams that want assurance there will be expansion.

“We need to see three more teams come in (before Tacoma can commit),” Naccarato said. “Right now we don’t know what’s going on and we want some answers. If there’s no new teams coming in, no new blood coming in . . .”

Naccarato did not finish his statement, but later gave a clue to an option he might take when he said he accepted an invitation from the National Professional Soccer League to attend its All-Star game in Kansas City.

Although the NPSL has a salary cap of about $200,000, it too is having financial difficulty. Earlier in the year, the Dayton Dynamo’s financially strapped owner was forced to stop funding the team. The league had to step in to pay the bills and since then two Dayton lawyers took over the franchise from the league.

As far as MSL expansion goes, Buffalo is still being mentioned as a possible site, but owners of the NHL Sabres, who have talked with Foreman, also continue to court the NPSL.

Other possibilities include Detroit, Phoenix, Portland, Charlotte and Minneapolis.

NBA owners in those cities have been approached by Norm Sonju, vice president of the Dallas Sidekicks and NBA Mavericks, who has put together a plan of operating MSL clubs with existing NBA front offices, which is being done in Dallas, where Donald Carter owns both teams.

One other possibility is San Jose. Milan Mandaric, current majority owner of the St. Louis Storm, is trying to sell his share of that team so he can put an expansion team in San Jose for the 1993-94 season.

A new arena is scheduled to open there in December.

Ancira is trying to convince Mandaric to start a team in San Jose for the 1992-93 season and playing on the road until late December when the building is scheduled to be open. Mandaric, however, is concerned the arena will not be completed on schedule.

Ancira also will petition the league to hire International Management Group to help market the MSL at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars.

IMG has had success putting periphery sports on national television, being responsible for putting American Gladiators on TV.

“Basically we have a product,” Ancira said. “And we have to sell it. But in order to sell it, we have to invest some money. So I have to convince (the other owners) that besides absorbing their franchise losses, they have to invest a little on the league level as well.”

That isn’t likely. As Naccarato hinted by discussing the NPSL’s salary cap, he and executives from other teams already are talking about lowering costs further--and the cap could be a main target.

Such a discussion should be heated.

“I was against lowering it last time,” Ancira said. “And I think we should start increasing it and start getting used to raising it.”

Added Ish Haley, Sidekick general manager, “Our players are our product and whatever we can do to help them helps us.”