Liga MX: The new mls?

Liga MX president Enrique Bonilla and eighteen club owners voted to suspend relegation for the next five years. In doing so, the lower division would no longer serve as a league for underperforming teams but would begin to transition into more of a development league for younger players. This newly fashioned second league would be similar to the minor league in Major League Baseball, working to breed the best players possible for the sport. Annual salaries for each of the remaining teams in Liga MX has been confirmed, but it is no secret that the league is in a bit of trouble. The decision comes after Bonilla recognized that revenue has declined significantly in a multitude of ways and with the COVID-19 pandemic not making things any easier. But there has been a bit of debate as to whether or not the vote was the right choice.

This new Liga MX model seems to be a very similar approach to Major League Soccer’s business model. The past years, Liga MX has been known as a better competitive league than MLS, however, this decision seems that Liga MX is actually trying to adopt MLS’ business model in order to provide the club owners a more sustainable growth. Furthermore, it is well known around the world that soccer moves significant amounts of money, through MLS’ model and the new Liga MX model, the idea is to have a better control of the financial spending of the clubs in order to prevent them from going bankrupt or sinking in huge amounts of debt.

On its face, the disintegration of the lower division was an intelligent business strategy because of the lack of funds to continue operating Liga MX as it had been for years. Not only would there be more of a focus on the main league, and hopefully bring in more capital, the formation of a development league would help train players to be better and bring more attention to the league overall. However, there are lingering downsides to this decision. Bonilla and other league executives have yet to provide a detailed explanation as to how exactly they want the second division to work. The idea of an age limit, for instance, for players in the second league has been discussed but that is as far as it has gone as there has been no confirmation that this idea would be made into a reality. Without a plan, it is difficult to foresee any issues that could occur and how the league would be able to fix them. Subsequently, it would then be even more difficult to form a solid opinion on Liga MX’s decision without knowing all the facts necessary. Work in process