MLS: Who is performing the best compared to how much they are spending?

With a majority of club football in Europe finished for the summer, we here at TSZ turn our attention to across the ocean where the MLS is in full swing. We will investigate which teams are performing best compared to how much they spend on salary. To do this we will look at the cost per point achieved and cost per goal scored for all 20 clubs.

Our first step will be to look at how much each team actually spends on salaries. The table below will rank the teams in order of which teams spends the most at the top to the low spenders at the bottom.

It will be interesting to see the differences in performance between the big spenders at the top against the lower spenders towards the bottom.

Next up we will look at the cost per point achieved to see which clubs are getting the most out of what they spend on salaries.

• The investigation shows that the top team in terms of best value for their money is FC Dallas. The Western Conference side have a cost of $120,848 per point achieved. Interestingly the team that ranks 2nd in terms of getting the best value for their money is also in the Western Conference, Real Salt Lake who achieve a cost of $197,685.

• The most costly team in terms of value for money per point achieved is from the Eastern Conference; that unfortunate accolade goes to Toronto FC who have a cost of $1,028,139 per point - that is a huge difference when compared to FC Dallas.

• The 2nd worst team in terms of getting the most from the money is also in the Eastern Conference and that is New York City FC who spend $858,497 per point. This is significantly greater than their rivals New York Red Bulls who spend a modest $225,511.

The next step in our investigation is to look at cost per goal scored for all 20 clubs, and we have also looked at average goals per game as some teams have played a different number of matches.

• Yet again we can see that FC Dallas lead the way in this category with each goal working out to be $144,088 whilst they also lead the way when looking at salaries against the goals per game average . Similarly to the cost per point analysis, Philadelphia Union, New York Red Bulls and Real Salt Lake feature close to the most efficient spenders.

• It makes more bad reading for Toronto FC as they are the worst ranked team with each goal scored costing them $1,149,097. Supporters cannot be critical of the team’s spend, but they may question the results on the pitch.

Dallas are doing a tremendous job at getting their best out of their players based on their annual spend. Of course, a successful season will likely lead to players wanting a pay rise, but they are the team who are extracting the best value for money from their players so far in this intriguing MLS season. Let’s see if this is still the case come the end of the season.