Spencer Nelson

The full roster rules is 8500 words long but here is a somewhat detailed summary. The salary cap is 5.47 million for 2024, but teams spend more than that. Teams can register 30 players. Only the first 20 of the 30 players on the roster count towards the cap, the other 10 are called supplemental slots. Players in the supplemental slots must fit certain criteria, but tldr is they aren't making much money outside of homegrowns players on their first deal, who can make up to 200k and still count as supplemental, and Generation Adidas players, top prospects in a draft. Every team gets 2,585,000 of General Allocation Money (GAM) for each season. GAM can be used to reduce the cap hit of a player. GAM can be traded between teams. Teams also get extra gam if they miss the playoffs, qualify for CCL, if they are an expansion team, and If a team loses a player in an expansion draft. If a team sells a player outside of MLS, they get GAM from the profit from the sale, but not the full amount. Most likely it would be less than 2 million. Transfer fees paid count towards the cap. If a player is signed for 1 million and signs a 4 year deal, 250k is added towards the yearly salary (lets say 300k a year) to create a cap hit of 550k a season for 4 seasons. DPs only count towards the cap at 450k if a senior DP (23+), or 200K if they are a young DP. The max salary for 2024 is 683,750. A player can make more than that and not be a DP if the team has Targeted Allocation Money (TAM).. Along with GAM, teams get TAM every year. TAM can't be traded. If a player makes more than $1,683,750, they must be a DP. TAM can also be used to open up a DP spot if the DP is making less than 1.68 mil (called buying down a DP) Recently they added the u22 player initiative. U22 players have max salary of 683k and the team can pay as high as a transfer fee, but the cap hit for u22 is 200k if the player is 21-25, or of 100k if under 20. A team can have up to 3 DPs and 3 u22s in a season, but in order to get the 3rd u22, the 3rd DP cant be over 24 and making more than 1.7 mil. If so they get 1 u22. If a player gets injured, they can be placed on the season injured list and won't count towards the cap the rest of the season.