By J Hutcherson – WASHINGTON, DC (Jan 21, 2015) US Soccer Players – The recent changes made by the New York Red Bulls haven’t exactly gone over well. The team hired Ali Curtis as its sporting director. From day one, Curtis was clear that he wanted to do things differently with the Red Bulls. That’s no small statement, considering the situation with the MLS club.

It’s not just that the Red Bulls operate within the tight confines of MLS single-entity. It’s also that they’re part of a larger multinational organization. The global director of football for Red Bull isn’t Ali Curtis. There’s a chain of command that goes higher than MLS, something that seems like a requirement for MLS teams in the New York market.

When the Red Bulls announced the Curtis hiring, the press release only needed three paragraphs to mention what they want from Curtis.

“A key component to Curtis’s acquisition will be the use of data analytics and performance analysis in nearly all aspects of player personnel, team performance and week-to-week preparations.”

Fair enough for anybody wondering how a team fully applies analytics in a single-entity league. Even delving into what any team really means when they use the term “data analytics” is difficult. All single-entity does here is compound that problem.

There are some Red Bulls supporters convinced Curtis already did some compounding with his decision to fire head coach Mike Petke and hire Jesse Marsch. That’s a hearts and minds issue the Red Bulls are having trouble dealing with. A town hall meeting last Friday with the club’s more vocal supporters ended pretty much how you’d expect. While sparing a thought for Red Bulls goalkeeper Luis Robles who was part of the Red Bulls delegation, the uproar over Marsch for Petke also tends to ignore Curtis’s job.

As difficult as it is to take analytics as applied to a single MLS team seriously, maybe Red Bulls management sees something. Maybe MLS really is changing, and they’ve found what they believe will quickly become a competitive advantage.

We’re certainly in yet another transitional moment in MLS. There always seems to be expansion, but MLS is also talking about its own rules in a new way. Should the next Collective Bargaining Agreement open up player movement, MLS becomes a different league from an acquisition perspective. Toronto FC is treating their player recruitment as if it already has.

Toronto FC might only be the latest MLS team to take the designated player exemptions to their logical extent, but they’re doing it in bulk. Their spending is no joke by any soccer standard short of the biggest clubs in Europe, and that’s different for MLS. So is the league’s commissioner openly talking about the need for rules to make sense with the general public rather than allowing the league to do what it wants in the moment and perhaps worry about explaining it later.

It’s more than public relations here. It’s a league of true franchises moving closer to a league of clubs. So far, that’s an appearance/reality distinction that favors MLS. Treat your local franchise as a club all you want, but behind the scenes it’s still part of a closely aligned whole. MLS remains unique territory when it comes to operating a soccer team, and so far what we’ve seen is only a loosening of what makes it a single-entity.

The homegrown player rule, USL reserve teams, and the designated player distinction are still operating within an old system. What the New York Red Bulls and a few other forward-looking MLS teams might be asking is what happens should that system radically alter how it works in practice. It’s a pertinent question, one that could create a different game for MLS front offices.

Right now, that might be giving the Red Bulls too much credit. From a public relations standpoint, they’ve misstepped with their most vocal fans. There’s also the Red Bulls need to move forward without reviving past failures. Both of these ask a lot, but both are primarily solved by winning soccer games. Do that in a changing MLS, and the Red Bulls suddenly look like leaders.

In a changing MLS, some team will fill that role. Between the end of the 2014 and the start of the 2015 MLS seasons, maybe what the Red Bulls are really doing is making sure they’re in that conversation.

J Hutcherson started covering soccer in 1999 and has worked as the general manager of the US National Soccer Team Players Association since 2002. Contact him atjhutcherson@usnstpa.com.

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