My vote for best bargain-hunter in professional sport goes to Axel Schuster.
Like his results or not, if we ran our public finances the way he runs the Vancouver Whitecaps, no one would complain about taxes.
Schuster seems the kind of guy who squeezes the toothpaste tube for one last brush, although he demurs and says smilingly “my wife handles” the household budget. Even so, it is an economic wonder that he has as the team’s CEO and sporting director guided it into an on-field success that he proudly says “punches above its weight.”
That’s an understatement. As it took a month-long break in the schedule last week, with an inviting transfer period of players coming and going, the team found itself just outside the top-four spot in the western conference of Major League Soccer (MLS), only behind squads spending vastly more.
The Whitecaps have the second-lowest player payroll in the 29-team league, about US$13.1 million. Lionel Messi’s guaranteed compensation to play for Inter Miami CF, by comparison, is US$20.4 million alone. (That being said, he wouldn’t travel to Vancouver this year to play, so perhaps he worries about those higher-weight punchers.)
If you break down the league into five tiers of player salaries, Vancouver would be 18 per cent lower than the average in that bottom tier. There are good reasons. The team’s financial constraints are serious: while the contracts remain secret, it is widely understood that BC Place retains the food, beverage and parking revenue in exchange for rent tied to ticket sales.
But it means no naming rights for the field – something that alone would fuel considerable spending – and a limited revenue stream beyond merchandise and the broadcast contracts. Then, there are the taxes. If Vancouver has the second-lowest salaries, it also has the second-highest taxes among the league. Only Montreal’s are a smidgen higher. It actually is a disincentive for a player to get Permanent Resident status.
Schuster will tell you that a player earning $600,000 is paying an additional $100,000 net in taxes in this country. “It makes it difficult to attract talent,” he says. Moreover, even if the salary can be negotiated, “Vancouver is a very expensive city,” he notes.
Which does not mean the Whitecaps are a very expensive ticket. The league average ticket price is $41 higher than the team’s.
Of the environment to field what we’d commonly call a Moneyball-style team, he is sanguine: “It’s not a burden or a challenge. It’s a fact.”
Schuster, 52, a lawyer and law professor before transitioning to sports management, moved up the ranks of football in his native Germany, working for FSV Mainz 05 and helping them enter the vaunted Bundesliga, then FC Schalke as the senior director of professional football, before coming to Vancouver in 2019.
He brought with him a penchant for fiscal prudence, for scouting, for developing young talent and for culture-building. It helps that he speaks three languages at the heart of the game: English, German and Spanish.
While it is not the only reason the Whitecaps are frugal – ownership hasn’t gone out of the way to bring marquee names into town as they have over the years in Miami (Lionel Messi) or Los Angeles (David Beckham) – the provincially owned stadium is a mixed blessing, modern enough but ill-fitting.
And with more than $80 million in upgrades coming to BC Place for seven games in the 2026 World Cup, the imminent likelihood of a new stadium with more freedom for teams to reap large financial benefits is diminished. Which is not to say BC Place hasn’t attributes, only that it’s cavernous and insufficient in helping the Whitecaps and BC Lions build more formidable long-term franchises. (A better facility would be smaller, purpose-built for the MLS and the Canadian Football League – maybe even Triple-A baseball – and a driver of team economic growth. Think Hastings Park, a SkyTrain extension from Burnaby into the PNE and across the North Shore, and take down BC Place to address a housing crisis. But that’s a discussion for another day.)
MLS itself has some adjusting to do. It is in some danger of creating a two-tiered league, somewhat like England’s Premier League, without a stronger system of revenue sharing or a luxury tax on teams that spend big. It doesn’t want a league in which only a few teams spend and dominate, and a large batch that does neither.
That being said, Schuster likes to note that, while Miami has Messi and is the largest spender, the second and third teams in spending are Toronto and Chicago. Look at the standings, look way down, and you’ll find them, so there is a method to Schuster’s schtick.
Kirk LaPointe is a Glacier Media columnist with an extensive background in journalism.
