beat from the floor

deposed Barnett is not hiding in his upstairs Flat Grounds office, but instead is in discussions with the new Rasbey regime over how to avoid a complete meltdown at the CBA table and permeating labor strife that could overshadow Saturday's games...

Rasbey has a mandate to pursue a salary cap & trade program at the table tonight, and it is clear that he will, but the specifics are still a mystery. as a starting point, here were the twelve team payrolls in 2009:

1. New York Sharks - $167.4M

2. New York Seacooks - $153.7M

3. Long Island Amazin' - $107.9M

4. Independence Walkers - $71.0M

5. Buffalo Bulls - $65.3M

6. Boston Conquistadors - $59.3M

7. North Bay Polar Bears - $57.6M

8. Chicago Madmen - $51.3M

9. Detroit Gamblers - $43.7M

10. Ithaca Champions - $25.4M

11. Philadelphia Geysers - $22.4M

12. Florida Panthers - $18.7M

for a grand total of $843.7M paid out in player salaries in 2009... [relevant to this discussion, watchdog organizations estimate between $2.3 and $2.6 billion of football-related revenues in 2009, down from $2.8B in 2008, when players were paid a total of $786.3M.]

the USSL has always been notorious for uneven salary distribution, and various collective investment, gain- and cost-sharing plans have made the problem less drastic, but it remains clear as day when seeking to implement a salary cap program...

Barnett & Rasbey are discussing a multi-tiered proposal that could get off the ground as soon as ownership negotiators officially convene at 1130pm...

-a snowballing luxury tax aimed at reigning in the outlier moneyed LI organization salaries without the potential albatross of an effective immediate hard cap. the tax would be placed in a Collective Program Account that would help lower-revenue organizations pay for the increase in player minimum salaries

-implementation of a salary cap & trade program in the middle of the decade, possibly as late as 2016 or 2017

details remain iffy on what will be a detail-oriented procedure.