MLS Releases GAM information: Fire 26th with $2.9m

For the first time in league history, MLS has published the amount of available General Allocation Money (GAM) for each team. Alongside the Designated Player (DP) rule, the U22 initiative and Targeted Allocation Money (TAM), GAM is one of several accounting mechanisms invented by the league that allows teams to “buy down” the salary cap hit of players. Taken together, the tools allow MLS teams to spend considerably more than the notional salary cap, nominally $5.95 million in 2025.

The publication continues the league’s recent trend to make more information available publicly to fans, media and others, coming several months after the league began publishing league-wide roster profiles, something that was previously only available for individual teams through the work of outlets like MenInRed97.

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Combined with the salary data from the MLS Players’ Association (MLSPA), league observers now have more insight than before but are still far from having perfect clarity on individual team’s cap and salary positions.

Per the league, the Fire currently have $2,931,721 in available General Allocation Money, putting them 26th in the league, considerably behind leader Atlanta United at just over $6.5 million, and lower than the league average and median of $3.75 million and $3.6 million.

Still, despite the low ranking, the Fire retain considerable roster flexibility and have the ability to acquire more GAM through the course of the offseason and into 2025.

How can the Fire increase their GAM position?

Each team is given a base allocation of GAM each year – $2.93 million in 2025 – and is granted additional GAM by the league for various reasons, including a failure to qualify for the playoffs, qualifying for the CONCACAF Champions Cup.

Teams also receive $2 million in additional GAM if they choose the two DP/four U22 Initiative Player roster construction model. The figures released by the league do not include that GAM, as teams do not need to select their model until just before the season starts. The Fire may elect this model if they do not believe they can land a top-tier DP target, but are most likely to revert to the three DP/three U22 Initiative slot model.

GAM expires – typically after two seasons – although GAM from the four U22 Initiative model expires at the end of the season. When the Fire selected this model for the second half of 2024, they received GAM which expired at the end of that season, but that allowed the team to save GAM that expires in 2025 or later.

Additionally, teams can trade GAM as part of intraleague moves – for example, the Fire acquired Andrew Gutman from the Colorado Rapids in exchange for Miguel Ángel Navarro and $225,000 in both 2024 and 2025.

Teams can also convert up to $3 million in proceeds from trades outside the league into GAM. When the Fire traded Navarro, MenInRed97 exclusively reported that the team retained 50% of his rights from future sales. When Navarro was sold to Club Atlético Talleres, in a move announced yesterday, the Fire’s half of the proceeds the Rapids received are convertible into GAM giving the team roughly a half million dollars of additional GAM. That amount is not included in the figures reported by the league.

If the Fire sell additional players, they can gain up to roughly $2.5 million in additional GAM this year. The team also retains a portion of striker Jhon Durán’s value, and would easily be able to convert part of their proceeds from a future sale into GAM, Aston Villa sell the striker now valued as a potentially €70 million player.

What do we and don’t we know about teams’ salary cap positions?

There are still considerable parts of MLS’s opaque salary cap rules which are hidden from the public.

On one side of the ledger, GAM is just one of two forms of allocation money alongside TAM. Despite releasing the GAM positions of each team, the league still has not made public the amount of TAM available. Like GAM, teams receive an allocation of TAM each year and unused TAM rolls over after the end of the season.

Although TAM’s usage is more heavily restricted than GAM, in many cases, a player’s cap hit can be lowered with either form of allocation money.

On the other side of the ledger, a player’s salary cap charges are determined by their wages – which are published twice yearly by the MLSPA  – as well as their acquisition costs (transfer or loan fees, signing bonuses).

Generally, transfer fees are not made publicly available, and although sites including Transfermarkt publish estimated amounts, those figures are not official and do not capture that such fees are often paid in installments over time, which can vary a player’s cap hit season to season.

In addition, a player’s cap hit is based on their salary, guaranteed bonuses, and acquisition costs, averaged over the length of their deals. Although the MLSPA publishes salary data each year, that number does not include things like signing bonus,s and player salaries may change year to year, though their cap hit would be averaged across those years.

Although we are now better able to gauge MLS teams’ cap positions, there is still much that we still don’t know.

What does available GAM say about a team’s ability to add or subtract players?

Overall, not much. At least, not as much as you'd think.

Overall, achieving salary compliance is an exercise in creative spreadsheeting. Between GAM and the league’s various other rules, each team must get to a nominal “budget” at or under $5.95 million for the season. Because of guaranteed player salaries and transfer fees for players already signed, every team will need to draw on their supply of GAM to make it at or under the cap.

In addition to allocation money, other roster rules help fit players in under that number: Designated Players like Hugo Cuypers (who earned over $3.5 million last year) hit the cap at $743,750 in 2025, while U22 Initiative Players like Brian Gutiérrez – who earned $895,879 in 2024 – hit the cap at $200,000 or less.

Additionally, although the salary cap only affects players on the senior roster, not the supplemental one, teams can also use allocation money to lower the cost of a player so that they can occupy a spot on the supplemental roster.

Even with the release of GAM information, a lot remains unknown, to the point that knowing whether a team might have the cap space to add say, one, two or three significant players is unclear. For example, using publicly available information, here is an estimate of the Fire’s current salary budget for the senior roster.

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By that estimate, the Fire are about $3.5 million above the cap with a total "cap hit' of $9,438,259.

Including the money from Navarro’s sale, the Fire have $3.4 million, plus $2.25 million in new TAM. Added to the nominal cap of $5.95 million, the Fire have about $11.6 million in "cap space," the Fire would appear to have about $2.2 million to put towards new player acquisitions.

Yet there are still considerable unknowns around those numbers. Maren Haile-Selassie was acquired from FC Lugano, first as a loan then as a permanent deal. No estimate of what transfer fee – if any – the Fire sent to their Swiss sister club is available, meaning that his cap hit might be considerably higher than suggested by his $383,500 salary.

The Fire paid a significant transfer fee to acquire Tobias Salquist last year, an amount that is spread over the length of his first contract, but with both the amount, and installments (if not all paid upfront) unclear, his cap hit is also not clear. When the Fire acquired Chase Gasper, his previous teams agreed to cover almost all of his salary (and keep the cap hit on their books), allowing the Fire to keep him off the senior roster – and his $525,000 in guaranteed compensation off the salary cap. The amount of his salary that the Fire are on the hook for in 2025 – and whether they would need to use additional allocation money to fit him on the supplemental roster, if possible – is currently unknown.

With the degree of uncertainty around these numbers, the Fire might have enough money to add a new DP and a TAM-level player – or they might be hard-pressed to add one or the other, at least without using their buyout to free up additional cap space.

Salaries of new acquisitions are also unknown until the MLSPA releases them later in the spring. When the Fire acquired Jack Elliott, he was given a new deal and his new salary won’t be publicly released by the MLSPA until the spring.

As teams makes more additions in the offseason, compounding the uncertainty around transfer fees and player salaries on their caps, the release of GAM data will become less and less useful in understanding teams’ cap space and whether or not they have room to add players.

That is, unless and until the team updates the data or provides greater insight into teams’ cap positions.