Orlando City Roster Among Major League Soccer’s Most Expensive

Orlando City is fourth in player spending among Major League Soccer teams, according to this story by ESPN.com’s Anthony Olivieri. According to the data collected here by Nick Harris, editor of Sportingintelligence.com, the Lions are spending $13.5 million on player salaries, which covers only primary roster players, putting OCSC behind just Toronto FC ($20.5M), LA Galaxy ($15.4M), and New York City FC ($15M).

That’s an average of $500,000 per player. Colorado Rapids are lowest in the league, at $3.6 million.

The story purports to analyze player spending by 333 professional sports teams in 17 major leagues around the world, covering seven sports, 13 countries and almost 10,000 athletes. MLS salaries are for "first-team squad" players only.

It is unknown how accurate the figures are that Harris compiled. The methodology cited in the story says that MLS's 2015 salary numbers were used, but those have not yet been released to the public. It's possible that Harris got them from the league, but we're not able to verify their accuracy. Major League Soccer is notoriously inexact about this kind of data anyway, so this should be taken with a gigantic grain of salt.

Still, it shouldn’t be surprising to see Orlando City among the league leaders in spending. The Lions have filled all three Designated Player spots, and added veterans such as Brek Shea, Aurelien Collin, Tally Hall and Amobi Okugo. And the front office has not shied away from spending in most any category, hiring highly desirable executives, such as former USL president Tim Holt, the club’s newly minted vice president of development.

Remember, this is the organization that has given away more than 100,000 team car magnets. They're not tightwads.

French Ligue 1 side Paris Saint-Germain leads all major league sports teams in player spending, with a payroll of $227.1 million — an average of $9.1 million per player.