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Nashville SC

Mike Jacobs Finds Strong Value in Top Spot in Allocation Ranking Order

October 6, 2019 - Major League Soccer (MLS)
Nashville SC News Release


NEW YORK - With the flip of a coin, Nashville Soccer Club's roster building process took a big step forward on Sunday afternoon during the MLS Expansion Priority Draft.

While Nashville didn't win the 50/50 coin flip, it still picked up a valuable asset in the first slot in the Allocation Ranking Order. General Manager Mike Jacobs and his staff put extensive planning into all the potential scenarios that could have played out as both Nashville and Inter Miami CF selected priority in five different player acquisition methods.

Nashville now owns the top spot in the Allocation Ranking Order, as well as the second pick in both the MLS Expansion Draft and MLS SuperDraft presented by adidas. For Jacobs, getting priority in the Allocation Ranking Order was an easy decision to help Nashville SC build a strong roster from the get-go.

"To be honest with you, we thought it was a no-brainer," Jacobs said. "If anything, it was more about Allocation vs. Expansion Draft. I think pretty quickly and pretty clearly those were the top two, those were the two that had the highest value."

"We felt that the Allocation Order gives us the best value to add to our roster and our roster build as quick as possible."

The Allocation Ranking Order is a mechanism used to determine which MLS club has priority in acquiring specific kinds of players, all found on the Allocation Ranking List. The list will consist of (i) select U.S. Men's National Team players, (ii) elite youth U.S. National Team players, or (iii) former MLS players returning to MLS after joining a non-MLS club for a transfer fee greater than $500,000. A ranking can be traded, provided that part of the compensation received in return is the other club's ranking.

Past expansion clubs have utilized the top spot in the Allocation Ranking Order to acquire key players for their inaugural MLS rosters. In 2017, Atlanta United used the top Allocation spot to pick up star goalkeeper Brad Guzan. The next year, LAFC traded its top spot in the Allocation Ranking Order to FC Dallas as part of a package for USMNT central defender Walker Zimmerman.

Jacobs' analytics staff took a deep dive into the values of the top two spots in the Expansion Draft, SuperDraft and Allocation Ranking Order. That data informed Jacobs' decision to take the top spot in the Allocation Ranking order over the first pick in the SuperDraft, following Miami's selection of the top Expansion Draft pick. He felt that the biggest disparity between the top two picks among those three player acquisition methods was in the Allocation Ranking Order.

"At the end of the day, we kind of knew regardless of what order we were in, we were going to be selecting in the Expansion Draft and the SuperDraft," Jacobs said. "Where there are some different ways to look at those assets as far as the value from No. 1 to No. 2, the reality is it doesn't change much of our thought process or planning."

The next major step in Nashville SC's roster building process will come on November 19 with the MLS Expansion Draft. While Jacobs now knows the five picks he has in the Expansion Draft, the planning process has been underway for a long time and will continue up until draft day.

"Our Expansion Draft preparation started months ago," Jacobs said. "Really for us, this is just the next step in this process to now move forward in trying to assess which players might be available and which clubs might want to try to orchestrate some trades for players."

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