Buying the Basement*: Analyzing Sporting KC’s Spending with Limited Early Returns

Sporting Kansas City are a little over one-third of the way through the 2026 MLS season. Despite a rough start the last few years, 2026 has been the most brutal of all of them. Through 11 games, Sporting KC have a 1-8-2 record and are dead last in all of Major League Soccer. Thankfully, they found some form right before the break, going 2-1-0 and improving to 3-9-2 through 14 games.

To make matters worse, they’ve conceded 36 goals and are on pace for the worst number of goals conceded in league history. Thankfully, the last few games have seen improvement on that pace and showed signs of improvement.

Every article, social media post or podcast is met with replies of ‘ownership to open up their pocketbooks,’ to ‘stop being so cheap,’ or any other version of the same phrase. And the new owner, Peter Mallouk, is hearing those calls.

The thing is, Sporting KC have been spending. Maybe it’s all on the wrong guys or the wrong positions, but it’s not like they are sitting idly by. I was inspired to look closer at where they’ve spent and how much money has been rumored to be thrown around.

A Quick Clarification: Transfer Fees versus Salary

Much of the time, when fans or pundits are talking about teams spending, they are referring to transfer fees. If you look around the global football game, transfer fees are only part of the equation. Spending massively on fees can work, but there are plenty of examples of it not working.

The greater correlation to success, is actually spending on salaries (though even that isn’t perfect). In a league like MLS, that’s much tougher to do. Only three Designated Player spots can be filled with players making unlimited money. Inter Miami had three of the top eight highest paid players last year and won the title. On the other end of the spectrum, Toronto FC finished 25th in the league with the 2nd and 6th highest paid players.

Clearly, even the salary marker, isn’t always a good one in MLS. With so few unlimited spend player positions available, there is too much variability.

There is also the complication of all the weird MLS roster mechanisms that allow teams to spend more money, beyond the initial salary budget. Mechanisms like General Allocation Money (GAM) and Targeted Allocation Money (TAM). Sporting KC led the league in GAM back in early March and they’ve certainly spent some of it. But they also had the least amount of their “premium” roster spots filled when the season started (DP, U22, TAM).

Put more simply, Sporting KC had a cheap roster entering the season. Coming into the season, they cleared a massive amount of salary space from their 2025 roster.

*Salloi was technically traded just before the season and Brody made more, but RSL was footing most of that bill.

Compare that outgoing ~$10m with the 2026 pay of their incoming players and you are looking at nearly a $6.5 million difference in money that is theoretically still available to spend (though some of the GAM used to buy down salaries could have been used on transfer fees).

That doesn’t take into account the unknown salary of the as-of-yet-to-join, Or Blorian, but he certainly won’t close that gap.

Needless to say, there is a ton of money (and GAM) still available.

What Did Sporting KC Actually Spend in Fees Then?

Enough about salaries, what about the transfer fees. There we have to rely on rumors. There were plenty of rumored fees through the offseason and the full truth may never be known. One place we can look is Transfermarkt. It’s not always perfectly reliable, as they have some fees that were reported in dollars, listed in Euros. But it’s the best we’ve got.

Transfermarkt changes figures over time based on currency conversion. We’ll be using numbers from today, June 4th, 2026.

If we trust those numbers, it’s easy to see a lot has already been spent. The fee for Berg Johnsen is large, but he remains a TAM player. That fee combined with his salary means they are using a chunk of GAM to buy down his budget charge.

Or it’s possible Transfermarkt is a bit off. Look no further than the 2025 MLS season and the three players SKC spent significantly to add to their roster. The fees, partially because of the movement in the US dollar to the Euro are almost certainly off.

We know Dejan Joveljic was transferred for $4m as the first cash transfer in MLS history. The rumor was Manu and Shapi were a combined $5m. There is a lot of fluctuation in those numbers.

Overall, Transfermarkt gives us an idea that money was spent. Berg Johnsen and Capita are TAM signings. Borges fee won’t count as he’s a U22 signing. There is plenty of available spend still left. However, KC has been spending.

When Or Blorian arrives in the summer, it’s on a free transfer. His salary will count, but he won’t come with a fee. That should leave plenty of money left over to add more key contributors. Four to seven of them if the rumor is to be believed.

New owner Peter Mallouk has promised to spend. There is only so much he can do within the confines of the MLS roster rules when it comes to the roster, but he can spend heavily on anything outside the roster to improve the team. Perhaps he’ll continue to build out a staff that was apparently Peter Vermes used a bunch of matchsticks, gum and duct tape to hold together.

If you can take nothing else away from this data dump, at least you can say Sporting KC are spending money. Whether they are doing it wisely will be judged with how all these pieces fit together in the coming months and years.