I am taking a crack at everyone’s favorite talking point: General Allocation Money (GAM), Targeted Allocation Money (TAM), and the Salary Cap. If you have been following Major League Soccer for as long as I have, you know that the roster build is controlled by these three primary pillars. For the 2026 season, the salary budget charge—commonly known as the “salary cap”—is set at $6,425,000 for each team. To put that into perspective, that is barely enough to buy a high-quality starting pitcher in this day and age. Sorry, wrong sport. This budget charge applies exclusively to the first 20 spots on the roster, which are considered the Senior Roster, while spots 21 through 30 make up the Supplemental Roster. Anyone on the Supplemental Roster does not impact the cap.
To help stay under this cap, clubs utilize specific financial tools. The first is GAM, which can be used to reduce a player’s salary budget charge to either 50% of their total salary or a floor of $150,000, whichever is less. The second tool is TAM, which is targeted money for specific players whose salaries and acquisition fees exceed the maximum budget charge. Effectively, TAM handles any overage that would otherwise push a player’s cost above the individual budget limit.
For 2026, my GAM/TAM analysis will be released in three parts. This current edition focuses on preseason and projected numbers, providing estimated figures to see where we stand with player salaries and remaining allocation money. Part two will arrive in May 2026, following the release of official salary numbers, to give us a better idea of what remains for the summer transfer window. Finally, a fall update will review actual spending for the season and assess what could have been done better.
Current GAM Outlook and Transactions
MLS has released its preseason GAM numbers, and San Diego FC is starting with $5,537,108. To understand how we arrived at this figure, we can look at the $3,424,625 remaining from the 2025 season combined with the standard 2026 team allotment of $3,280,000. When you subtract approximately $1,350,000 in committed GAM from trades involving players like McVey, Reyes, Saidi, Baird, and Vazquez, as well as buy options for Verhoeven and Bombino, you get a rough total of $5,345,625. The remaining discrepancy of roughly $182,000 likely stems from $100,000 in CONCACAF Champions Cup money and the conversion of transfer fees to GAM from selling Heine Bruseth to a club outside of MLS.
Below will cover the 30 man roster. We’ll start from top to bottom explaining each budget charge and try to explain where the TAM numbers are coming from. This should help us understand how these players fit on the roster due to their monetary obligations. Again, these are all estimations.
Designated Players
The roster begins with the Designated Players, who represent the team’s largest salaries. While ownership can pay these players any amount they choose, they still carry a maximum budget charge of $803,125 each for 2026. Currently, Anders Dreyer and Hirving “Chucky” Lozano occupy these spots. It is important to remember that even if a player like Lozano is loaned out, his budget charge remains calculated into the roster until he is officially off the team. It is important that the team sell his contract or terminate the contract so Lozano’s budget charge is cleared from the roster.
U-22
Following the Designated Players are the U-22 Initiative players in spots 3 through 5. Tomas Angel, Pedro Soma, and Osvald Søe occupy these slots, carrying charges of either $150,000 or $200,000 depending on their age. Much like Designated Players, the club can choose to pay these individuals more than the charge without it impacting the salary cap.
The TAM Players
The middle of the roster is where calculations become more complex. Each team receives $2,125,000 in TAM for 2026, and unlike GAM, this money does not roll over; you must use it or lose it. The TAM budget decreases with each year. The most a player can earn under TAM is a million dollars over the budget charge. Our first example of how TAM works is Andres Reyes. Reyes earns $807,000, which is just over the $803,125 maximum budget charge, requiring $3,875 in TAM to cover the overage. Marcus Ingvartsen requires a much larger TAM investment of $936,875 to cover the difference between his $1.74 million salary and the maximum budget charge number.
Newly acquired players like Onni Valakari also impact this pool. By breaking down his $1.5 million transfer fee over a three-year contract and estimating a salary raise to $900,000, his TAM charge comes to $596,875. Amahl Pellegrino’s estimated $950,000 salary requires about $146,875 in TAM. The most complicated case is Lewis Morgan, as we estimate the New York Red Bulls may cover half of his $1.25 million base salary, leaving SDFC to cover the other half plus additional compensation, resulting in a projected TAM charge of roughly $51,000. In total, SDFC has spent approximately $1.735 million of its TAM allotment, leaving about $389,000 remaining.
Senior and Supplemental Roster Depth
Senior Roster spots 11 through 19—including players like Paddy McNair, Jeppe Tverskov, and Christopher McVey—account for nearly $3.6 million against the cap. After applying a projected 10% raise across these positions to account for rising league minimums, the total senior roster budget charge sits at approximately $9.7 million. Consequently, SDFC must use about $3.3 million of their GAM just to reach cap compliance.
The Supplemental Roster (spots 21-30) does not hit the salary cap. Pablo Sisniega occupied a spot last year and is expected to have the same spot this year but that could change. Slots 21 through 24 are reserved for senior minimum or homegrown players earning six figures, while slots 25 through 30 are for players 24 or younger making the reserve minimum of approximately $88,000. Notably, Leo Duru is on a loan ending in June, and the 31st slot is for unavailable players, which may be used if 17-year-old Anisse Saidi goes on another loan.
Final 2026 Projections
After subtracting the $3.3 million needed for cap compliance from the initial $5.5 million in preseason 2026 GAM, San Diego FC has roughly $2.2 million in GAM left for the senior roster and about $389k in TAM. However, if the team registered under the U-22 Roster Profile for the entire season, they could receive an additional $2 million in GAM. This brings the potential total to $4.2 million to use during the season, providing the club with significant financial flexibility to pursue major roster upgrades during the summer transfer window. These resources can be used in case a player gets injured or players need to be loaned out which would mean new players can be brought in. Lastly, another thing to consider is how many International Slots will be given out to each MLS team in the 2026 season. GAM is usually used in trades to obtain any additional international slots. Right now, San Diego FC needs 10 International Slots and last year about 8 were given out to each team. Hopefully we’ll find out soon what happens on that front. *As I’m writing, Paddy McNair has not been officially transferred. We’ll keep the same number of International Slots for now.
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