Targeted Allocation Money, known as ‘TAM’ for short, was invented in July 2015 by Major League Soccer. At first, it was a modest contribution from the league office of just $100,000. That pooled money was to be used by individual teams to spend on potential transfers. TAM, from it’s inception, did not count against a team’s salary cap, and stood alongside it’s acronymical partner, GAM (General Allocation Money), as a mechanism that allowed teams to spend more freely on players. Both TAM and GAM were also tradable.
MLS expanded the TAM amount for every team to $800,000 in 2016 and $1.