It didn’t take long for Kyle Beckerman to find the silver lining to a series of events which, at the time, felt like they could signal the beginning of the end of American professional soccer.
It was the winter of 2001-02. He was 19 years old and had been happy making all of $24,000 as a reserve midfielder for the Miami Fusion.
“To me, I was rich,” Beckerman recalled. “I thought it was great. I didn’t really think of it the way we look at it now, with the minimum [salary] and where it is now. I didn’t really think of it as low.