The MLS Roster Pages: Why Won't They Update? We have answers.

The Kin of Fish, in a post last month, bemoaned the lack of updates to MLSNet roster pages. Indeed, many of the rosters seem grossly out of date, and Fish slammed MLSNet for it. Well, hold on a moment. This situation is more complex than you might think.

First, some of you may be surprised to learn that MLSNet is not the same as MLS. True fact. MLSNet is, essentially, a venture that MLS has contracted to in order to provide online services. Now, for roster data, the process for updates runs like this:

1. Team updates their roster
2. Team notifies MLS Headquarters of their revised roster
3. MLS notifies the Elias Sports Bureau to update the rosters
4. MLSNet receives a feed from Elias which is supposed to contain the updated information

Seem overly complicated? Well, yeah, but the that's the system that the league has in place. Now, in most cases, teams have yet to provide their final rosters to MLS Headquarters, which means no updates. In at least one case (Real Salt Lake) an updated roster has gotten to league headquarters, but for whatever reason Elias has not updated the roster feed. Which means the problem is either with MLS Headquarters not notifying Elias, or Elias not implementing the update.

The real problem, from what I can tell, is that most teams aren't very good about providing updates to MLS Headquarters. However, there are exceptions. In addition to Real Salt Lake, I'm assured that both the New England Revolution and DC United do pretty well in keeping things up to date. As for the rest of the teams... well, hurry up you slackers!