Major League Soccer is an enigma in many ways to the rest of the football (soccer) world. A league without promotion and relegation, but with league-owned player contracts is certainly unique. Among these defining characteristics is the Bitcoin of the soccer world: Allocation Money.
The league acknowledged it existence several years back, but it was not until during the 2017 SuperDraft that the league started to disclose amounts associated with trades. The league assigns allocation money with two designations: General Allocation Money (GAM) and Targeted Allocation Money (TAM). In the plainest terms, these forms of allocation money represent a regulated amount of money that teams can use to sign players or allocate to existing contracts to keep the club’s player salaries under the salary cap.