Thank goodness for salary caps

I'm tired of arguing with NFL blow-job boy OOP. I yield the floor to LongTimeListener.

 

Who is agitated? I'm just pointing out the gaping holes in your arguments. So, knowing you have been proven wrong, you try to shift the argument. Nice try, but you fail.

You still haven't shown me an example of one NFL team intentionally drafting a weaker player so they could save money. Because you can't. You still haven't shown me the massive differences in team payrolls in the NFL that you see in MLB. Because you can't.

You tried to argue that the NFL has just as much of a problem with teams not trying as MLB does. What you ended up doing is pointing out exactly why the NFL system is so much better. Because the Bengals and Cardinals probably would want to do what the Pirates and Marlins do, but the rules don't allow it. Thank you for helping me to prove my point.

Try to shift the argument all you like, but you lost a while ago. And check out the post on the NFL pre-season talk thread about this that lists the market sizes of the champions in both sports. Baseball is dominated by the big markets. The NFL is not (See Indianapolis and Pittsburgh, for example, among recent champions.)

But yes, you are probably wise to make that your last post in the discussion. Quit while you are way behind.

 

Here's a post by twoback that is on the other thread. Tell me again about that lack of a cast system.

So what Spnited is saying is, if the Pirates and Royals chose not to operate their businesses anything like businesses, completely forgoing profits and perhaps risking great losses, they would have a chance to maybe finish third in their respective divisions.
Woo-hoo!
The NFL setup allows the owners to make money and also go about trying to field competitive teams.
That a particular team would fail miserably in this circumstance does nothing to undermine the central point that the setup makes being competitive possible. Flogging the Lions is a cheap punchline.
When's the last time in baseball towns the size of Indy and New Orleans played for the championship?
Remind me who was in last year's World Series?
Oh yeah: Philly and New York.
No. 1 market vs. No. 5.
Last 10 years' WS champs: No. 1 market, No. 5, No. 10, No. 18, No. 3, No. 10, No. 7, No. 2, No. 1.

Last 10 years' SB winners: No. 46 market, No. 22, No. 1, No. 34, No. 22, No. 10, No. 10, No. 19, No. 10, No. 20.

Which seems to offer a more reasonable chance to all comers?
Seriously, how can one look at those lists and not see how the deck is stacked by baseball's economic system?

 

Got this from Twitter:
Average market size of teams to win World Series in past 10 years: 6
Average market size of teams to win Super Bowl: 19

Only one top-10 market (St. Louis) has won World Series in the past decade.
Six outside the top 10 have won Super Bowls.

 

The richest of the rich in MLB, the Yankees, paid more in revenue sharing and luxury tax in recent years than half the damn league pays in salaries.
The NFL owners share league generated money -- National TV and radio, NFL properties, etc. Jerry Jones does not give any of his locally generated advertising millionsto anybody but Jerry Jones.

 

Can we at least acknowledge/understand the fundamental differences between baseball and football in how revenue is generated and shared? Anyone consider the possibility that what works for football might not work for baseball?

To say that the "richest of the rich MLB owners won't divide up the pie in the interest of the sport" is ignorant considering the Yankees alone provide upwards of $100 million (with the Red Sox closing in) annually to support the industry and the rest of the clubs.

Unlike football, baseball generates revenue and grows its industry locally. Instead of eight home games baseball teams have 81 dates to fill a stadium. They each have local/regional deals to televise all 162 dates. It's sold and marketed locally.

So revenue in baseball will always be disparate. But you can't limit the Yankees ability to invest in its product without hurting the industry overall because the Yankees are far and away the industry's largest revenue generator and growth leader, with something like 10 times the local revenue of a Florida or Pittsburgh. It should also be noted that the Yankees compete (and must be allowed to compete) in the most competitive local entertainment market in the world.

 

It's the short, 16-game schedule which creates competitive balance in the NFL, not the salary cap.

 

If the season ended today, the playoffs would include teams from the 14th (Tampa), 15th (Minnesota), 28th (San Diego) and 33rd (Cincinnati) TV markets. Miami is the 17th-rated market, Pittsburgh is 23rd and Oakland is sixth (granted, they're the bottom team in a split market, but if you're going to count the White Sox as an example of a big-market team for winning the World Series, you kind of have to count the A's the same way for not winning one). Kansas City ranks one spot ahead of Cincinnati; Baltimore is one spot ahead of San Diego.

If Pittsburgh and Florida and Kansas City and Oakland and Baltimore continue to suck while Tampa Bay and Minnesota and San Diego and Cincinnati play winning baseball, that isn't economics. But I guess if the Giants (sixth market) catch the Padres down the stretch, it will be because they had all that money left over to sign Pat Burrell, not because the Padres had a two-week stretch where they couldn't pick up a groundball or throw a strike.

 

I believe by players you mean player -- Peyton Manning. He's the only reason for Indy's sustained success. If he left, they would have crumbled. When he leaves or retires, they will crumble. Same with New England and Brady. Same with New Orleans and Drew Brees.

And same with the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James, which is why this thread was started. It's not the salary cap that kept these guys in place.

 

Revenue sharing plus luxury tax.

 

To continue with the Twins as an example, there was no reason they couldn't have signed Johan Santana other than their own greed. They would have continued to make money, just not as much as they wanted to. It's just a convenient excuse.

 

Haven't followed this thread but saw the Santana reference.

The Twins did offer Santana four years at $20 mil per and he turned it down.