Quote:
Originally Posted by Postman
Interesting point of view you have there. I don't think you're fully grasping the American model of team sports leagues.
Some things you might want to consider:
1. With the exception of the MLS, the team sports leagues in the States are all the premier leagues of their sport. That means that as a rule they have the pick of the best players in the game. Paying more doesn't bring better talent into the league.
2. Drafts are designed to distribute talent around the league with priority given to teams that performed poorly in the previous season. It's team management that makes all the difference, not the size of a team's market.
3. The salary cap is meant to promote competition in the leagues that have it. It prevents teams from taking advantage of the money available to it due simply to being based in a larger market.
4. In leagues with a revenue sharing agreement, teams split the TV contract evenly, again offsetting any advantage a team may gain due simply to being based in a larger market.
5. The value of a team is based entirely on winning. Some teams like the Yankees, Cardinals, and Dodgers have won so much over the years that even if they hit a period where the team is playing poorly over many seasons, the team maintains its value. Newer teams (like the Rockies) must win to make money, though. There's simply nothing else on which to judge the organization.
The only team sport that doesn't have a cap or revenue sharing is Baseball, and I think it'd do well to institute one. The movie Moneyball illustrates the situation well.
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1. I wasn't focusing on bringing more talents into the league. I was talking about the distribution of the talent among teams.
2. Draft system awards failure, making bad teams not as bad. It also means you can be a cheapo on free agents and still get good talents, while it blocks teams that are willing to spend a mean to invest.
3. The salary cap is a mean to make the spending predictable and controllable. Great thing to have from a business point of view.
4. Yeah, and a mean to ensure that even a horrible run franchise that alienates fans with no star power would have guaranteed income.
5. In which way is the team value depending on winning in the US? Even in NFL, the most socialist league, Cowboys and Redskins have been at the top of the valuation and income list for a long time.
Moneyball said nothing about cap and revenue sharing helping baseball?
Overall, it's just a fact that American professional sports owners are generally making tons of money, while European professional sports owners way less so. American owners have done installed a lot of rules that are sold as competitive balance and league stability measures, but are more about them making money.
There is no competitive balance and league stability in American college sports, but fans aren't enjoying those less.