Re: Here are my 2 cents. Said differently: People who dream about a league where just a few teams dominate aren't usually so quick to volunteer THEIR team to be the cannon-fodder. And the NFL's fixation with parity goes back a long way, back to the '50s and '60s. Pete Rozelle persuaded the owners of the "big" clubs then that they would be a much stronger league if the TV revenues were split evenly between all teams and if all merchandise revenues were split evenly between all teams. The introduction of the salary cap (which came along with free agency) in the mid '90s is just the latest step in the NFL's preoccupation with parity. And given that the NFL is financially the single most successful league in any sport on the planet, it's pretty hard to say that theirs is not a worthy example to follow. Fan interest across the country is kept high because very few teams are truly without hope at the beginning of each season.
Man Utd is a shiny object. Get over it. Oh yeah, and I hate this article. What does Man U have to do with anything? And why would we ever aspire to have such a thing in MLS? Man U has won the EPL title 8 out of the last 11 seasons or something. Oh yeah, that's fun - are you on crack? Unfettered capitalism finally met up with modern brand strategy in Europe, and it's turning the english league into something more like the Scottish League, or worse. "Bolton fans were more excited about beating Man U than avoiding relegation." SUCK my BALLS!! So the EPL has a few amazing teams - and then they have shjt like Sunderland. Is that a good environment for developing our level of play, our young internationals? How's Scotland doing? I'll take our own tough standard week-in week out, bitch of a season. Thank you. Now Chelsea has some specious billions with which to bankrupt itself trying to play catch-up. Great, I hate them too. And it's always great to have your beloved institutions tottering on the brink of non-existence a la Enron. That would work reeeaally well for MLS. I hate "superclubs." The monsters of soccer are killing the game as we grew to love it. Even the NFL's jillionaire megalomaniacs know better than to run a business the way soccer is being run in Europe. And can we put a bullet in the head of this Man U reverence?
No. It takes more than money. It takes brains to keep a "juggernaut" like that going year after year. You think Manchester United, or the New York Yankees for that matter, got where they are and have the reputations they have by being stupid? They spend their money wisely. And they know something MLS has yet to learn. You have to spend money to make money. Great leagues and great teams don't come on the cheap.
Yes but this isn't Scotland. People assume MLB is like this without actually checking to see that it is (it isn't). Lots of teams in baseball move up and down in quality over the years based on a variety of factors and only the Yankees stay (more or less) consistently toward the top. Nevertheless, the Yankees have been winning neither the World Series, nor the best record in the league every year recently despite having the best team they've fielded in 40 years. Unlike Scotland, there's enough cities with large populations to support teams in many cities. Celtic and Rangers also have the added advantage of being self-perpetuating. They not only generate the most money domestically, but because of their strength, also pull in more money from Europe. In other sports, most of the studie I've seen tend to indicate that if any relationship exists, that dominant teams tend to generate more attendance than does parity. The studies are imperfect at best, though it's at least a data point as opposed to speculation. Major League Baseball does just as well as the NFL with a far different economic model. The NFL is also unique in that the vast majority of its revenue is generated nationally instead of locally and this has been the case since long before the obliterated NFL players' union caused the current dynamic (meaning that the Kanas Cities can lay claim to as much of that money as the New Yorks). MLS appears to be just the opposite right now in terms of how it generates revenue (most of its revenue is almost certainly generated locally), so the NFL model isn't necessarily applicable. I'm always for free market approaches over command marker approaches all other things being equal, because it lessens the damage a single incompetent individual can cause, and incentivizes on the field success, presumably helping to raise the quality of play. I don't necessarily want a league where just a few teams dominate, (at least not the same few teams every year) but I don't think that's the necessary result of a more open economic system. It isn't in Baseball, despite the screams and cries that it is.
This is absolute rubbish. Baseball has teams bleeding money, just like some of the clubs in the EPL. Baseball is seriously looking at having to move teams or contract them. The leagues that don't share revenue (i.e MLB & NHL) are in much worse financial shape than the NFL. But in the long run, this whole argument is useless because people who grew up with the consept of dominant teams will never be able to understand the reasons for parity. I guess it doesn't really matter since this is America and the MLS is an American league which will live or die with an American fanbase. Get over it.
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nice post....last part needs repeating.... exactly The fact is that parity needs to be here at least 10 more years if not more....with a gradual relaxing of ownership rules and economic structure... Right now the league needs SEM until soccer is stable in the US...which will take a while... I can't even believe this topic pops up all the time... And voros...I laugh how you lead off with this criticizing others lack of research: and then post complete garbage about the MLB economic model.... what a horribly ignorant post... secondly..re: your post...how many times have the Yankees been in the post season in the last decade? how many championships? Now what about the Rangers, Tigers, Devil Rays, Orioles, Expos, Pirates, Brewers, Rockies, Royals combined? this isn't even including teams that have made some noise, but only a couple times in the same time period.... ie...Padres, BlueJays, RedSox, Angels, Marlins, Phillies, White Sox, Mets, Cubs, Twins, Dodgers...and most of these are "big market clubs" when a team can buy whoever you want with disregard for the game, it's economic structure, it's future, etc...(read: $160 million dollar payroll)...something is wrong...MLB started to fix it with a luxury tax or something, but they are far from clear... MLB is ridiculous....and maybe that crap was what steered me towards MLS a few years ago... Overpaid greedy baby athletes who strike when they make MILLIONS piss me off....
If Parity was a super tough fighter, and the Goliath was a fighter who was like, super tough?, Parity would totally kick the Goliath's ASS!! And be like "oh you want some more of that?!
That's true. There are very few people on these boards more ignorant of the inner workings of Major league Baseball than I.
A team's right to suck... Just let me throw in one more thing before I head to dinner. The US concept of parity does not take away your team's right to suck. There are teams in all US sports that have been the recipient of high draft choices for year after year and never progressed beyond mediocre. Examples are the Bengals and Cardinals in the NFL and the Clippers and Nuggets in the NBA. But at the same time, some teams always seem to rise to the top and be contending year after year like the Broncos in the NFL and the Lakers in the NBA. Good management still builds good teams.
When the NFL's economic model was established in the early '60s, it was a second-rate afterthought of a league that wasn't even the most popular football out there (college football enjoyed a much higher profile than it did) and all 12 teams derived all their revenue, including TV revenue, locally. And in the NFL of 1960, there were definite "haves," like the Giants, Bears, and Colts, and "have nots," like the Packers and Steelers. In order for the NFL's revenue sharing to even happen, the new NFL commissioner, Pete Rozelle, had to convince owners of the "haves" that the league would be much stronger as a whole by having 12 financially competitive teams. He did, and the NFL in 1961 scrapped all 12 local TV deals and signed a $4.65 millon/year national deal with CBS that started in 1962, with the revenue split equally between all NFL teams. NFL Properties, which controls all NFL merchandising and split the revenues equally amongst all NFL teams, was established in 1963. Basically, your argument is a bad one because the NFL established its economic model in an era where it wasn't too different from what MLS is today, and that economic model gets much of the credit for the NFL's ascent to where it is today. And I think that if you were to suggest to NFL team executives that they'd be better off as a league with massive disparities between the top teams and the bottom ones, the vast majority of them would look at you as if you were crazy. And why not? Their way has been a 40-year-long success story.
But in the MLS, good management often means punishment. For instance, a GM who brings in great talent ends up losing them when they transfer to Europe. I think the draft and the sharing of funds as exists in all American sports will create at least enough parity to keep fans hopeful. What the league desperately needs is to begin rewarding successful management in the form of allowing the clubs to negotiate transfers - in and out - and to receive the lion's share of the fee as reward for successful player management.
I believe those that do not want parity are the one that cheer on or glory hunting the big teams. If you are a Real Madrid Man U, Arsenal supporter (and a lot of posters in Big Soccer are) they are obviously do not want parity. If there is parity, some of them (particularly the glory hunters) have to switch gear/team once their team went down hill. Fans of Man U, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Rangers, Celtics crave parity. Fans of teams that are in the bottom to mid table DO NOT. If you ask a fan of say (insert an EPL near bottom, or bottom team) like Sunderland of last year if they want PARITY or NO parity. With parity, their favorite team can compete and possibly win the title in the next few years or so, or no parity where their team will certainly not going to win anything. What do you expect fans of Sunderland to say? Given the fact that there are a lot of oversea BIG CLUB supporters (like Man U, Real, Arsenal....) love parity, you now know why they want parity. Maybe you should check the post of those that hate parity to see what club they support. I haven't. It would be interesting to see the correlation or lack thereof. Parity is what make me want to cheer on my local football team the Seahawks for I know there is a good chance that they will win it all in the next few years or so. I can't say that for the Mariners, or the Sonics which I do not cheer for unless they are in the playoff. However for the Seahawk, I will cheer for them since I know sometimes down the road and soon they have a chance of winning it all. Could be 10 years, could be 20, but they are 100 times more likely to win it all than the Mariners or the Sonics. Just like Dallas Burn right now, with parity they have a chance to win as early as next season. Without parity, the team will suck indefinately and thus turn the fans away. Just found something interesting. Look how profitable non-parity has done for Spanish clubs. http://www.ussoccerplayers.com/resource_center/soccer_business/380498.html TV revenue is critical for Spanish soccer clubs, which had a collective debt of 1.63 billion (US$1.87 billion) last year. I guess the only team that is profitable is Real Madrid since Barca is in debt along with most of La Liga because they are trying to catch up with the Big Club. With parity (via salary cap) this problem would not occur.
Re: US has parity company... The difference with Mexico is that in Mexico parity isn't forced. MFL parity is result of big companies supporting various number of teams, not by lowering the level of the top teams. Anyway, parity here is called "Competitiveness" by Televisa and "Irregularity" by TV Azteca.
People seem to be making this out to be either what we have now or a totally free. It doesn't have to be one or the other. There are positives to both theories, and MLS should work for a system that can bring out the positives in both. I want to see parity in terms of opportunity to succeed, not necessarily parity on the field.
If MLB competitive balance is so horrifically screwed, why are the A's able to field championship-caliber teams while consistently maintaining one of the lowest payrolls in baseball? How do you explain the Twins? Or the Royals? Or the Marlins? How do you explain the failures of high-salary teams such as the Mets and Rangers? Were you aware that a team with a relatively middiling payroll won the World Series last year? From 1992-2002: 7 playoff appearances, which is not a totally shabby record, especially when you write off the expansion years for the Rockies and D-Rays, and consider the fact that no one made the playoffs in 1994.. In total, teams from your list of TOTALLY DOOMED TEAMS made the playoffs almost 10% of the time, which hardly seems like the end of the world. You know who the worst five teams in baseball during the '80s were? The Pirates (three playoff trips in the '90s), the Rangers (three playoff trips), the Braves (eight playoff trips), the Indians (five playoff trips), and the Mariners (two playoff trips). What makes you think that the current trends will last forever if past ones haven't? I wish the Cubs had made noise a couple of times in the last ten years. Regardless, the small-market/big-market thing is pretty much a red herring. In 1990, the Mariners were finishing off their 14th straight losing season, and they were universally regarded as a "small market team." 13 years later, they're one of baseball's richest, most popular (especially if you factor in fan interest from Japan) and most sucessful franchises, and are now considered to be a "large market team" despite the fact that nothing has significantly changed about the market, it's just that the team got good. Just so we're clear: Number of teams with a payroll over $160m: 1 (the Yankees) Number of teams with a payroll over $140m: 1 Number of teams with a payroll over $120m: 1 So it's not like we're dealing with some sort of epidemic here. Grab a copy of "May the Best Team Win" by Andrew Zimbalist. If you still believe that many baseball teams are bleeding money after you read it, there's just no reasoning with you. The baseball owners want a luxury tax for one reason: to act as a drag on salaries. Not because they're going broke--although they're willing to pretend they are for PR purposes--but because they want to maximize profit. Personally, I don't have a problem with people insisting they get paid market value for their services. The owners have been crying poor for years in order to give people the impression that greedy players are forcing them to inflate salaries and ticket prices in the hopes that they would be bargaining from a position of weakness in the eyes of the public. You are being lied to, and you've swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.
Exactly! I don't want to see a completely "free market" devoid of any rules or restrictions because that wouldn't be anything like a real "free market." Such a market isn't possible for a sports league to attain. What I'd like to see is the best attempt at an approximation of the free market. IOW, free market solutions are generally stronger than command market solutions because they tend to be much more flexible and can correct easily to inefficiencies and changes in various factors. The problem with something like MLS is that the specific needs of the league in 1996 are structurally locked in for long after that, whether they make sense anymore or not.
That is precisely what I would like to see and I think that is the best lesson of the NFL model. But if Godot would have you believe that payroll is not the best indicator of a successful baseball team, I contend that is wrong. Payroll in the NFL or MLS is not the leading indicator of a successful team. One reason for that is because that they both have a relatively hard cap and shared revenues. But I dislike the forced parity MLS teams live under. Shared TV revenue (if any), salary caps, etc... are fine. Each team should have an equal opportunity. When DC sells Convey for $1.5 million or the Metros sell Howard for $3.6 million, I say a large share of that money should go the team that lost that player. They took the risk on a young player, waited 3 or 4 years, trained him and now they suffer the consequences. Sure they may get an allocation, but the money they can spend on that allocation is a fraction of what MLS earned on the sale. Where is the incentive to nurture and cultivate players - aside from the teams own won-loss record? MLS teams need a greater degree of freedom to succeed or fail on their own merits. Handing Mike Jefferies an allocation because he is a ONE SUCK ASS coach is not doing the team or the league any favors. It is a false hope and mediocrity wins. If I have a crappy year at work they don't hand me a bigger bonus or an extra employee (than an employee who had a better year did NOT get) and say try again. They tell me to get lost.
Worse than that, an allocation is a potentially good player replacing a proven great player. It's basically a downgrade, except for in the best of all possible circumstances. I agree that a hard cap, but the freedom to do with it what they want is a good move. When a team finds a player they can afford, they should get it. When a team's youth system grows a player, that team should get the player. I also think a larger roster is essential. More competition within a team is going to push teams forward more than a 'goliath' team winning the league year in and year out could.
Tell you what, teams that sell players can start getting all the transfer money when the rest of the league no longer has to cover their losses, deal?
Oakland has been competitive in MLB because they have been so much smarter than the other teams its not funny. Billy Beane has skinned team after team in trades, and they have been nearly flawless in player development and free agent signings and STILL they have been beaten by the Yankees who seem to have a major free agent or trade bust or 2 every year. The fact that you can do everything right and still get beaten by the goliath head to head two years in a row is a testament to how messed up the system is. If the Oakland A's have proven anything its that no matter how smart and brilliant you are the deck for small market teams is so stacked against them its a wonder they still try. But in MLS, anything can happen, and as a fan there is always room for hope at the start of a season.
Mmmm hmmm. And the explanation for Anaheim beating the Yankees in the playoffs last year would be? People seem to forget that last year's ALCS was Minnesota vs. Anaheim.
Anaheim is a mid market team, their payroll was well above the Minnesota-Oakland-KC level. On top of that, as an Angel fan I freely admit that it was one of those improbably perfect seasons and playoff runs that you will ever see. You cant really ask for a more perfect alignment of things in your favor. Minnesota made the ALCS by winning the AL Central (almost all small market teams) and beating Oakland (another small market team). Ultimately they both fell short, as always. Sure you could say that they had a chance, but the bottom line is they failed. Had those two clubs had the extra $15-30 million that the Angels had to spend they may have been able to win it all. The As certainly are a better run organization then the Angels. And the Angels were a signifigant anomally. Look at the past winners and you see the Yankees, a salary bloated Arizona (bleeding cash) and a salary bloated Marlin team (also bleeding cash, forcing a fire sale).