Let Freedom Ring - Busting the Myth of the Salary Cap

[Coff]

Very interesting article. There's a major flaw in the reasoning however. The clincher to his argument of MLB having the most parity is that MLB has a postseason that "naturally create[s] tremendous parity."
That is a more a result of the nature of the game than it is the expanded playoffs, or any systemic element of MLB. It simply wouldn't translate in the NFL. In baseball, the best team wins 60% of the time, while in football that number is typically above 80%. The baseball playoffs are a crapshoot, but in football the best team typically wins (last year's results an obvious exception; or not, but that's an entirely different conversation).

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by Coff

Very interesting article. There's a major flaw in the reasoning however. The clincher to his argument of MLB having the most parity is that MLB has a postseason that "naturally create[s] tremendous parity."
That is a more a result of the nature of the game than it is the expanded playoffs, or any systemic element of MLB. It simply wouldn't translate in the NFL. In baseball, the best team wins 60% of the time, while in football that number is typically above 80%. The baseball playoffs are a crapshoot, but in football the best team typically wins (last year's results an obvious exception; or not, but that's an entirely different conversation).

Excellent point and one I had thought of immediately when reading the article. In addition, football is a sport that lends itself to dynasties because of the nature of the QB position. Montana's 49ers, Bradshaw's Steelers, Brady's Patriots, Manning's Colts, Aikman's Cowboys, etcetera. When one player touches the ball on every snap for the offense, and you have an EXCELLENT player at that position, you have a sport that lends itself to less parity. Baseball does indeed have a position that impacts the game like the QB does: pitcher. But the difference is pitchers only throw once every five games. QBs play every game.

Parity is indeed more intrinsic to baseball as a sport than football. All the more reason why football needs a cap, while baseball can (arguably) be successful without it. But to suggest that baseball's financial system is responsible for baseball's parity would be wrong.

Anyway, I'm still interested in what others think about this. Whether it's a comparison of parity in the various sports, or the logic the author used when suggesting cap structures for baseball, or the argument he makes that with a cap small market teams are destined to go out of business.