Parity in Baseball

I don't think casual fans, that advertisers target, want parity. With the Yankees/Lakers, just hating them is enough to watch their games.

Indiana vs. San Antonio isn't going to make money for the NBA. The NBA had its largest period of growth when teams made runs for multiple titles (Lakers, Pistons, Bulls).

It's just much easier for people who don't spend too much time to follow when they know 5 or 6 teams will make it this year or the year after. For them, who wants to watch an action/drama show where the actors are replaced so quickly?

So I doubt the NBA and NFL used their restrictive policies to enforce parity but rather to build fan loyalty... which is why beat writers are hyping up the Biggio/Bagwell story.

 

force those franchises to spend the money they get from revenue sharing on improving the team, directly.

listen..i don't think the NFL or the NBA are perfect. i'd rather be watching baseball than either one of those. but MLB could really use a cap...or at least some more serious revenue sharing. maybe both.

 

I don't like these "ends justify the means" articles or arguments. Few people can look at the economic system in baseball and claim, with a straight face, that it is a fair system that allows for all teams to have an equal chance to win it all over a given period of time. Just because baseball has seen several different champions the last few years does not mean that everything is fine.

And the NBA argument is silly to me because the two sports are so different you can't really compare them. In the NBA, one single player can effect things significantly more than any one player in baseball. It's the main reason I think using team wins is a viable way to judge who wins MVP in basketball, but not in baseball. The two games are just too different. When you have Michael Jordan in the league winning the majority of the championships, followed by Hakeem and then Shaq, I don't call that a lack of parity, I call that a situation where dominant players emerged and refused to lose. In baseball, even Barry Bonds playing out of his mind, historically, couldn't lead his team to the promise land.

I don't know as much about the NFL except to know that however their system is different basketball as far as the hard cap is concerned, I don't like it. I think basketball has the best system allowing for any team to win and continue winning if they draft well and have good management. The Clippers are the exception to this rule because they make it a point to NOT spend the money they are making. It's greed, plain and simple, and as soon as their fans stop supporting that attitude in any form, it will likely change. But even then, the Clippers have had some decent teams in the last decade. Can the Devil Rays say that?