The Finch Formerly Known As Gold

15 September 2007

Where socialism actually works

Right here in the U. S. of A., in a place called the National Football League:

First of all, the league has a unique revenue sharing arrangement. Revenues from the ticket sales to the games are split equally between all 32 teams. Additionally, the NFL makes most of its money not from people attending the games, but from television. The NFL has a multibillion dollar television contract, and that is also split equally between all 32 teams.

The ramifications of this revenue sharing is that small market franchises such as the Green Bay Packers can compete with large market franchises such as the New York Giants.

This is not to say that every owner winds up with the same bottom-line numbers, but there exists enough parity to keep most of the teams competitive while insuring that everyone doesn't finish 8-8 every year.

And there's this:

Each team is allowed to spend the exact same amount on players. There is a minimum that must be spent, since some owners would prefer to field losing teams in order to line their pockets. The minimum forces them to try and compete. The maximum forces teams to make hard choices. Individual players can still earn astronomical salaries, but at the expense of their teammates. The term "capanomics" refers to teams that try to temporarily circumvent the cap using creative accounting methods, but when that credit card bill comes due, teams have a fire sale known as "salary cap hell."

The NBA has its own salary cap, though it seems to be honored largely in the breach: the Knicks spend more than twice as much on players as do the Bobcats, and are duly penalized for it. Major League Baseball, of course, has neither of these rules.

Still, if you're a confirmed socialist, you probably ought not to hope for the rest of the world to look like the NFL someday. It's a deliberately small operation — thirty-two teams, fewer than 1700 players — and at bottom, it's still intended to turn a profit, preferably a huge profit.

Posted at 7:43 PM to Political Science Fiction


I know you're being at least somewhat facetious here. But without going into this matter too exhaustively:

1) Professional sports is unique among businesses in that it is the only business where it is necessary to insure the health of your competitors. NBC would just as soon CBS, ABC, FOX, etc., drops dead, but the Minnesota Twins and the Arizona Diamondbacks need each other because the competition is what we watch.

2) The sport that allows the most free enterprise is the most economically healthy: Baseball. This despite the fact that, unlike basketball and football, baseball must support an increasingly expensive, vast minor league development and scouting system. The logical conclusion of this approach is that large-market superteams have emerged which dominate the landscape. Mainly, these are the Red Sox and Yankees, with a second tier of superteams behind them that includes the Braves, Cardinals, and Angels.

By the logic used to rationalize football's approach, this should be BAD for baseball. But the result has actually been growth. This is because:

(a) Talent has had a chance to grow and develop at the big league level. (You can't keep 'em down on the farm no mo when the most 'obvious' stars have been snapped up. Get creative, and give that knuckleballer a second look.)

(b) Formulas for player development/success are still largely 'art' and opinion, and still largely unpredictable. Paying top dollar for Alex Rodriguez did not translate to pennants in Texas - but it has in New York. Conversely, paying top dollar to Kenny Rogers was a poor gamble for the Yankees, but he went on to hit the jackpot in Detroit.

(c) An interesting development - team loyalty no longer is necessarily tied to region. Welcome to 'Red Sox Nation', following in the footsteps of 'America's Team - The Dallas Cowboys'. (At least they were, back in the day.) Fans will pay to see excellence outside of the local ballpark (via Pay Per View, merchandizing, etc.), if it's marketed properly. They will likewise pay to see an excellent team when it comes to town. The Yanks and Red Sox routinely fill up empty ballparks around the league.

(d) Baseball's playoff structure tends to place more teams in contention. The fact is, while the Sox and Yanks are competitive every year, they do not win the Big Prize every year. Teams built to dominate the marathon season do not necessarily win the playoff sprints. (The same principle would probably apply in basketball, if the NBA allowed freer player movement.)

3) Basketball could do with a major shaking up. They should allow a more capitalistic system, which would produce a superteam in a major market that could re-ignite interest. Past basketball superteams - the Knicks, Bulls, Celtics and Lakers - dominated the sport but kept interest alive. (Basketball probably also needs some rule changes, but that falls outside the scope of this discussion.)

4) Football seems to be drifting away a bit from its socialist nature and moving back toward entrepreneurial capitalism again. Welcome to The New England Patriots - America's Team. (This year.) While the Pats are hamstrung like the rest of the league salary-wise, they have found some wiggle room around it by drafting in a unique manner, demanding flexibility (many players play several positions), and having the nerve to let some emerging stars go elsewhere, opening salary room to pluck proven stars (Moss) off the market. Still, football is the most onerous sport to play in terms of individual financial outlook, and you may have noticed that many would-be football players switch over to the most rewarding sport - baseball - early in their amateur careers. In this way, the financial structure of football helps insure that a steady stream of talent goes to baseball.

5) Hockey is too big a mess to even get into.

Posted by: Mister Snitch! at 9:24 AM on 16 September 2007