Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
Ursula's post about the Yankees, below, got me to thinking. (For the record, by the way, I'm with Ursula: I can't quite suppress my admiration for the Yankees. I come by this honestly, having grown
up in upstate New York, where summer meant having my older brother turn on his transistor radio, then instruct me in the nuances of the game as we listened. Whitey Ford? Mickey Mantle? My heroes. In later years I could never even bring myself to work up much indignation about George Steinbrenner. Crude, loud, loutish? Sure. But a brilliant businessman who revived a great franchise. Just last week, for that matter, I had dinner with Harry Sheehy, the magnificent new athletic director at my beloved Dartmouth. Before moving to Hanover, Harry was for a number of years the head basketball coach at George Steinbrenner's alma mater, Williams. One day, Harry said, Steinbrenner showed up announced at the gym, then for two hours stood, unacknowledged, in a corner, watching basketball practice. A few days later Harry received a long letter from Steinbrenner, full of perceptive and intelligent suggestions. But that's more than enough to place in parentheses.) One of the principal sources of animosity toward the Yankees, clearly enough, has always been the size of their payroll. But is that, I wonder, really the Yankees' fault? Or merely the result of a
defect in the rules of major league baseball?
Consider, for just a moment, the contrast between payroll rules in baseball and football. In baseball, broadly speaking, a team gets to spend whatever it wants. If you're the New York Yankees, smack in the middle of the biggest media market in the country, your revenues are enormous--and the rules of the league permit you to use them. But if you're a team in a smaller media market--well, just look at these stats, showing the two biggest and two smallest payrolls last year:
1. New York Yankees.........$206,000,000
2. Boston Red Sox.............$163,000,000
29. San Diego Padres...........$38,000,000
30. Pittsburgh Pirates......... ..$35,000,000
The rules of major league baseball, in other words, permitted the Yankees to spend almost six times as much on players as the Pirates.
The NFL, by contrast, used to impose a salary cap on even the richest team plus a complicated profit-sharing formula that forces the richest teams to help out the poorest. (I say "used to impose" because these rules were part of the collective bargaining agreement between the owners and the players' union, and this year everything is being renegotiated--but that's another story.) Some teams spent less than the cap, but not all that much less. In 2006, the most recent season for which I've been able to find a complete list, the cheapest team, the Green Bay Packers, spent $35 million under the $102 million cap, while the most lavish team, the Washington Redskin, employed a few loopholes to spend about $5 million over the cap.
Whereas MLB rules permits the Yankees to spend many times as much as the poorest team in baseball, in short, NFL rules limited the richest team in football from spending more than about 1.5 or 1.6 times as much as the poorest.
I'm no expert here--and by the way, if I've gotten any of this wrong, by all means correct me--but the NFL rules make a lot more sense to me. I mean, a game's a game. Don't we want a level playing field?
Ursula, I look to you.
Am I going soft?
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Jun '10
Re: Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
Recently, a well-known liberal (can't remember who) said that the NFL is the perfect laboratory for distribution of wealth and therefore would work for the entire country. I haven't spent the time to think it through but would welcome any useful responses to that. I could easily see the argument by the left that the MLB is a Republican model and that the NFL is the Democrat model. I don't know how to weasel out of that one, frankly. Of course, the NFL owners are in the process of locking out their players because they don't think they can afford that model, so I think there is a greater complexity going on here that I simply haven't investigated thoroughly.
Edited on Apr 17, 2011 at 1:03pmRe: Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
Oh geez. Don't look to me, Peter. If I've learned anything on Ricochet the past year+ it's that our members know much, much more than I do about almost everything!
I would only add a few thoughts, and I'm not sure how they fit into the picture. Perhaps they are totally irrelevant to what you note above.
The NY teams (especially the Yankees) also much SPEND much more than other market teams on other costs -- media, parking, advertising, security, payroll, contracts, taxes, etc. Is this relevant at all? I honestly don't know. Also, I suspect they can pay players more because their players must pay exorbitant taxes and have skyhigh living costs.
Also, do you know how this works in the NBA or the NHL? I have never followed the business end of sports very responsibily.
Finally, as an excuse. I'm in NH on a painfully slow computer and can't access links like I usually can. I probably can't check in here as much as I'd like, either, this coming week. I'll be very interested to revisit this later.
Jun '10
Re: Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
Ah, found it. It was Bill Maher. See here.
Update: Found a better link.
Edited on Apr 17, 2011 at 1:07pmApr '11
Re: Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
I think a lot of these comparisons miss some of the most pertinent facts. While it's not the only vehicle of revenue sharing in the NFL, one of the biggest is the league-wide TV deal for all games, which I believe guarantees every team an operating profit. Yes, some teams would probably do better, and others worse on their own, but consider this: last fall, a Monday night game between two small-market, mediocre teams (Tennessee and Jacksonville, as I recall) went head to head with a World Series game, and got much better ratings. The proliferation of gambling and fantasy has created national interest in every game (in part because there are so many fewer) in a way that just isn't true in other sports. I tend to think that these businesses understand their markets well, and that football does best with its kind of TV deal, while baseball does best with each team on its own.
Jun '10
Re: Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
Beyond your star pitcher, I think it's much harder to judge the worth of an individual baseball player. What's valuable in each game depends on how things play out. Sometimes the baseball game depends more on knowledge and strategy (the old guys) and sometimes more on raw athleticism. But with football, it always depends on raw athleticism. Quarterbacks need a great arm, but in football one great arm is never enough.
Apr '11
Re: Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
Another difference is that in baseball, the development happens in professional (minor) leagues, while in football it happens in college. This means that baseball players come into the majors already under contract, and the team keeps control for 6 years, which suppresses salaries for young players, and makes it easy for a team to fill up its roster wtih cheap players. In the NFL, on the other hand, the draft rewards the top college players with big, immediate payoffs, although the next collective bargaining agreement will likely curtail this to an extent.
May '10
Re: Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
Dave, maybe you could make the argument that the NFL teams are operating as a monopoly, which is illegal. Of course, they get around that through the formation of the NFL Players' Association. As Richard Epstein said, it's allowed because it's a national pastime. Otherwise, it's not a good (or legal) model to follow for the rest of the free market.
May '10
Re: Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
Again, because of the franchising model you can't think of sports leagues as individual businesses. They all have protected territory.
Baseball and football are hard to compare. Football has no local television and every game is on the networks because the NFL has but 15-16 games per week. Baseball may have up 16 games every day.
The Yankees not only own their own stadium, they also own their own television network which operates year-round and carries the NBA Nets. That's also a disparity that few teams enjoy.
Apr '11
Re: Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
In sports, it is so hard to assign monetary values to players, and getting the most efficient contract in that respect is such an inexact science that biggest payroll does not necessarily mean better team. Peter, you mention the Green Bay Packers and the Washington Redskins. Although the Skins spend so much money, THEY ARE TERRIBLE (I am a huge Redskins fan, and they bring me nothing but misery). I think what you do see however, in respect to the NFL and MLB, is that the payroll disparity in baseball has fueled innovation, as different teams try to find more efficient ways to win. Baseball is currently undergoing a sabermetric revolution, with Money Ball, Theo Epstein, Billy Beane, and the Rays all examples of new, more nuanced statistical analysis. Conventional wisdom is being turned on it's head. Read Money Ball, and also putt around online to FanGraphs, Baseball Prospectus, etc. and it is easy to see how the baseball world is becoming, well, nerdier. Probably one of the reasons Joe Morgan is out at ESPN is because of his refusal to accept this.
The free market fueling competition and innovation? I think we all like to see that.
Feb '11
Re: Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
BTW, Harry Sheehy, along with Steinbrenner pere et fils (Hal, not Hank afaik), also is an alum of Williams... as am I! Go Ephs! That is the only comment I have to make on this discussion of professional sports...
Apr '11
Re: Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
That Maher piece was just silly. First off, baseball has a draft that gives the worst teams the first pick, too. Baseball has a luxury tax for spending over a given amount to share revenue with the smaller teams--the issue with payroll disparities isn't so much that big markets spend too much but that small markets aren't forced to spend more. Yes, Pittsburgh does better in football than baseball, but there have been 9 different champions in the past ten seasons of baseball compared to only seven in the NFL. Moreover, it was the Boston Red Sox who won twice in baseball, and their brethren New England Patriots in the NFL who won three times.
Lots of baseball teams are free to spend dumb money. Look at the Mets or (my team) the Cubs. One or two bad, expensive contracts can hurt a team for years as much as not having the money to spend. Meanwhile, small market teams with good scouting and development, like Minnesota and Tampa, can be perennial contenders. Smart spending is more important than abundant spending, in any sport.
Mar '11
Re: Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
It was probably the temporary repeal of the death tax in 2010 that will prevent major league baseball from adopting a NFL-style salary cap any time soon.
With George Steinbrenner dying in 2010 (when the death tax was zero), his sons were able to keep control of the Yankees. If he had died another year, his boys would have owed the federal government a huge chunk of change, and they might have been forced to sell the team to pay the taxes. (See Joe Robbie, founder of the Miami Dolphins; when he passed away, his family had to sell the franchise to pay the estate taxes.)
Steinbrenner had always been the biggest impediment to a salary cap in baseball. If his family sold the team, MLB officials might be able to stipulate that the new owner must agree to a salary cap, as--I believe--the league must approve the sale of any franchise (or, at the very least, they could find someone who was open to the idea).
Obviously, we'll never know what would have happened. Just a thought.
Edited on Apr 17, 2011 at 1:54pmRe: Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
Harry Sheehy was a great basketball player as a Williams undergrad, then a really magnificent basketball coach at Williams--he took two teams to the Final Four--and then a superb athletic director for Williams.
We at Dartmouth are very, very lucky to have persuaded Harry to move from Williamstown to Hanover--and, Mama Toad, don't think we don't know it!
P.S. Harry grew up in Queens. Something tells me he'd have a position on the eternal Mets versus Yankees debate.
Edited on Apr 17, 2011 at 2:04pmDec '10
Re: Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
Apart from the finances, baseball is clearly the superior game, as can be evidenced by the infield fly rule. Every great game has a rule singularity.
Re: Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
It's not so much the presence of revenue sharing -- baseball shares its national TV money too -- but the absence of local TV deals in the NFL that makes its spending so flat. YES and NESN carry all sports except football. In the 50s both football and baseball had local contracts, but the upstart AFL signed a long-term deal with NBC in 1960 to get around the local monopolies. CBS and the NFL retaliated -- turned out CBS stations had all but one NFL team already under contract, the Browns, who broke their independent deal and went to CBS in 1961 -- and when they merged the two deals stayed for the two conferences. There has been no such history for baseball. So is it a superior model, or a historical accident?
Jul '10
Re: Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
"Don't we want a level playing field?"
A level playing field is allowing a check writer to pay Someone what she/he thinks They are worth, or are You a commie?
Dec '10
Re: Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
Fundamental misunderstanding, with respect to income and the NFL. The recently expired Collective Bargaining Agreement provided for a split amongst the teams of Total Football Revenue (TFR). Roughly $1 B off the top to the owners for stadium support, then roughly %65 players, 35% owners, plus a cap on the salary pool.
The problem has been that certain markets had vast income streams that were beyond Total Football Revenue and, usually those same teams, blew way past the salary caps by adding non-salary payment to contracts, such as bonuses. A team from NY, or another big market, has sponsors lined up to place their name on the stadium for extra millions of income that does not count against TFR. Big market teams actually can sell naming rights to parking areas, whereas small market teams sometimes cannot find a sponsor to name the stadium.
The imperfections, these and others, mean that every year teams dread drafting after the NY Jets, as they are famous for paying players well beyond the league average for a similar player. There is much to consider when making comparisons, but the fundamental basis for comparison is the definiton of Total Football Revenue.
Sep '10
Re: Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
If you look at the NFL as an agreement between 30 some entities, then it looks like an example of the distribution of wealth. But if you look at the NFL as one entity, and each team as a franchise, then it looks like profit sharing among equals. I am not sure which model is the correct one.
I used to despise the Yankees and thought the rules unfair and tilted to favor them and the other big markets. On the other hand, no one forced Tampa Bay or Pittsburgh to try to complete with Gotham, either.
In the end, you can't buy a championship. The Yankees do not dominate MLB every year. The Miami Heat will probably not win the NBA championship this year. The thing I despise most about free agency is that there is no loyalty to a team, city, or player. It is all mercenary. So why should I support a team? This year's darling will be playing for someone else next year. Who do I pull for then? Lately, for me, no one. And I do not foresee me changing any time soon.
Jul '10
Re: Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
Peter, football is by far better set up as a league than baseball. The NFL is a cartel, as are all professional sports leagues, and behaves as such in allowing revenue sharing, exclusive rights and control of players through the draft, league TV contracts instead of individual team contracts, etc.
I can tell you as a shareholder of the Green Bay Packers, the Packers would not exist if football were organized along the lines of Major League Baseball. The city is nowhere near large enough to draw as many fans and viewers as Detroit let alone major markets like Chicago and New York.
The NFL is not a free market or monopoly. It's a cartel where a group of franchises agrees to rules that attempt to balance competition. The idea is they are removing some of the risk of failure through revenue sharing at the cost of individual profit they might make by relying on their sole franchise revenue. It takes two teams to play a game (the game is the actual product), and it is in the league's and teams' interests for long-term profit to make sure they have an equal chance to succeed.
Aug '10
Re: Baseball Or Football. Who Has Better Rules?
Standfast and Whiskey Sam are on the right track here: pro sports leagues are 'units' of entertainment unto themselves, whether we call them cartels or monopolies or whatever. The NFL is competing as an entertainment product against other sports leagues, video games, movies -- whatever consumers are willing to pay for in order to make their leisure time more pleasant (although fans of some teams will certainly protest this assertion).
So the competition between teams is a feature of the entertainment, but it's only 'market' competition if you look at it from some angles.
I therefore find it easy to let the NFL off the hook for being 'socialistic' with their internal arrangements. They are organizing their league in a way they believe will make it as competitive as possible on the entertainment market, and they seem to be succeeding.
Baseball (my favorite sport) has been remarkably fortunate in that the gross spending disparities between franchises has not resulted in total domination by just a few teams. I think this is mostly a result of the inherently unpredictable nature of baseball playoff series. Baseball is therefore lucky rather than well-organized.
Edited on Apr 17, 2011 at 7:13pm