11/21/24
September 08, 2004
Show me the money: This is an interesting article on the NFL draft system from the always excellent Observer Sports Monthly. I’d heard of the draft but never really understood it before, it’s an interesting idea but does it work in practice? Does it even up the league and make it more competitive? Or do the big boys always end up getting their way as they did in this case? Does it mean that no one team can have a monopoly on the best young talent or do they all end up going to the Giants and the other giants at the end of the day? On a related note, would it make it more interesting from a fans perspective to have promotion and relegation in the leagues? It could certainly make dull fixtures more interesting and give you something to play for.
Pete: one thing the NFL does very well (that makes relegation less relevant) is the salary cap, which means a team has to be bumblingly incompetent to be out of it most of the season; whereas in baseball or premier league, many teams can't afford the roster needed to compete. (I think this is also true in hockey, but perhaps not as much as in baseball?) Really, there are only one or two teams who are truly perenially bad in the NFL, and even both of those (the bengals and the chargers) have made it to the superbowl in the past two decades. Perhaps relegation would fix those two clubs, but it would be a huge change that could be more easily made by fans just ceasing to show in those two cities. Anyway, very nice link (despite the missouri/missisipi confusion.) Thanks.
posted by tieguy at 07:48 AM on September 08, 2004
By the way, Pete, according to your user page you want recommendations for sides in the various leagues to follow. So I'll hijack this thread ;)
- baseball: heartily recommend the Red Sox. Good team, and easy to cheer for, given their spectacular history of failure.
- football: I'd probably recommend the Colts or Rams; both pretty good teams with good players who don't get in trouble much, and who have offenses that are fairly fluid and fun to watch.
- basketball: probably either the mavericks or pistons. Pistons play tough, smart basketball, but it can be a bit boring to watch unless you are a basketball purist. The Mavericks are a very international group that plays offense with reckless abandon. They don't so much play defense. So, I find them mostly quite fun to watch.
posted by tieguy at 07:55 AM on September 08, 2004
Thanks tieguy, I was hoping someone would see that. I'll follow up on all those. I find it very hard to get into new sports if you can't get partisan about it, that's a big help.
posted by Pete at 08:10 AM on September 08, 2004
a team has to be bumblingly incompetent to be out of it most of the season Are you referring to our local boys? The 49ers have $29 MILLION in dead cap money this season and that's after a horrific off-season purge. But Dr. York is going to get this right one of these seasons, you'll see! R/P would be so completely against the grain in America I doubt it'll ever happen though I find the concept enticing. Perhaps FIFA will force MLS to implement it...
posted by billsaysthis at 02:38 PM on September 08, 2004
billsaythis: I don't think it is particularly against the grain of anything except the large businesses who run the individual teams. Outside of those folks (who want consistency) America is all about tromping on losers while cheering winners- and what better way to do either of those than relegation.
posted by tieguy at 05:37 PM on September 08, 2004
Yeah, tieguy, you are certainly correct but those individuals are the ones that would have to agree to the scheme. So, never gonna happen.
posted by billsaysthis at 06:57 PM on September 08, 2004
Oh, right. Definitely never going to happen. But I think the american sporting public would take to relegation like a fish to water. The actual leagues would probably be in favor too- anything that increases interest in the bottom third of the standings after 1/2 of the season has been played is something most leagues would welcome as a marketing tool.
posted by tieguy at 07:31 PM on September 08, 2004
When the NFL was first shown in Britain, it created lots of Redskins fans, since it tracked the 1982-83 season. I suspect that while the days of John Riggins are long gone, the first-mover advantage still exists. I'd suggest, though, that Pete watch out for Green Bay, just because it's such a refreshing anomaly in the league. Based in an industrial town of 100,000 that punches way above its weight; a team owned by its fans; and you can guarantee at least a couple of games amid ridiculous snowstorms. It's an instant hook if you're familiar with the working-class roots of the great British football clubs. But yes, the Red Sox. My first experience of baseball was a Dickie Davies round-up of the '86 World Series. An apprenticeship in suffering. And, alas, my guess is that within ten years or so, promotion and relegation will have vanished from the English league, to be replaced by something akin to the MLB farm system.
posted by etagloh at 02:15 AM on September 09, 2004
The draft can help the little guys, but often doesn't. The teams perennially at the bottom of the pile are there for a reason, management stinks. With the draft, free agency and the salary cap there are only two reasons a team sucks every year: Greed and ineptitude (well maybe three, a combo of those two as well). Greed beacause owners get paid even if they can't sell out the stadium. They get a cut of the TV money, liscensing revenue, etc. Why put money into the team when every dollar not spent is a dollar earned. You make money wether you are 3-13 or 13-3 (without all those pesky iincentive binuses to payout as well). And about the worst team? Tthe team that exemplifies this better than any other? Chargers? No. Rebounding from years of overspending 49'ers? No. Ladies and gentlemen I give you the Bidwell family and the Arizona Cardinals. The ABSOLUTE worst ownership and team in professional sports. One accidental, slip in the Wildcard playoff appearance since 1948. Bill won't spend a dime on this team because it is his cash cow. He was more pissed about Dallas' realignment than Dallas was. That was his biggest selling game, so it was gravy. He just extorted a new stadium out of Phoenix somehow and will now get more loot of his shitty team with the newness factor, and probably some cash when the Super Bowl Comes to town. All the while his team will have 3-5 wins a year.
posted by pivo at 01:07 PM on September 09, 2004
I'm not necessarily sure that the big boys always make out the best in the draft. In this case, the Chargers are widely beleived to be one of the more poorly run franchises in the NFL. In to other recent drafts the Chargers picked Ryan Leaf, who turned out to be a major bust, and also could have had the rights to Mike Vick, but traded those away to the Falcons. The main enforcer of parity in the NFL is the salary cap, which was briefly alluded to in the article. One other thing to keep in mind when dealing with NFL contracts is that the money is not guaranteed, meaning that in all likelihood an NFL player will only ever earn a fraction of what he is announced to be able to earn. I think one example this year was a player being offered a bonus if he wins four super bowls in his first four years (highly unlikely). Professional football has no equivalent to the second and third divisions, so relegation doesn't seem too practical, but I have always thought that it might be a good idea in baseball, if the minor leagues weren't completely controlled by Major League Baseball. Of course, you could make the arguement that the teams of the old American Football League were promoted en masse when that league merged with the NFL. And this is what I really wanted to point out: Eli Manning is a graduate of Ole Miss, the University of Mississippi, not Missouri.