Wetcoaster said:
Mark Witting in his extremely detailed study of salary caps has concluded a number of things. If a cap is in place there is less of a gap between the "haves and "have nots" and the wealth distribution is more even. That is not surprising since that is the starting point for a salary cap.
However he found that in the NFL the competitive balance difference pre- and post cap was negligible and had done nothing for league wide parity.
In the NBA the cap was instituted (according to the league) to protect smaller market teams and increase their competitiveness. It has not worked as in 18 years the 4 largest markets have won 14 titles while in the previous 18 years (pre-cap) the 4 largest market team only won 5 titles.
He finds that baseball with no salary cap has excellent competitive balance across the league and that the NHL has been its most competitive in the last 20 years looking at each decade since 1926-27.
After his detailed calculations and analysis he concludes:
"The two leagues (NHL and MLB) without caps and significant revenue sharing seem to produce more balanced competition than the leagues with cost-of-labour restrictions over the last 8 years. In addition, we saw that the restrictions did little if anything to improve competition in the NFL and may have actually hurt the NBA's pursuit of parity."
How about player salaries? He found as follows:
"Just like in un-capped sports, salary caps don't strongly influence the escalation of player salaries. Players perceived as stars are being paid tremendous sums in all four sports (hockey least of all) while the salaries and job status of the low end and mid range players are adjusted to compensate."
How about the effect of salary caps in rebuilding a team:
"(NFL) teams are often encumbered with "dead money", payable to players no longer on the roster but still counting against the cap. Teams with significant dead money can't afford to sign as many experienced/quality players and suffer for it. The descent into salary cap hell is often caused by a team doing everything possible to win in one season by knowingly compromising the future. The team and fans are then forced to pay for a short period of prosperity with what can be a long stretch of mediocrity or worse. This peculiar phenomenon is not found in baseball or hockey, although it is appearing occasionally in the NBA."
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Lots of misleadsing information here, but I'm going to stick with what's, IMO, the most egregious, namely Whiting's comments about competitive balance, particurlarly in MLB. I'm not sure what he bases his comments on, but it's certainly not facts.
In baseball, eight teams make the playoffs each year. That obviously would mean 80 playoff slots over the past 10 years. In the last decade, 20 of those 80 slots have been held by just two teams, the Yankees and the Braves. Read that slowly - a full quarter of all the playoff spots have belonged to
two teams. Another 21 slots have been filled by just
four teams (Boston, Seattle, Cleveland and Houston). So, in other words, over the past decade six teams out of 30 have had a hold on more than half the league's playoff spots. In the meantime, 11 teams - more than a third of the league - have made one or fewer playoff appearances in the past decade. Eight teams have not made a single playoff appearance. This is balance?
On the other hand, in the NFL all but two teams have appeared in the playoffs since 1995. On of those teams, Houston, is an expansion club not in existence for seven of those years and really should not count for this comparison. Of the 32 teams, 23 have made three or more playoff appearances. 17 of them have made four or more. While the fact more spots are available somewhat contributes to this, it certainly doesn't explain it all. Simply put, there is more balance in the NFL.
As for the "Dead money" issue, it's not really an issue. Each team has a right to pursue a championship by the means they chose. If they chose to go that route and suffer the consequences later, so be it. It's their
choice.
