Competitive balance

[The Gipper]

OK, sorry if I am going to diverge away from the constant din over the quarterbacks, but I have heard about this concept to bringing more "competitive balance" to teams in major leagues. Certain credit for this has to go to Howie Dog who first brought it to my attention as a possibility and also to a discussion that I heard on the radio this morning with Fay Vincent, former MLB commissioner, and that is to expand the NFL, and MLB (and possibly the NBA or NHL as well) in particular into a Two Tier League.

This would create significant expansion of a sort to the major leagues, but hell, this is a big country, we can handle it.

 

Example, in the NFL or MLB, you start out intially with the current 32 or 30 teams, which would be your Tier I league. But then you either form, or incorporate something like the UFL into say a 16 team Tier II league (these would not be "minor league teams per se).

In football this Tier II could have teams initially in say, San Antonio, Las Vegas, Sacramento, Salt Lake, El Paso, Memphis, Oklahoma City, Raleigh-Durham, Louisville, Columbus, Norfolk, Birmingham, Portland, LA, San Jose, and Hartford.

 

Then, what you do is you announce that say, in 2015 the NFL, or MLB is going to go to a system of "Relegation", that is, the two teams from the Tier I league that have performed the worst on the field over the last 2 seasons are going to be "relegated" to the Tier II league, and the two teams from the Tier II league that have performed the best over the previous two years are going to be "promoted" to the Tier I league. Each successive year then the worst 2 teams from the NFL/MLB/NBA would be relegated and the best from Tier II promoted.

 

What would this accomplish? It would obviously create a major black mark on the team or teams relegated, thereby providing a disincentive to perform in a piss poor fashion. As you know now, some teams in the NFL/MLB/NBA exist only to make money. The AZ Cardinals were that way for years, the Lions seem to have been on that path. The Pittsburgh Pirates, the LA Clippers, etc. etc. Even now the Cleveland Indians ownership seems to only be interested in their bottom line and not the teams on field performance. This would force teams to try to win. It would especially stop the tanking of games that goes on in the NFL for the top draft pick...and especially the NBA (Hello Cleveland Cavs circa 2002 in the LeBron sweepstakes).

If you were relegated, your drafting position would be put up somewhere near the middle of the draft instead of at the top.

 

To me, as I said, it would force teams to try to succeed, AND it would create tremendous interest in the late season games of those teams that could be on the verge of relegation. Instead of going through the motions and attracting almost no fans, the teams would be forced to scratch and bite to stay out of the basement, and a lot of people would probably come to watch their games to show support.

 

This idea comes from English soccer I believe, but somehow, I think it could work here. (Though, in reality, the owners of the major league teams would probably never consent to such an arrangement).

 

But, could you see the Detroit Lions being subjected to being replaced by the Memphis Whatevers? Or...the Cleveland Indians being replaced by the Columbus Clippers? That would suck major. But it would force ownership to get off their lard asses and try to win.

Let us know how you think such a system would work, or be received.

[Earl34]

Gip,

 

It's not a bad idea given the fact that it works in soccer worldwide (England is one example). You don't see teams at the bottom of the standings "mailing it in". I see a problem though.

 

In Europe, your stadiums aren't nearly as big as the NFL ones. If a team is in a lower division, there is a venue seat requirement where the team has to play in a stadium with a certain capacity to move up. Hartford (UFL) plays in a 40,000 seat stadium. Would they have to expand if they got promoted? The finances are very tricky it seems.

 

I do like the idea of aligning "lesser' divisions but if you look at baseball, is someone's triple A team going to compete at the MLB level because they had a good year?

 

[The Gipper]

Here is a link to how the "promotion and relegation" system applies in other parts of the world:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promotion_and_relegation

[CLEVELandMILIDH]

How would the draft work? does tier 1 and tier 2 teams draft players? If so that would spread talent to thin and the quality of football wouldnt be as good anyway. Also free agency, nobody would want to sign with a tier 2 team and I dont see how that many new teams would be able to generate enough fan base to be competitive with the salary cap in the NFL. I think it would hurt it more than help it, you would have to work out alot of issues for it to work and in the end your still going to have bad teams

[The Gipper]

But here is a link to some thoughts by one author, though much of the inspiration for these come apparently from baseball commish Bud Selig:

 

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/rosenth...proposal-022510

[The Gipper]

Gip,

 

It's not a bad idea given the fact that it works in soccer worldwide (England is one example). You don't see teams at the bottom of the standings "mailing it in". I see a problem though.

 

In Europe, your stadiums aren't nearly as big as the NFL ones. If a team is in a lower division, there is a venue seat requirement where the team has to play in a stadium with a certain capacity to move up. Hartford (UFL) plays in a 40,000 seat stadium. Would they have to expand if they got promoted? The finances are very tricky it seems.

 

I do like the idea of aligning "lesser' divisions but if you look at baseball, is someone's triple A team going to compete at the MLB level because they had a good year?

 

I understand that in Europe, to receive "promotion" there does have to be certain criteria in terms of stadium and finances.

I think in most of the cities I mention, there are big enough stadiums in terms of capacity, though they may not be the luxury palaces that most of the current NFL/MLB owners enjoy....but that doesn't meant they couldn't be developed to be adequate. (that is why I said the start date would be like 5 years out).

And in baseball, I guess the key is that the "new" Tier II teams would not really in fact be the minor league team of one of the current franchises. (Hell, the freeking Indians are a goddam minor league franchise of the fat cat teams now...losing all their best players to guys with more cash). So, you see, promoting a "AAA" or "Tier II team would not be all that different than what is going on now.

[The Gipper]

How would the draft work? does tier 1 and tier 2 teams draft players? If so that would spread talent to thin and the quality of football wouldnt be as good anyway. Also free agency, nobody would want to sign with a tier 2 team and I dont see how that many new teams would be able to generate enough fan base to be competitive with the salary cap in the NFL. I think it would hurt it more than help it, you would have to work out alot of issues for it to work and in the end your still going to have bad teams

 

 

Yes, there are things such as what you mention that would have to be worked out.

(but, as noted, they do do this in Europe and elsewhere. We would have to perhaps look there to see how things like player selection and free agency would be sorted out.)

Would the talent be spread a little thinner? Probably (but hey, that would simply mean that both Derek Anderson and Brady Quinn would have starting jobs....even if they are at a Tier II level).

Remember, if they are good enough, they can get their way back up to the Tier I level and stay there.

According to the one linked article, a number of teams have never been relegated....including Randy Lerner's Aston Villa.

[Pumpkin Eater]

No thanks. This completely takes away any Cinderella stories. Recently the Tampa Rays went from worst to first in the AL in just one year. if they had been in a Tier II league, their appearance in the World Series would have never happened. Atlanta and Minnesota both did it in the MLB in the early nineties. New England sucked the year before they won their first Superbowl, as did the Rams. Sorry but this is a terrible idea that will only prevent teams from having breakout seasons.

[The Gipper]

No thanks. This completely takes away any Cinderella stories. Recently the Tampa Rays went from worst to first in the AL in just one year. if they had been in a Tier II league, their appearance in the World Series would have never happened. Atlanta and Minnesota both did it in the MLB in the early nineties. New England sucked the year before they won their first Superbowl, as did the Rams. Sorry but this is a terrible idea that will only prevent teams from having breakout seasons.

 

 

Still, it is my understanding that baseball is considering such a system. They are considering this convoluted system because they don't want to do the two things that are simple to do, and that would really solve the problems in baseball:

1. Institute a salary cap

2. Institute full revenue sharing.

 

They don't want to do these things because the assholes that run baseball are too cowardly to stand up to essentially the owners of the big market teams, and to the players union who wants the Yankees and Red Sox to pay more money for players than most other teams can afford.

 

The one link I put on here has one potential solution: Put another one or two teams in NYC.

Figure this out: The NYC area has a population of about 24 million. There are two teams there, so you figure at best those two teams have a fan base of 12 million people each. Then look at say the Cleveland area with its population of about 3 million or Pittsburgh with its population of about 2.5 million.

If you put a third team in NYC that third team could potentially have a fan base of 8 million, which is about 2.5 or 3 times larger than the Indians fan base.

Honestly....if I were the owners of the Pirates or Indians or Royals or some such smaller market team, I would threaten and bellow that I am going to move my team to New York if some better competitive balance isn't instituted. And if MLB said FU to me, I would threaten Anti-trust litigation. Despite the ruling of about 90 years ago that granted MLB a monopoly, this is a new age and day and I suggest that anti-trust exemption could be overturned if brought by one of baseball's own owners.

[Earl34]

Gipper, I do believe that a league will someday have its antitrust exemption successfully challenged. New York was probably better off when it had three teams anyway.

[shoot]

The one link I put on here has one potential solution: Put another one or two teams in NYC.

Figure this out: The NYC area has a population of about 24 million. There are two teams there, so you figure at best those two teams have a fan base of 12 million people each. \

 

To be fair the split is probably more like 4 million Mets fans, 20 million mouthbreathing neanderthals in pinstripes.