Yes, let’s move on from the English Premier League but judging by the hits by country here for the past 3 days (12% from United Kingdom, out of the blue) I’d like to welcome all of the readers in England, Scotland and Wales.
I just had a revelation. I read the first 2 paragraphs of a horrible post from some guy that mentioned the Charlotte Bobcats (the only way I would have found it) while I don’t like his style and I won’t subject you to his “ideas” by linking it, it did serve as inspiration. He was talking about how there are metrics to determine how competitive a league is and basketball is way behind baseball, football and hockey since David Stern became the commissioner. Then he had a heading that said something like “Hard caps don’t make things more competitive.”
Parity is important in sports. It’s a known fact that fans show up when they feel it is more likely they’ll be watching a win. They tune in, they buy jerseys, they go to games, they drink beer and eat hot dogs. Plus, playoffs pay the bills. Somewhere between 2 and 16 extra games in your arena, plus tickets to each game are likely double over the regular season prices…that’d be worth spending some extra money.
And that was my thought immediately. An owner would be willing to spend extra for a year or two if the rules were more flexible. A softer cap, like the one in baseball (if they have one at all) would enable a team to take a run at a championship. The payoff would far outweigh the costs. Think of the Florida Marlins. They made the playoffs only twice, but they’ve won the World Series both times. Basically all other seasons outside of those two they were somewhat hapless. Of their 19 seasons they finished over .500 only 6 times. Did they just catch lightning in a bottle those two years they made the playoffs and won the World Series? I don’t know, but I’d bet it was more than just pep talks and performance enhancing drugs to turn out 12 more wins than the year before and charge to the championship of baseball.
So, a hard cap isn’t the answer if you look at baseball. If you want teams from top to bottom competing for the championship every year, you can’t limit the amounts teams can spend, especially not in the world of guaranteed contracts. You know that the players will never budge on guaranteed contracts, that idea would never be negotiated, I doubt that’d ever even see the table.
The entire argument for the hard cap comes from the whole “Save me from myself,” attitude of the owners. Consistently overspending doesn’t win. Look at the Knicks. The New York Knicks have paid the luxury tax every year there has been a luxury tax until somehow they avoided it this past season. They finally made the playoffs in the one season they didn’t over pay. The Mavericks have paid the luxury tax as well, every single year it’s been in existence, until finally, they won the championship last season.
The point is, a team that might be in the dregs year after year, say like, oh, I don’t know pick any team, let’s say the Charlotte Bobcats, a team like the Bobcats who have, to this point, not had much success, might be able to make a run one year by overspending. While Michael Jordan definitely wants a hard cap and some revenue sharing according to his comments to the Australian newspaper last week. The idea is that teams aren’t able to spend as much as the Knicks, Mavericks, Lakers and even some of the other big-market teams on a regular basis. Well the Marlins weren’t able to keep up with the Yankees, Red Sox or in their own division, the Atlanta Braves. Somehow, they won two World Series.
What you need to be successful, in a smaller market, short of Lebron James, Dwight Howard or John Stockton and Karl Malone, is flexibility. A down year accomplishes two things in the NBA, it should at least. First, assuming you haven’t sold off all your draft picks to keep the pathetic underperfoming players you have (I’m looking at you again New York), you get a higher draft pick, usually. Of course you can’t tank to assure yourself a higher pick in the lottery system. The second accomplishment should be some level of savings. If you’re down, you’re either rebuilding or on the way down to start rebuilding next year. The increased flexibility coupled with impressive younger talent should bring you some veterans that can help you win without spending for years and years down the road.
I don’t know, I’m spit-balling here. I just thought, that Marlins concept of having a few down years, strong young talent and signing on some value veterans can make you some serious money for a few years leading up to a peak and coming back down. Seems like that might be on the NBA level what the Bobcats are trying to do ever since the trade deadline last year. Assets and flexibility, hopefully it leads to winning years and financial success that can sustain the Charlotte Bobcats for years.
Andrew Barraclough is Senior Editor for RobertoGato.com, a Charlotte Bobcats Blog on theFansided Network. Follow him on Twitter @therobertogato and Like the site on Facebook.