The myth of NFL parity

[jebrick]

4 hours ago, khaosoy said:

It could be argued that with the FA system and salary cap the way they are that there is an illusion of parity which allows owners to continue to attract fan bases even if the ownership isn’t truly committed to fielding a contender.

The revenue sharing system of the NFL also doesn’t push individual owners to field successful teams since every team isn’t practically guaranteed to increase.

The problem with the NFLs parity perception is that the vast majority of fans buy into the idea that all of these ‘parity rules’ are in fact real and unbiased so the invest their money and time into these odds. The reality is, most teams have no chance to win a championship. 

Mat least in other sports there are many teams who’s excited fanbase know they have zero chance because the rules of parity are quite obvious Andy straight forward. 

Is this a problem with the league or with the owners that are too cheap and only in it for the profit.  The Pirates and Marlins are a pair of MLB teams who operate like this.  The Cubs used to until their they hired Epstein.   The MLB does not have a salary floor.  The NBA has just strengthened their salary floor( in the last CBA) so teams can't game the system.

[khaosoy]

25 minutes ago, jebrick said:

Is this a problem with the league or with the owners that are too cheap and only in it for the profit.  The Pirates and Marlins are a pair of MLB teams who operate like this.  The Cubs used to until their they hired Epstein.   The MLB does not have a salary floor.  The NBA has just strengthened their salary floor( in the last CBA) so teams can't game the system.

Of course there are owners that are in it for only the money but what the NFL does that’s differently than other sports is they say that they sets rules to allow teams to overcome this but it’s bs for the most part because they also set rules to favor the play style of individual players/teams.

I do think that there is a league first mentality with the majority of the ownership and even a vocal owner Jerry Jones typically falls in line whenever things are said and done. 

Thing is parity is just not good for any sport. Sure it can add some drama but as we’ve seen this year, it also leads to an inferior overall product.

Leagues want dynasties because fans like to root against dominance and for the underdog but the latter hardly ever wins. 

 

[jebrick]

1 minute ago, khaosoy said:

Of course there are owners that are in it for only the money but what the NFL does that’s differently than other sports is they say that they sets rules to allow teams to overcome this but it’s bs for the most part because they also set rules to favor the play style of individual players/teams.

I do think that there is a league first mentality with the majority of the ownership and even a vocal owner Jerry Jones typically falls in line whenever things are said and done. 

Thing is parity is just not good for any sport. Sure it can add some drama but as we’ve seen this year, it also leads to an inferior overall product.

Leagues want dynasties because fans like to root against dominance and for the underdog but the latter hardly ever wins. 

 

You are defining parity differently than the normal.  Unless a league shuffles talent to each team each year there is no parity and can't be.  Instead, look at what leagues do give all teams access to talent.  Money given to smaller markets help all teams be able to afford FA.  Hard salary cap prevents large markets from overwhelming small markets getting FA.

 

Teams like the Steelers and the Pats are rare even in the NFL.  The Steelers have not drafted in the top 10 since 2000.  That is good organization/FO.  Being able to draft well enough to not have deep valleys while paying for a franchise QB is really hard.  Compare that to the Jaguars who have had 10 picks in the top 10 in the last 10 years.  That is also due to the FO.  Until the salary floor was imposed, the Jags owner was in it for the money ( same as the Bengals).

[UKTexans]

20 hours ago, JustAnotherFan said:

None of it makes any sense. At first I thought he was just trolling, but no, he actually believes this.

I was hoping he would respond with an answer to some of my questions so I could show him this and then watch him trip over himself while trying to still fit it into his conspiracy theory. 

Agree 100%. 

Can't believe we aren't dead last on the stats. Suck it Arizona and New Orleans!

[Iamcanadian]

On 4/2/2018 at 10:15 PM, JustAnotherFan said:

They're not a large market team either. 13th in the league.

Quote

Now you are being rather ridiculous, 13th means there are 19 teams that are smaller markets and that places them in the larger market category?????

The Dolphins, Broncos, Colts, Seahawks, Panthers and Titans all disagree. (and fyi, FA is not what we're discussing here)

Post and pre FA tell a whole different story!!!! Pre FA, teams owned their players for life till they chose to cut them and did not have to compete on the open market for talent. In that era, a small market team was not at a disadvantage one bit and as in the case of a team like Buffalo, could go to many SB's, but post FA, teams found themselves on the other side of the coin and a team like Buffalo fell on extremely hard times!!!!

Also, how are Pittsburgh and Green Bay exceptions to the rule and not the Patriots? If there is any team that should be an exception it's them.

Again, you are being ridiculous, Pittsburgh and certainly Green Bay are small market teams that have great difficulty retaining their own FA's and have similar difficulty in signing expensive FA's, they get by through superb ownership which in turn hires 1st class FO's who in turn hire top end HC's and scouts.

NE is not a small market team and just because they rank #13 among the big market cities, does not change that fact. They have more revenue than 19 other teams!!!

The NFL is a QB/schedule league, designed so that every team has a legitimate chance to make the playoffs as a wild card team around every 6 years and occasionally as a division winner if they acquire a first rate franchise QB! If you examine the schedules over the last decade, it clearly shows that this is the formula that the NFL uses and only serious injuries can upset the equation.

So small market teams will make the playoffs on occasion, but getting consistently to the SB is not so easy, without a top owner, a top FO and a top HC along with a superb scouting department.

No amount of money can make an incompetent owner hire a competent FO, it usually works the other way around and if he hires an incompetent FO, then most likely, they in turn hire an incompetent HC and all their money will go to waste.

It is a complete myth that teams have close to equal revenues because they share TV money and merchandise money, larger cities can charge a lot more for their tickets and a lot more for their concession amounting to a significant difference in revenue, then there is the selling of advertising, like naming of a stadium, the size of your city pretty well determines which franchise will get significantly more money for any kind of advertising!

This difference in revenue shows up in a number of ways, teams with significantly larger revenues can hire more scouts, possibly pay for better personnel, do not have to make any profit from their football operations allowing them to spend all or a lot closer to the cap maximum than poorer franchises, which often only spend to the cap minimum.

I can go on and on about the advantages of being a big market city, vs small market cities, but the NFL is extremely smart and negates some of these disadvantages through clever scheduling, but the disadvantages do exist!

 

[JAF-N72EX]

29 minutes ago, Iamcanadian said:

Now you are being rather ridiculous, 13th means there are 19 teams that are smaller markets and that places them in the larger market category?????

You have an issue with reading don't you? Go back and read the subject....

Maybe instead of jumping right into a conversation and try to pick apart such a trivial thing and continue to go on a long-winded rant about non-related **** from left-field, try reading the content first and understand everything in it's entirety. 

[Ragnarok]

I think it's pretty simple.  The best teams are the ones with...the best owners.  The best owners know when to intervene behind the scenes, when to let the guys they hired to do their jobs(which should be almost all of the time), don't let their egos get in the way, have a calm demeanor, and have patience.

It might sound overly simplistic, but those are the teams that are consistently in the playoffs.

if you want "true" parity, you need parity among the owners.  

For example, despite some incredibly talented teams, the Cowboys haven't been to the SB in a couple decades.  Shortly after Jerry decided he wanted to run everything and fired Jimmy, despite the one SB right after.  I think that disfunction at the top trickles down.  

[Malik]

I wouldn't say the NFL is smart. It's just the nature of football. They have significantly more players on the field at once than any other sport that isn't rugby. Any time you add more people the less influence any 1 individual can have. The NFL doesn't have the gaps in talent that you see in college because there significantly less teams.

[Non-Issue]

Being a “large market” team and being “above average in market size” are two different things.

You can’t start off saying a team is a “large market” team, then point to the fact that they’re top 15 in market size as proof. There are more than two market sizes (large vs small).

[BossierWhoDat]

22 hours ago, texans_uk said:

Can't believe we aren't dead last on the stats. Suck it Arizona and New Orleans!

I know it's Friday and all so I hate to burst your bubble... but those '4's and those '0's in your row kind of disagree 

You DEFINITELY have the market size though. I'm actually going to a conference in Houston next week lol

[UKTexans]

16 hours ago, BossierWhoDat said:

I know it's Friday and all so I hate to burst your bubble... but those '4's and those '0's in your row kind of disagree 

You DEFINITELY have the market size though. I'm actually going to a conference in Houston next week lol

I'm just living off the % 

[lancerman]

On 4/5/2018 at 11:20 AM, khaosoy said:

Of course there are owners that are in it for only the money but what the NFL does that’s differently than other sports is they say that they sets rules to allow teams to overcome this but it’s bs for the most part because they also set rules to favor the play style of individual players/teams.

I do think that there is a league first mentality with the majority of the ownership and even a vocal owner Jerry Jones typically falls in line whenever things are said and done. 

Thing is parity is just not good for any sport. Sure it can add some drama but as we’ve seen this year, it also leads to an inferior overall product.

Leagues want dynasties because fans like to root against dominance and for the underdog but the latter hardly ever wins. 

 

The NFL absolutely does not say it is setting the rules to overcome bad ownership or bad team management. Precisely the opposite. It’s setting the rules so that good management and ownership will prevail and not be hindered by things like money or teams stockpiling great players and holding them hostage. 

People are confusing with the elimination of skill. A sports league should strive to reward good owners, coaches, managers, and players solely off their merit. Not try to make it so that the championship is randomized because no teams can be reward for a strong product. Example the Browns have had poor ownership, poor drafting for years, and poor coaches. Parity dictates that they should perform poorly. If there was no salary cap and everything remained the same but the Browns has the richest owner, they’d win in spite of themselves. For years the Yankees just threw around money to field strong teams and didn’t need strong development or drafting or managing. They just need to outspend teams for the top free agents. 

Parity means you win off merit, not off chance. What your describing isn’t sport, it’s rolling dice. 

[sp6488]

On 4/5/2018 at 12:44 PM, jebrick said:

Is this a problem with the league or with the owners that are too cheap and only in it for the profit.  The Pirates and Marlins are a pair of MLB teams who operate like this.  The Cubs used to until their they hired Epstein.   The MLB does not have a salary floor.  The NBA has just strengthened their salary floor( in the last CBA) so teams can't game the system.

That's not true at all.  The Cubs have run plenty of high payrolls pre-Theo.

They actually were #3 in total payroll a year BEFORE he got there.  Part of their problem was actually that they had spend gobs of money on meh players, hence a total tear-it-down rebuild.

http://www.stevetheump.com/Payrolls.htm