Postseason expansion is most likely going to baseball, but not as soon as next season, or at leas that’s the impression commissioner Bud Selig gave when he spoke to reporters before Game 2 of the National League Championship Series.
“I don’t know yet,” Selig said when asked if an expanded postseason could come in 2012. “I think that might be a little optimistic, but I don’t know yet.”
As for the idea of two more wild card teams, hearing Selig talk, it sounds like it’s nearly a done deal. When asked what he thought about those talking about expanded replay, Selig chuckled—“Since I’m the guy, I guess, I don’t want to be too critical of me.”
...• On the use of the pitch tracker on TV broadcast: ” Well, it’s part of the world we live in. They do that in all sports now and different things. I really am not critical of that. If I were them, I guess I’d do the same thing.”
He added, “I keep asking people how accurate those zones are and I get different answers from different baseball people. But, a lot of competition out there, a lot of things. So I can’t blame them for doing that, I really can’t.”
• On standardizing the designated hitter: “So we’ve done this 39 years. And I’ll say it again, it would take some overall big event that maybe would force people to make a decision. But right now the National League guys don’t like it. The American League does like it. And that doesn’t bother me at all.
“Somehow on a great night of irony, that one League has one rule—and remarkably the fate of western civilization hasn’t been changed.”
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If you can believe what you read on BTF, many Primates would beg to differ.
That's one sentence? I'm usually not critical of writing style here. But that kind of lead grates on me.
Heh.
I said that I thought the way Game 162 went for a few teams would lead to him pushing it back a year. The timing isn't good right now. So you don't have to stop being a baseball fan yet.
moving the astros to the AL is just more instance of bud selig of deciding why bother to spit on the astros because it would just be a waste of good spit
it's gonna suck being a cards fan, but not as much as being the fan of a DH using cheat league
Yeah, it sure sounds like "baseball" wants to be a verb there.
Why would anyone want him to retire when he's been as good as he has been over the past 12+ years as a commissioner?
I mean now that Jobs is dead, it's not like there is another head of an organization that has led them to as much success who is still alive. MLB has gone from challenging the NBA for second place, to securely placing itself as the number 1a sport in the country(unless you are one of those ####### massively stupid people that think tv ratings equal popularity---I mean seriously how do these people even breed?you can't be that stupid and still expect a woman to acknowledge you.)
*bangs head on desk*
Seriously, though -- Selig's popularity among his fellow owners makes a very interesting contrast to his popularity among the fans in general. I don't care much for his tenure, but I have a very hard time coming up with far reaching reasons. My dislike for Selig is based mostly on individual events and innovations: interleague play, the contraction push in 2001, the end of the 2002 All Star Game, the way he handled the 1994 strike, etc. Most things I don't like about modern baseball aren't really that closely related to Selig: I don't care much for the pandering to corporate "fans," for example, though that almost certainly would have happened under any other commissioner. One thing is for sure: the game has exploded in revenue since his tenure began (though I still believe you can make a very good argument that baseball would have been better had Selig never grabbed the wheel).
TL;DR: Selig is a good scapegoat, but I don't think he's the root of all evil.
unless you are one of those ####### massively stupid people that think tv ratings equal popularity---I mean seriously how do these people even breed?
Good job acknowledging the possible validity of an opposing viewpoint as you make your rant. I'm sure the patrons of the FOX Sports message board appreciate your insight and debating skills.
Seriously, though, I agree that baseball has overtaken the NBA in popularity.
I don't have the time or patience to defend that assertion with actual facts, but anecdotally it seems like general interest in the NBA is lower now than it's been at any point in the last several decades. FWIW, I don't put much faith in NBA attendance figures - they don't announce butts in seats, they announce tickets distributed, which include promotional giveaways and freebies given to sponsors.
The last two finals were very well regarded. It's pretty much the lockout that kills things. The optics of the lockout are horrible for both sides. The players are black guys with tattoos who are ######## that they don't get paid enough, and the owners are rich white guys squeezing more money out.
(note, the above is not my view, it's my reading of why the lockout hurts the league so much)
The term "general interest in the NBA" is kind of vague. But there was and is enormous interest in the LeBron James saga, as you, being a Cleveland guy, well know. TV ratings and revenues were up. With a star-driven sport, there will always be teams in the wilderness--nature of the beast. But the NBA at the moment has compelling teams/storylines in big markets. Given how expensive tickets are, I think the economy has hurt actual at-the-game attendance in small markets. But the NBA was doing fine and will be OK if the lockout doesn't last too much longer (but it might).
Also, I don't think the NBA "in general" was ever more popular than MLB except for brief moments. Magic, Bird, and particularly Jordan were more popular than MLB, which is kind of the same thing, but not exactly the same thing.
As has been dicussed many times here, "popularity" of a sport is harder to measure than it might seem. But at the moment, in the US, I think the NFL is clearly #1, MLB is #2, and the NBA/NHL are 3, with the NBA slightly ahead when they are actually playing. I think it will pretty much stay that way into the foreseeable future.
It's not that these sports aren't doing fine and holding their own. But that's not enough. It's all about the media's eternal search for a horserace, in which the newest, shiniest horse is COMING ON STRONG BEFORE OUR VERY EYES. (Sadly, actual horse racing is off the list.)
Look at soccer. There was more insta-hype for David Beckham coming to America than there has been for the steady, incremental rise of the sport's general profile in the U.S. that actually looks to affect the sports landscape.
What was ironic about the night in question?
It seems as if, right now, a huge percentage of NBA clubs are having big problems either financially or competitively. Revenues and television ratings may be up, but my understanding of the situation is that nearly all of the profit is split between three teams, and everybody else is either treading water financially or getting crushed financially. Nate Silver wrote a FiveThirtyEight post about the NBA's finances this summer quoting data that suggested that of the $183M in leaguewide operating income in 2009-10, nearly $150M of it belonged to the Knicks, Lakers, and Bulls. The Hornets went bankrupt and couldn't find an ownership group interested in keeping them in NOLA, the Pacers' owners claim to have lost $200 million and have spoken publicly about folding the team, Forbes says the Magic lost $23M last year and the Bobcats lost $20M, the Kings are in limbo after their failed move to Anaheim, the commissioner said Memphis fans shouldn't worry about contraction because he'd have to talk it over with the players first, the Cavaliers' team value declined by 26% post-James according to Forbes, and on...and on...and that's not even addressing the basket cases like the Nets and Clippers who either can't or don't field competitive teams.
It might not be the financial armageddon the owners want you to believe it is, but clearly there are some massive structural problems in the NBA. I think in a lot of markets, that's hurting attendance and interest. If/when there's a season, I expect you'll see Cleveland's attendance decline 30-40%. Dan Gilbert's a twit, but he was smart enough to put 2010-2011 season tickets on sale before The Decision. He can't do that again.
Also, I totally agree with the notion that the NBA has never been ahead of MLB. I was just saying that if it had been in the past, it's been overtaken.
Just because the Clippers do not field a competitive team does not mean they do not make a profit for Sterling. If he was not making money from ownership then he would not still be the owner. He clearly does not care much about an NBA title.
Good thing salary caps ensure competitive balance and financial stability.
Seriously, why isn't the answer scrapping the cap, and increasing revenue sharing or a luxury tax, to rein in the 3 big spenders?
Every year that passes, the MLB system looks better and better compared to the "capped" leagues.
You're kidding, right? Selig's showing all the symptoms of chronic welfare dependency, right down to the fancy cars.
Every year that passes, the MLB system looks better and better compared to the "capped" leagues.
Entirely jerry-rigged though. The only real signs of parity are the outputs from the playoff crapshoot. Everyone knows even the worst teams can beat the best teams in a 3 out of 5; that's hardly a real marker of "parity."
MLB is behind college football as well, and possibly college basketball.
Entirely jerry-rigged though. The only real signs of parity are the outputs from the playoff crapshoot. Everyone knows even the worst teams can beat the best teams in a 3 out of 5; that's hardly a real marker of "parity."
Sure it is. Parity means ability to win Championships; that's all that fans care about.
Besides, when you look at Texas' 96 wins, Detroit's 95, and Milwaukee's 96, do you really think there's a huge "true talent" gap between them and the 97 win Yankees and 102 win Phillies?
The NBA, NHL, and NFL have the same playoff "crapshoot" with far more teams getting in, and they have less parity.
That's crazy.
Teams that MADE the playoffs this year were ranked 1st, 2nd, 10th, 11th, 13th, 17th, 25th, and 29th in payroll out of 30. That's a very blunt measure, but it certainly doesn't indicate massive competitive imbalance. That's not atypical of the last decade, either.
After the Lebron-Wade-Bosh thing, and the potential for more of it, I don't know how fans of teams in second or third tier markets will be able to maintain interest in the sport. As a one-time, kind-of Pacer fan, there was legitimate hope that a well-built team could compete (as it did during the Reggie era). San Antonio was Exhibit A, of course. But if superstars joining forces becomes the rule, why in the hell would you want to support a team like in a city that the superstar will abandon the moment that becomes possible.*
* And for the record, I don't blame the superstars for doing this, just expressing how I'd feel if I were a fan in Memphis, or Salt Lake City, or Milwaukee, or Sacramento, or Cleveland, or Minneapolis, or, someday, Oklahoma City. And probably a half dozen others. I think the NBA has a serious issue here, and I don't know how in the hell the league can realistically address it other than some radical concept like massive contraction or relegation.
There are reasons for playoffs in those sports that don't pertain to baseball. NFL teams play wildly different schedules and injuries/health are a much bigger factor; NHL teams can't possibly bring playoff intensity to 82 regular season games; and NBA games are much more matchup-dependent than MLB games. It's a smaller factor, but NBA and NHL playoff teams also typically change their personnel more materially at trade deadline time.
And there's a far bigger gap between the worst teams in those leagues and the best -- barring a plane crash, the 2010-11 Cavs would have literally no chance against the 2010-11 Heat in a 3 out of 5.
There's nothing really crapshootish at all about the playoffs in those leagues.
I see no competitive point at all in giving the Cardinals a 3 out of 5 against the Phillies, and no point at all in giving them a 4 out of 7 shot against a team in their own division. Both of those are antithetical to proper competition in baseball. They're jerry-rigged.
Like any Chief Executive Selig is going to get too much credit and too much blame but I think three major initiatives have worked well;
1. Wild Card - We can say what we want but I think it's clear that among the majority of sports fans this is popular. Those of us here are not representative of the "average" sports fan.
2. WBC - I'm reaching a bit here but my sense is that the WBC is succeeding in its goal to globalize the sport more.
3. Online - I think MLB has a TERRIFIC online presence. The website is good and the GameDay app for mobile devices is a wonderful and easy way to follow the game. While I follow no other sports as closely as baseball I do for various reasons check in regularly and find that none of the other major sports provides me with anything as good as GameDay or MLB.com. Generally I find that Yahoo or ESPN give me more information than the house organ for those sports.
Assuming this is about the wild card (correct me if I'm wrong); don't all the other major sports have wild cards? And if the wild card is antithetical to competition in baseball, but not other sports, then isn't it a bit hard to assess the extent of parity in baseball, since other sports clearly aren't a fair comparison?
In other words, "The only real signs of parity are the outputs from the playoff crapshoot" - well, compared to what?
In other words, "The only real signs of parity are the outputs from the playoff crapshoot" - well, compared to what?
Playoffs don't work competitively in baseball with particpants and participation wider than the 1969-93 system. They do work competitvely in the other sports. (See post 27).
That's the unfortunate paradox baseball faces. It's inherent in the nature of the game and the way the game measures and identifies true excellence.
This makes no sense to me. I'm sure it's me not understanding something obvious but the playoffs are obviously quite competitive in baseball. Frankly, as you noted in #27 they make the least sense in the NBA where the first round seems to be largely a waste of time.
If your argument is there is less need for the Wild Card, well I won't argue that but as I noted in #30 that is a function of preference. The truth of the matter is that the Wild Card is popular among fans and creates the illusion of parity that expanded playoffs and smaller sample sizes create in other sports.
In the NBA, no. That's the problem. We know that only a half-dozen teams have a chance at the Championship before the season starts.
In the NHL, the playoffs are wildly random. Tons of lower seeds advance.
Playoffs don't work competitively in baseball with particpants and participation wider than the 1969-93 system. They do work competitvely in the other sports. (See post 27).
That's the unfortunate paradox baseball faces. It's inherent in the nature of the game and the way the game measures and identifies true excellence.
I don't understand this at all. An 82 game schedule in NBA/NHL should give us just as good an idea as to who the best teams are as a 162 game MLB schedule. Cutting back to 8 playoff teams would make those sports much better.
Giving a 3rd place NBA/NHL team a 2nd shot at the 1st place team makes exactly as much or as little sense as it does in baseball.
Likewise, in the NFL we know those 14-2 and 13-3 bye teams are much better than the 10-6, 9-7 wildcards (often from their own division). Giving them a 2nd chance is a concession to increasing marketability, nothing more.
Anything beyong 2 or 4 teams making the playoffs in any league is never about identifying the best teams. It's always about making more teams competitive for the Championship to increase interest and revenue.
Concur.
If your argument is there is less need for the Wild Card, well I won't argue that but as I noted in #30 that is a function of preference. The truth of the matter is that the Wild Card is popular among fans and creates the illusion of parity that expanded playoffs and smaller sample sizes create in other sports.
I would say in baseball it creates actual parity (WCs are often as good as division winners) while in other sports (esp. NBA) it creates the illusion of parity.
Of course they're competitive; that's to be expected. Bad baseball teams are better relative to good teams in baseball than is the case in every other sport.
They just aren't measuring or revealing anything important. The games are a twist on Gertrude Stein's Oakland -- they're there just to be there.
It's an interesting statement; I think it would work better with supporting evidence.
There is no parity in the NBA.
But NBA fans don't try to pretend that there is, either. The subject only comes up because of MLB defensiveness about parity.
That's the unfortunate paradox baseball faces. It's inherent in the nature of the game and the way the game measures and identifies true excellence.
Baseball playoffs are indeed more of a crapshoot than those in other three sports, but that's mostly due to the unpredictable short range nature of even the best of starting pitchers. If one out of 22 NFL starters is having a bad day, even the quarterback, it's far easier for the other 21 players (or even as many as 24, if you count the kickers and the backup QB) to collectively cover his mistakes than it is for the other 8 or 9 starting players to cover for a starting pitcher who's got nothing. Same with any basketball team that's not totally dependent on one player scoring 40 points in order to win.
That said, what can Selig do about it? Regardless of how "unfair" the wild card system is to the best regular season teams, or how unaesthetic it is to those of us who remember the pre-wild card or pre-division days, no commissioner can possibly weigh those factors more heavily than he does the negative impact of seeing 26 teams just playing out the string in the final month of the season. From a purely aesthetic standpoint I'd love to go back to two 8 team leagues and see baseball performed on a level that's higher than it's ever likely to be for the next 50 years, but the owners and fans of the 14 contracted teams might have something to say about that. If you don't seriously address the POV of the 26 non-division winners, you're pretty much out of the real world conversation.
But NBA fans don't try to pretend that there is, either. The subject only comes up because of MLB defensiveness about parity.
Then why let half the league into the playoffs?
I call BS though. Defenders of the salary cap always say how much more fair it makes the other leagues, which is an appeal to parity.
Edit: The idea would be that the increased chance of a lucky winner in the shorter season is more than balanced by the decreased chance of one in the postseason.
That's true of any playoff. Why should an NBA team that proves its superiority over 82 games be required to win 16 more games to prove anything? Playoffs are nothing more than a marketing scheme designed to crown a "champion."
There is no parity in the NBA.
But NBA fans don't try to pretend that there is, either. The subject only comes up because of MLB defensiveness about parity.
At this point, I'm not even sure what you're arguing.
Eliminate the maximum salary. Bird rights are suddenly a lot more powerful if a player is choosing between $35 million in Cleveland and $14 million in Miami, versus a choice of a slightly higher starting salary with slightly higher raises. As a bonus, a higher percentage of the cap going to the best players eliminates the I-had-$70-million-burning-a-hole-in-my-pocket contracts for Erick Dampier.
Nothing. That's the unfortunate paradox baseball faces. He's limited to putting on a bunch of October games that TV can sell (**) -- OMG, teh tense faces!!! ... OMG, teh curse vanquished!!! -- but that serve little competitive purpose and in many cases (2011 Cardinals over 2011 Phillies) vitiate the truly competitive purpose of what transpired before.
(**) Even though, paradoxically, they don't sell anywhere near as well as they used to, before the onset of the jerry-rigged playoffs.
That's taking it a little too far - a lot of playoffs came about so that the best teams, who didn't get to face each other during the regular season, could play against each other. Old-school world series, a lot of NCAA bowl games, the first super bowls etc.
Have you seen the rosters of the 80s Celtics, Sixers, and Lakers? The Celtics had a Hall of Famer, Kevin McHale, in his prime, coming off the bench.
Somehow the game survived. In fact, it grew and thrived.
Those 2nd tier markets aren't all that great either.
The NBA would be an interesting model for the relegation model of European soccer leagues. Have a first tier league in all the major media markets - 2-3 LA teams, 2 Chicago teams, 2-3 NY teams, Boston, Philly, Dallas, etc. If they stink, they get sent down. The small fry in Sacramento, Salt Lake, New Orleans can work their way up to the NBA. Guys like Donald Sterling will no longer be rewarded for sucking. There is enough of a labor pool you could have two pretty deep leagues. If they're going to have a prolonged labor stoppage, have some real reform.
It's not an appeal to parity. It's an appeal to an equal chance to have a dynasty or totally suck -- which MLB clearly doesn't provide and the other leagues clearly do.
Nothing. That's the unfortunate paradox baseball faces. He's limited to putting on a bunch of October games that TV can sell (**) -- OMG, teh tense faces!!! ... OMG, teh curse vanquished!!! -- but that serve little competitive purpose and in many cases (2011 Cardinals over 2011 Phillies) vitiate the truly competitive purpose of what transpired before.
(**) Even though, paradoxically, they don't sell anywhere near as well as they used to, before the onset of the jerry-rigged playoffs.
I'm glad to see that you realize that we don't live in a perfect world. But perhaps in our next lifetimes we'll have players from everywhere from here to Antarctica competing to fill 400 player openings, and even the cellar-dwelling teams in the 8 team AL and NL will be comparable in talent to the best teams of today. Too bad for the small market cities, but what can you do?
It's not an appeal to parity. It's an appeal to an equal chance to have a dynasty or totally suck -- which MLB clearly doesn't provide and the other leagues clearly do.
Which would seem far, far worse both from a fan and business perspective.
Why would anyone want that model?
As bad as a system is where the Yankees or Celtics can dominate a league for two-decades running, a system where Oklahoma City can do it is infinitely worse. Just as boring and less revenue.
Selig could try a salary cap, going back to the 69-93 playoff structure, marketing division winners as real winners, taking the concept of winning a "pennant" out of hibernation, and marketing the playoffs as, uniquely to his sport, matchups of true champions that earned their way there.
That might have a much better chance of sustained success than what he has now.
Yes, but there was nothing about the sport in those days that prevented a Cleveland or Milwaukee or Utah from building a Celtic or Sixer or Laker-like team (in fact, in the next decade San Antonio did just that). The Celtics, Sixer and Lakers built great teams largely by making good drafts and shrewd trades.
But if the players themselves are determining where they want to join forces to build a championship team (and only doing so in the most desirable* locations), I think that's different matter. If fans in half the NBA cities stop believing that their organization can build a championship team, even if it happens to stumble into a Lebron or Chris Paul for a few years, I think the league is facing a genuine threat.
* That would be their definition of desirable, which doesn't coincide with mine.
One of these things is not like the other thing.
a system where Oklahoma City can do it is infinitely worse. Just as boring and less revenue.
San Antonio's already done it. To no complaints at all from any quarter, including within the league's offices, no agitating to get Tim Duncan or David Robinson to LA or NYC, or any such thing.
I find the Spurs rather blase, but that has nothing to do with the city they play in.
I just consider it a one-off that had to be paid for in advance by generating cap space. Worked for Miami, didn't for the Knicks.(**) The Heat didn't win the championship, and there's a very good chance they'd move LBJ for Howard if the opportunity presents itself.
(**) Who traded away Zach Randolph as part of their purge, a guy ranked by the excellent SI.com NBA writer Zach Lowe, at #12 overall in the league -- higher than both Stoudemire and Anthony.
In what way does he not have sustained success now? TV ratings are the only thing I can think of, and frankly I don't believe that the structure of the playoffs is what defines that.
That might have a much better chance of sustained success than what he has now.
The league has had sustained succes. They're raking in money hand over fist.
Plus, lot's of different teams with different payroll levels are making the playoffs and winning championships.
if you're right, then sure (which I think I acknowledged). But it didn't work for those two franchises yet. My whole point was that if this becomes a trend, the league may have some trouble. The NBA, by virtue of the supreme importance of stars, has always been a league of haves and have nots. But if fans of half the have nots start to believe their teams can't ever become haves, that's a serious issue for a North American sports league.
1) No evidence to support that removing the wild card would improve this, and I would imagine TV executives would argue the opposite (insert zinger about the intelligence of people who cancelled both Arrested Development and Firefly)
2) This seems circular. MLB could be more successful if it changed the playoff structure because success is defined as the playoff structure being different.
3) Smaller markets with lower payroll are perfectly able to make the playoffs under the current structure. They use the wild card to do this a lot of the time, but until 2) above is demonstrated, I see no objection to that as a valid path to 'success'. D-backs, Brewers, Twins (until recently), Rays, Rockies . . .
The playoff systems in the other leagues make equally as little sense.
Several markets would be less "functional" as well (in terms of revenue generation) under a cap.
You're going to lose way more revenue, in NY, Bos and LAA, than you'll gain in KC and Pitt.
The mallpark effect. The mallpark is a pleasant place to while away a summer afternoon, whether or not you're a baseball fan. Good people watching, good food and drink, good chance to flirt and mingle with the opposite sex.(**)
None of that really has much to do with baseball. Who knows if it will last?
(**) As noted far more poetically by Gary Smith in SI a couple weeks ago in his great story on the Phillies. Here he is on the Vet and CBP:
Cliff zips beneath the overpass that leads to the Walt Whitman, the bridge no one needs to jump off anymore, and turns left onto Packer. Finally the forest of row houses sighs and surrenders to a vast clearing: the parking lot where the Vet used to be. Ahh, the memories... .
"It was San Quentin," says Head.
"It was a circular concrete slab of crap," says Boo.
"It was a green dying turd," says Dan Tarng, a first-generation Taiwanese-American fan who needs to meet Head and Boo.
"You'd sit there feeling like you needed to call the suicide hotline," says Jacklin Rhoads.
Jacklin? Is that ... a woman? Take a long look around as Citizens Bank Park's homey red bricks and towering light stanchions arise from the asphalt. Even now, four hours before game time, everywhere you look, something never seen before at ball games in Philly: females in droves. Queuing up for standing-room-only tickets, playing Beanbag Toss and Beer Pong amid a daily tailgating festival that used to materialize only on NFL Sundays. Teenage girls who don't hang at the mall anymore: They hang at CBP. Women in their 20s, 30s and 40s who don't have Girls Night Out or Happy Hour at bars or restaurants: They throw down light beer in the CBP parking lot, hard lemonades in the concourses, low-fat wraps and water ices on Ashburn Alley. They eyeball Cliff and Chase and Cole. The Phillies blew up San Quentin. They built Friday night on the boardwalk at the Jersey Shore.
So, twice as much football, and less than half the amount of basketball? I'd be just fine with that.
Selig is probably the best commissioner of the 4 major sports. It could be worse.
I don't. Let's assume it will fail without any evidence and proceed from there!
Or we could just assume that it has ####-all to do with anything, again without any evidence. Just like SBB assumes that the ratings declines are due to the wildcard, or some such horseshit.
I'm not sure a business model so dependent on the whims of teenage girls, hipsters, and people who see the mall or the Jersey Shore in a baseball game, is particularly solid. But YMMV and all.
The Baltimore and Cleveland mallparks have run through the cycle, and after CBP-type runs as the place to be are now down to an essentially baseball-only clientele. The picture there is hardly pretty. Nor is the picture pretty in the markets without mallparks -- Oakland and Tampa.
I'm pretty sure that the Mavericks were not on ANYONE'S short-list for winning the NBA championship.
Heat, Celtics, Lakers, Spurs, and maybe the Bulls and Magic were the favourites to make the final four.
Nobody was talking about the aging Mavericks to do anything in the regular season/playoffs.
I think there is a pretty clear "new park" effect, but the more lasting effect is how good the team is. Cleveland opened a new park and had a great team, and had a lot of fans come in. Then they were bad for a while and the fans stopped coming (minor rebound for the ALCS run that's since dissipated). Baltimore opened a new park and contended...fans came out. They've been terrible for a long time so they've stopped. I wouldn't be shocked if the end of Philly's "mallpark cycle" happened to coincide with this current run of success ending.
I think Tampa obviously does have some kind of crippling attendance issue, but I don't see how salary caps or playoff systems will help that. The team itself is doing fine.
I'd hate to burst everyone's bubble, but the Vet was a very, very cool place to be in the 70s.
More football sounds awesome, but I think we NFL fans would be disappointed. Very few teams make it through a season without significant injuries now; imagine if the long grind lasted twice as long! (I actually think a lot of fans realized this, considering the polls I saw regarding the eighteen-game season had much less support than I would have thought.)
I do like the NBA, but there is definitely something appealing about reducing the regular season. Something like a 37-game regular season (three games each against your own division, two against every other conference member, one against teams in the regular conference) followed by an everyone-makes-it tournament could be quite interesting. Split into conference tournaments, best-of-five first round, with the top team in each conference getting a bye. You'd be down to 16 teams, total. Follow that up with the current set up. That could be very fun.
My dream is...make the minor leagues fully independent, and during the season set aside every other Sunday or something for an FA Cup style tournament in which every team in the nation is entered. Would be ridiculous fun having the one A-ball vs MLB upset a year.
Just like when the Astros win a game!
Especially if you'd had the experience of driving to Connie Mack Stadium in the late 1960s. And as Shibe Park, in turn, that had been an awesome place to be in the 1910s, I reckon ...
Edit: Which also prompts me to wonder what kind of stuff they'll say about that Godawful old early-21st-century Phillies park after they build HyperEverything Field in 2055 :)
To go totally off scale, why should the playoffs for league pennant look like a tournament?
Try this:
NL/AL roundrobin:
Top seed: 3 at home with Seed 4, 2 at home with seeds 2 and 3, 1 at seeds 2 and 3. Total 9 games
2 and 3 seed: 9 games, with 1/2 home/road split based on seed, except for 3 at home against bottom seed
Seed 4 (wildcard): 9 road games
Best record in the 9 games wins the pennant and plays the pennant winner in the other league in a conventional world series.
The playoffs look like this: 3games, offday, 3games, offday, 3games to take up a toal of 11 days as compared to LDS+LCS taking up 16-17 days. Serious penalty for being the wildcard. All markets that make the playoffs pretty much alive in the playoffs until near the end.
I think you'd have one or two per weekend. The MLB squad isn't going to throw an ace in that game and the A-ball team is going to put it's best shot out there.
Any time you have a round robin, you end up with the chance that the last game or two have no impact in the standings, and no one will bother watching.
It would also have the added benefit of getting the NBA season over with in April instead of June. I pay more attention to NCAA basketball partly because it has the good sense to be over by MLB opening day.
- A small sample size of regular-season games
- A one-and-done playoff format
- Roster attrition throughout the season
- A larger % of teams admitted to the playoffs than in MLB
- A week between games to scout and gameplan the opposition
- Uniformity of schemes and strategy
If you want to point to something related to the financial structure of the league, I believe it's the way TV revenues are shared and not a salary cap.
There's no point in discussing one in baseball. It's never going to happen, and for that I'm thankful.
Any park with a winning team and cheap seats is a great park, and the Vet had both. Without either of them, the rest wears off real fast, no matter how pretty the grass or how big the sushi selection.
I had the public transportation experience! Bus to the Norristown P&W (now Rt. 101) terminus, P&W to 69th St (my friend getting on at Villanova), Phillies express bus from 69th St. to 21st and Lehigh. I didn't know the city back then, but I imagine the bus route from 69th to CMS was an unrelenting tour of ghetto upon ghetto**.
** Google shows Market to 60th to Girard to 33rd to Ridge to Lehigh. My suspicions were correct.
Nah, the Vet had the latest, shiniest Astroturf.
Also - more immediate impact of the amateur draft, and strength of scheduling (which has been mitigated a bit, but is still a factor).
Still, I feel like "parity" in the NFL gets overrated. The teams that have been good have been good for like a decade - Patriots, Steelers, Colts, Chargers, Ravens, Eagles. The other teams may go from 6-10 to 10-6 once in awhile, but it seems like the league is primarily dominated by a few franchises. There are more "dynasties" in the NFL it seems than any other sport.
A few points:
The Jordan Bulls were at their best far better than the Heat. I don't recall people talking about contraction, etc., then.
San Antonio had (has) Duncan and Robinson. Market size/bling matters far, far, far, less than winning the lottery when a franchise player is in it. Cleveland proved this with James;if Ferry had been a little smarter, they could have won. Buford and Popovich are smart, but that wouldn't have lead to titles without the big guys.
Durant has already re-upped to a long-term deal in OKC. So has Perkins. They need to decide if they want to try to keep Russell Westbrook or trade him; many people think they will be better off doing the latter. They are set up to have a good shot to keep Ibaka and Harden. , and those guys are not irreplaceable in any case.
As John Hollinger and others have explained, there are two ways to build an NBA champ: The easy way--land a superstar and build around him, or the hard way--get strong at every spot. Detroit won three times that way. Indiana and Portland came close. Many believe Sacramento actually did it but the refs stole it from them. Memphis is probably the next in line to try it. But it really has little to do with market size. If it did, the Knicks and the Clippers would be good all the time. The Clippers have hope now because they landed Griffin. The Knicks have hope because they hired a competent GM to clean up Isiah's mess.
When James signed in Miami, there was a long discussion on the NBA Thread in which some people said this was the league's death knell and Power Rangers/Transformers superteams would be the rule. I am not convinced of this, since I think the James/Wade thing (Bosh is not important in that sense--it is about James wanting to play with Wade) was about those particular guys as much as about structural issues. But I am quite sure that whatever deal is eventually agreed to, there will be disincentives for stars to leave small markets--Gilbert,as you would expect, is the #1 or #2 Hawk. At the same time, however, a cap might bring stars together, as considerations other than money will come into play.
Finally, NBA management is getting better. Evan the bad teams are keeping their lottery picks (they have to keep some of them as per league rules) and using them more wisely. The Lakers, Boston, and Dallas are old and capped out (although Boston won't be after next year). San Antonio's time is about over. People laughed at Memphis for years, and LakerHaters from Steve Nash to guys at BTF yapped endlessly about the Pau Gasol deal. Now people are asking if Marc is the better player dollar-for-dollar. Stern is taking advantage of the MiEgos and the LA and Dallas payrolls to help him shove his deal down the NBAPA's throat, but the wheel is starting to turn in new directions.
Point being: I think basically if you like the NBA, you like the NBA and it is in good shape. Cleveland had a high payroll with James; Orlando, with Howard, has one now. Most complaints people have about it are simply about the nature of the sport.
The mallpark effect. The mallpark is a pleasant place to while away a summer afternoon, whether or not you're a baseball fan. Good people watching, good food and drink, good chance to flirt and mingle with the opposite sex.(**)
None of that really has much to do with baseball. Who knows if it will last?
How does the "mallpark effect" explain the skyrocketing internet and local cable revenues?
Hint: it doesn't. MLB recent revenue growth is not driven primarily by ballpark revenues. Total attendance is barely up at all in the last 10 years, while revenue have been growing something like 10% p.a.
It really bothers you that MLB has achieved soaring popularity w/o a salary cap, doesn't it?
Come to AT&T Park sometime!
May well be. The Lakers and the Celtics just signed new, massive, cable deals. But, of course, revenue sharing is something for the owners to work out among themselves.
And if you're right (and I'll readily concede you're far more informed on this subject than I), then I don't think the NBA has anything to worry about. But if you're wrong, and these power couplings/trios become the rule, then I think it's an entirely different ballgame, and past history (the Spurs growth into a dynasty, previous organically grown super teams or the Jordan Bulls dominance) aren't necessarily instructive. Even during the height of the Bulls' success, I don't believe there was a feeling that it was impossible for any other franchise* to do the same if they just happen to put the right pieces together.
But now, if I'm a Pacers fan and I feel like my team can't expect to keep its homegrown superstar even if it's willing to pay him top dollar (so unlike what happens in baseball), I'm not sure I'd continue to invest my time/interest in that product. Maybe most NBA fans are willing to support the inferior local product just to see superstar-laden team grace their cut-rate cities, but that would fly in the face of most NA sports experiences.
* OK, maybe Clippers fans thought it was impossible, though that would have been Sterling driven.
Well, I think that depends on the star in question and on how good the org around him is. Durant stayed in OKC because:
He likes that part of the country and the city of OKC.
The org is well-run and he thinks he can win a title there.
Back in 2001, there was talk that Tim Duncan, Grant Hill, and Tracy McGrady would team up in Orlando. The Shaq/Kobe/Phil Lakers had just won title #1, and getting out of the Western Conference had to appeal to Duncan. He stayed, because he liked SA, he had already won a title, and he believed in Gregg Popovich. He was right.
I do think there is a pretty good chance that Dwight Howard will try to team up with Chris Paul some place, or will try to team up with Deron Williams and make Brooklyn the new NBA blingtown. But that is more because Orlando and New Orleans have not been able to get enough talent around those guys than it is because of structural issues.
The only thing that can really be "done" is to put in a franchise tag, like the NFL, or some rule that says, "Dan Gilbert can play LeBron 35M and have only 16M count against the cap and no one else can pay him more than 16M."
Or eliminate the cap and/or max salary.
What about simply losing the player maximums? Part of the teaming up had to do with the fact that James/Wade/Bosh only had to take relatively small pay cuts to all play together. If Cleveland been able to offer James the entirety of their cap space (as opposed to Miami offering him 1/3 of their cap space), I think that he would have been more likely to stay put.
(I also oppose the player maximum from a philosophical point of view; if one player is significantly better than every other superstar, why shouldn't he get paid more?)
EDIT: Half a Coke to snapper.
Doesn't it kind of depend more on what happens in Miami? If Lebron and Wade win multiple titles, then that kind of arrangement may be seen as the only way to a title. If Durant and OKC buck that and win some titles, then there's far less reason to worry.
I'm not really claiming any structural issues, other than the fact that success in basketball, more than any other sport, is driven by getting the top 2 or 3 players. The fact that these three guys may try to hook up together (as well as the Carmelo to the Knicks move) is part of the reason I do fear for the future of basketball in some of these cities.
I'm not really advocating anything. I don't support severely restricting player movement, only noting that it may have negative repercussions for those franchises in less desirable locales if the Miami thing is really successful.
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