interesting article on how to stop a few teams dominating in all competitions

[Slaphead in Qatar]

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/opinion/global/an-american-sports-lesson-for-europe.html?from=opinion.global

[Nick the Swede]

I agree about the need for a salary cap, but any other link to American sports in comparasion to the beautiful game I can live without.

I'm scared when teams are referred to as franchises and when they move and change name just because the owner got a huge chuck of money I feel sick.

Closed leagues is another thing I can't stand. The risk of being relegated is as important as the possibility to win.

We have imported far too much from the entertainment sports in the US already.

[HatterDon]

I agree about the need for a salary cap, but any other link to American sports in comparasion to the beautiful game I can live without.

I'm scared when teams are referred to as franchises and when they move and change name just because the owner got a huge chuck of money I feel sick.

Closed leagues is another thing I can't stand. The risk of being relegated is as important as the possibility to win.

We have imported far too much from the entertainment sports in the US already.

and this Yank agrees 100% with this Swede.

[Logicalman]

Its very easy to make proposals when the whole spectrum of differences are not included.

Where is the promotion/relegation in the stated American leagues?

I agree when the author states "  Europeans usually view the United States as a winner-take-all society.  ", but the issue I have with the US system is, from my perspective, it appears they have gone completely 180 in that respect, where there should never be any losers, and if the players or management are not good enough to compete, then the field must be artificially balanced to make it easier for them.

Something the author apparently fails to appreciate is that in each of the sports he mentions, 3 of them are predominantly US sports, and just to balance the argument, I would rather have more dominant teams in a sport, than sit through 3 1/2 hours of commercials to see 30 minutes (or less) of game play, any day of the week.

[BarryP]

Its very easy to make proposals when the whole spectrum of differences are not included.

Where is the promotion/relegation in the stated American leagues?

Just one opinion, but I hope the US never goes to a promotion/relegation system personally.  I can trade the fan excitement of who is staying up/going down for the on field excitement of end to end football.  There is such a large volume of teams that employee a park the bus policy for fear of going down that the football becomes boring to watch.  Those are the two sides to the relegation/promotion coin.

We are coming up on the end of the MLS season and right now the average lower end of the table MLS match is still fun to watch because in general both teams are usually trying to attack throughout the match instead of parking the bus.  

Something the author apparently fails to appreciate is that in each of the sports he mentions, 3 of them are predominantly US sports, and just to balance the argument, I would rather have more dominant teams in a sport, than sit through 3 1/2 hours of commercials to see 30 minutes (or less) of game play, any day of the week.

Apples and oranges complaint. A salary cap and commercials have nothing to do with each other.  Watch the MLS and you won't have this problem.  

[YankeeJim]

 S001.gif
I'd like to see a limitaton squad size. Manue stockpiles players so that injuries don't hurt them.  A team able to have Beratov as a forth striker is completely unfair. To the 16 teams unable to afford the wages.

[valdeingruo]

Not to mention there is no way you could ever develop a draft system throughout the leagues.

[cmg]

Interesting and I wouldn't want to reject it out of hand. But I'm not sure that salary caps are necessarily the answer, even if an answer is required. I think it a bit disingenuous of the NYTimes to suggest that the Yankees 'do not dominate their sport year after year'. Since 1903 they have won the WS 27 times, against which our most dominant outfit, Manchester United, have won the League only 20 times. And there have been several periods (mid 40s to early 60s particularly) during which the Yankees achieved a level of dominance in baseball that makes our serial PL winners look puny. And this was  a time when they were notoriously tight in wage negotiations (I recommend Jim Bouton's hilarious accounts of his efforts to wring a few thousand extra dollars out of the Yankee management, despite winning 20 games a season.)

It is possible that the top teams are currently paying such crazy wages and inflated transfer fees for only marginally superior players (Mesut Ozil excepted) that the situation will become self-regulating.

Rugby League is currently trying a salary cap (not, I think, without some abuse) and it remains to be seen if this has any beneficial effect.

Drafts would, I feel, tend work against clubs such as ourselves.

No-relegation is a horrible idea and could only lead to the 'crime' of franchise transfers.

I agree that 'stockpiling' players is something worth looking at. Player are sometimes bought, I feel, not only to protect against injuries, but to prevent rivals from getting hold of the talent.

[jmh]

I think the original article misses out in that it entirely fails to mention playoffs as a factor in why so many different teams win championships in North American leagues.  Playoffs (whether single-game NFL playoffs or best of 5 or 7 playoffs in MLB, the NHL, or the NBA) are a crapshoot, better at telling you who got hot at the right time than at telling you who the best team is.  If the author instead looked at who had the best regular season record in the various North American leagues, it would provide a more valid point of comparison to the European leagues he mentioned (and, also, I think would show much less variability from year to year).

Edit to be clear, in case anyone just skims the above paragraph:  I'm not suggesting that the European leagues should have playoffs to determine the champion, just that they should've been accounted for in the author's analysis.

[Steve_orino]

S001.gif
I'd like to see a limitaton squad size. Manue stockpiles players so that injuries don't hurt them.  A team able to have Beratov as a forth striker is completely unfair. To the 16 teams unable to afford the wages.

I agree with the "squad-size restriction" as a solution to promote competitive balance.  The stockpiling of players is such a waste of talent(s).  Take Scott Sinclair for example; wouldn't he have been better off staying at Swansea?  He got big bucks - good for him; but to what detriment to his career & those interested in watching him play?

In addition to squad size, I think a limit on player nationality should be imposed too.  Of the squad (say total of 30), 60% should be of the same nationality as the League.  Of the starting XI, 55% should be the same nationality of the League. 

If this were the case, the Premier League for example, and the squad size was set at 30 then 18 of those players would have to be English, or British.  Of the starting XI, 6 of them would have to be English, or British.  Perhaps short-term it would weaken the Premier League but long-term, it would benefit the National Team(s)...

[Logicalman]

Something the author apparently fails to appreciate is that in each of the sports he mentions, 3 of them are predominantly US sports, and just to balance the argument, I would rather have more dominant teams in a sport, than sit through 3 1/2 hours of commercials to see 30 minutes (or less) of game play, any day of the week.

Apples and oranges complaint. A salary cap and commercials have nothing to do with each other.  Watch the MLS and you won't have this problem.  

I agree that the salary cap and commercials have no link together, it was the overall state of US professional sports broadcasts, where the 3 of the 4 are governed by the commercials that I was alluding to, and soccer is the only one still holding out, I'm so very glad to say.

Salary Caps are likely to be effected by the new European-wide Fiscal Fair Play rules.

Apples and oranges is the best description, as how does the author deal with the draft process?

".. The other key means of ensuring fair play in American football, basketball and baseball is the draft process. The weakest teams get to dip first into the pool of new players, enabling them to get the best talent from college teams. .." go on, so how does this fit in with the current process? So, Palace should have had first crack at Dempsey? Ah, thst's right, he moved country, a little difficult to deal with in closed-in draft processes.

I will be the first to admit, and loudly, that I have had very little experience of the US process of how they deal with their players, though I am learning, and so, if someone could provide some insight to the question above, how does the open transfer market gel with the draft process, it would be good to learn.

[HatterDon]

The biggest problem Europeans [and this includes the Brits] have with understanding the draft system is the fact that players are drawn from -- primarily -- colleges. In Europe, professional athletes don't come to the "big time" from college. If someone is playing college soccer or cricket or basketball, he's been rejected somewhere back in his long ago SEVERAL times. There have been players go from University to the top flight -- Steve Heighway was one I remember clearly -- but generally speaking, if you're going to have a career at the top, you've probably turned professional in your very early teens. Colleges ae the major feeders for professional sport in the USA. Even professional golfers and tennis players have one to three years in collegiate competition.

The other biggest problem Brits have with the American system comes from baseball and it's "farm system." While many player do come to professional baseball out of college, very few do DIRECTLY as is the case with basketball and pointy football. Instead there is professional baseball at many talent levels. Kids traditionally turn professional between 18-22 and work their way up the system until the top of the top make it to "the majors" and the big money -- usually at age 23 for non-pitchers and 26 or so for pitchers. Their career at the top is usually 3-5 years, although some have played for 20+ seasons.

The clubs in the "minor leagues" sometimes are independent entities, but most are not. Major League clubs have minor-league affiliates at the AAA, AA, A, and Rookie League levels. There's also development leagues that play a short season and are designed to take players directly out of high school or college once classes have ended. There is no question of promotion or relegation because a subordinate team can't be promoted to the level of it's "master" and, should a major league club be denoted its status, all of its "farm clubs" would go bankrupt.

For the fans of minor league teams -- and I'm a lifelong one -- a successful team generally means a team full of strangers the following spring. If you're cheering for a promising young player, you don't want to see him year after year, because that means he's failing in his career path. We're just finishing up a very successful 2013 Texas League [AA] season for the San Antonio Missions and, once we've finished, the kick will be searching the papers to see if one of our kids got "promoted" to the "expanded September roster" and might get a chance to play.

Most of us still have favorite major league teams that we watch on television, but our trips to our minor league ball parks is where our passion lies. Me? I've spent this major league season checking the progress of Nate Freiman who is having a moderately successful rookie season for Oakland. He was rejected by first San Antonio's parent San Diego Padres and then the worst team in baseball history, the 2013 Houston Astros, but is doing quite well in a limited role thanks to the "moneyball" philosophy of the A's.

I don't know if all of that explains why it's terminally difficult for Europeans to understand our draft and farm systems, but I've tried to explain how promotion/relegation works and it always fails when I try to explain that European clubs grew out of social clubs, working-men's clubs, and leisure clubs, and that big Continental clubs fielded teams in several professional sports. Here, of course, teams represent cities and were created out of whole cloth.

Both systems work with me and, the key thing is that if you love the GAME, you have no problem adjusting to the local system. Regardless of level or degree of professional or amateurism, if the game is in your soul, you're going to enjoy it.

[cmg]

Very interesting piece, HD.

I've often wondered. Are these Minor league outfits self-sufficient or do they get subsidised by the parent club?

I've read that the Brooklyn Dodgers had 24 farm teams in the 50s (From Montreal to Hollywood and from Sheboygan to Ponca City). Must have been horrendously expensive, despite the fact that the players had yet to figure out a way to wring some proper money out of the owners.

[bmasar]

HD I didn't realize you were a Missions fan. Lifelong Padres fan in SD here.

[bmasar]

I agree when the author states "  Europeans usually view the United States as a winner-take-all society.  ", but the issue I have with the US system is, from my perspective, it appears they have gone completely 180 in that respect, where there should never be any losers, and if the players or management are not good enough to compete, then the field must be artificially balanced to make it easier for them.

This is a misconception. If the players/management are not good enough to compete they get replaced within the team. There aren't teams full of losers that just wallow at the bottom of leagues in America. Now there certainly are bad teams that struggle to win for large periods of time, but it's not because they employ the same crummy players and coaches for 10 years, it's usually because they are employing loads of inexperienced players that may or may not make the cut, or the team got old and bad contracts make them difficult to get rid of. Drafting is an inexact science and hiring a good management staff is vital. Some teams have that and some don't.

[HatterDon]

Very interesting piece, HD.

I've often wondered. Are these Minor league outfits self-sufficient or do they get subsidised by the parent club?

I've read that the Brooklyn Dodgers had 24 farm teams in the 50s (From Montreal to Hollywood and from Sheboygan to Ponca City). Must have been horrendously expensive, despite the fact that the players had yet to figure out a way to wring some proper money out of the owners.

Yes, without the player development contracts, there'd not be enough money to keep the minor leagues going. Those few independent leagues are no-hopers who are playing for a share of the gate.

[Fulhampete]

 064.gifI think the essence of European football is directly related to life itself. It is about the struggle between rich and poor. How often in literature does the passion rise for the underdog beating the bigger man. Society as we know it has no 'fair play' built in so why build it into sport? The feeling when walking away from Old Trafford when we beat United was worth any engineered equality that the US approach can offer. It seems strange that a society that allows such unfairness in real life tries so hard to offer equality in something so unimportant as sport. Rather reflects the attitude I encountered when joining the local golf course. The members were bigoted, racist, bullying individuals who would only be brought to task if they wore the wrong socks. What is wrong in our societies is the hypocritical attempts to rectify it.

[bmasar]

064.gifI think the essence of European football is directly related to life itself. It is about the struggle between rich and poor. How often in literature does the passion rise for the underdog beating the bigger man. Society as we know it has no 'fair play' built in so why build it into sport? The feeling when walking away from Old Trafford when we beat United was worth any engineered equality that the US approach can offer. It seems strange that a society that allows such unfairness in real life tries so hard to offer equality in something so unimportant as sport. Rather reflects the attitude I encountered when joining the local golf course. The members were bigoted, racist, bullying individuals who would only be brought to task if they wore the wrong socks. What is wrong in our societies is the hypocritical attempts to rectify it.

You'd prefer a league where our biggest  realistic achievement is an away win against at Old Trafford? With no hope of ever of winning a title?

American leagues aren't charities nor are they pity parties. There is not some overt sense of socialism or "engineered equality" that fans say, "wow I'm so happy we won the Super Bowl, too bad it was overshadowed by the socialist specter!" There are systems in place that allow well-run, well-managed teams the ability to win a championship IF THEY EARN IT on the field.

If you prefer the eternal struggle of the rich vs. the poor, then I'm in the camp of those who believe higher achievement should be possible for teams who earn it.

[CanadianCottager]

Its very easy to make proposals when the whole spectrum of differences are not included.

Where is the promotion/relegation in the stated American leagues?

Just one opinion, but I hope the US never goes to a promotion/relegation system personally.  I can trade the fan excitement of who is staying up/going down for the on field excitement of end to end football.  There is such a large volume of teams that employee a park the bus policy for fear of going down that the football becomes boring to watch.  Those are the two sides to the relegation/promotion coin.

We are coming up on the end of the MLS season and right now the average lower end of the table MLS match is still fun to watch because in general both teams are usually trying to attack throughout the match instead of parking the bus. 

Something the author apparently fails to appreciate is that in each of the sports he mentions, 3 of them are predominantly US sports, and just to balance the argument, I would rather have more dominant teams in a sport, than sit through 3 1/2 hours of commercials to see 30 minutes (or less) of game play, any day of the week.

Apples and oranges complaint. A salary cap and commercials have nothing to do with each other.  Watch the MLS and you won't have this problem. 

I would agree with you 100%, but after 6 years of watching Toronto FC sully the name of football, I would welcome relegation with open arms, if only to teach the idiots in our front office a lesson.

[YankeeJim]

The biggest problem Europeans [and this includes the Brits] have with understanding the draft system is the fact that players are drawn from -- primarily -- colleges. In Europe, professional athletes don't come to the "big time" from college. If someone is playing college soccer or cricket or basketball, he's been rejected somewhere back in his long ago SEVERAL times. There have been players go from University to the top flight -- Steve Heighway was one I remember clearly -- but generally speaking, if you're going to have a career at the top, you've probably turned professional in your very early teens. Colleges ae the major feeders for professional sport in the USA. Even professional golfers and tennis players have one to three years in collegiate competition.

The other biggest problem Brits have with the American system comes from baseball and it's "farm system." While many player do come to professional baseball out of college, very few do DIRECTLY as is the case with basketball and pointy football. Instead there is professional baseball at many talent levels. Kids traditionally turn professional between 18-22 and work their way up the system until the top of the top make it to "the majors" and the big money -- usually at age 23 for non-pitchers and 26 or so for pitchers. Their career at the top is usually 3-5 years, although some have played for 20+ seasons.

The clubs in the "minor leagues" sometimes are independent entities, but most are not. Major League clubs have minor-league affiliates at the AAA, AA, A, and Rookie League levels. There's also development leagues that play a short season and are designed to take players directly out of high school or college once classes have ended. There is no question of promotion or relegation because a subordinate team can't be promoted to the level of it's "master" and, should a major league club be denoted its status, all of its "farm clubs" would go bankrupt.

For the fans of minor league teams -- and I'm a lifelong one -- a successful team generally means a team full of strangers the following spring. If you're cheering for a promising young player, you don't want to see him year after year, because that means he's failing in his career path. We're just finishing up a very successful 2013 Texas League [AA] season for the San Antonio Missions and, once we've finished, the kick will be searching the papers to see if one of our kids got "promoted" to the "expanded September roster" and might get a chance to play.

Most of us still have favorite major league teams that we watch on television, but our trips to our minor league ball parks is where our passion lies. Me? I've spent this major league season checking the progress of Nate Freiman who is having a moderately successful rookie season for Oakland. He was rejected by first San Antonio's parent San Diego Padres and then the worst team in baseball history, the 2013 Houston Astros, but is doing quite well in a limited role thanks to the "moneyball" philosophy of the A's.

I don't know if all of that explains why it's terminally difficult for Europeans to understand our draft and farm systems, but I've tried to explain how promotion/relegation works and it always fails when I try to explain that European clubs grew out of social clubs, working-men's clubs, and leisure clubs, and that big Continental clubs fielded teams in several professional sports. Here, of course, teams represent cities and were created out of whole cloth.

Both systems work with me and, the key thing is that if you love the GAME, you have no problem adjusting to the local system. Regardless of level or degree of professional or amateurism, if the game is in your soul, you're going to enjoy it.

As a side note to this post, understand that the players coming from colleges to either the NFL or the NBA does not mean that those players have received an education. Just listen to the average NBA or NFL player interview. Most are dumb as rocks. Most of the elite players in college are unpaid pros (at least openly paid). Lew Alcindor's, better known as Kareem Abdul Jarbar,  father was  a post man but Kareem drove a MBZ while at UCLA.