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What's Sports Parity? It's that each team has an equal chance of winning the championship. But the reality is much different. We have super-teams, dynasties, and teams that get so close and never can finish the job. The question is, should the leagues and organizers enforce it, and if so, how? I leave the floor open to you all.
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Jul 9, 2017 17:24
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 16:28 |
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I don't know, but I can tell you parody in sports is when you ask Marc Bergevin to make hockey related decisions lately. Oh you wanted a serious answer D: some kinda jackal fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Jul 9, 2017 |
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Jul 9, 2017 17:42
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kill the salary cap
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Jul 9, 2017 17:58
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straight up brolic posted:kill the salary cap and all drafts
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Jul 9, 2017 18:01
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If your team isn't run by Russian oligarchs, you're not trying.
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Jul 9, 2017 18:43
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I don't know how coherent this will sound since I ramble a lot, but I'll take a stab at this. Pick it apart as you please, this is just coming from what I've observed and not a lot of data to back it up. I think parity lies in the ability for any team under competent leadership to contend for a championship. We can use an example from each of the 4 majors: Utah Jazz, Carolina Hurricanes, Chicago Bears, and Pittsburgh Pirates. All these teams are not currently title contenders. They're different levels of markets respectively in their sports with different levels of fanbases. I wouldn't say any of them except maybe the Bears are in a horrendous situation. The Jazz just lost an all-star, the Canes put themselves in playoff contention last season and showed improvement, the Bears drafted what they hope is a franchise QB, and the Pirates have a major decision with their franchise player. Put a mythical amazing GM in each of the situations. What factors do they need to make them worthy of contending for a title? The Bears is likely the hardest given the roster size. If Mitch Trubisky is great, then they can build around him and contend because QB is by far and away the best way to contend. There's a lot of luck involved with drafting one unless you get a year where you can tank for one and there's a Luck/Manning/Newton like player coming into the league. Unlike other sports, teams will lock down franchise QBs so there's not too much movement among elite QBs. Working the cap and enticing free agents seems like its less of a concern in the NFL than it is in other sports. So the Bears big market advantage seems like it plays less of a factor. The NBA is all about the draft or having worlds align at the right time. With one exception, every team that's won the title since the 80s has had an MVP or an MVP caliber player on their team. The fastest way for Utah to be competitive is to get a top pick in a year where there's an elite level prospect coming out of college. Market size plays a much bigger role in NBA free agency as we've seen the last few years (with LeBron to Cleveland being an exception, but that's a special case). Let's be frank, the Jazz just lost the battle for Heyward and arn't enticing free agents like the Lakers, Celtics, Heat, and other big market teams are. The Spurs have gotten away with this, but they also have a legendary coach and an outstanding recent history (where the stars aligned for them to get Duncan to begin with). I'd have to say the Jazz would probably need something like a great coach combined with a superstar player. Maybe that way they can entice a couple of ring chasers, but so much for them has to go right to be at that level. Even then they risk losing that superstar the moment he hits free agency. A quality Lakers GM just has to clear some cap room and remind free agents that it's LA. The NBA is so hard to get over the cusp in because there's never really any Cinderella playoff runs. Hockey lies somewhere in between basketball and football in how market size plays into free agency. I don't think you'd see situation like Stamkos staying in Tampa in the NBA. The draft certainly plays a factor, but we've seen Edmonton spin their wheels for a number of years before the found a pick they couldn't gently caress up. If a team like Carolina can find a steady goalie and a few key pieces up front and on D, then they'll contend for the playoffs. The NHL playoffs lend themselves to improbable runs, so just making it year in and year out give someone like Carolina a decent shot at the finals. It might be one of the easier sports to turn a team around in due to the playoff size combined with the ability for teams to upset others in playoff series. Baseball doesn't have the salary cap, and it puts someone like Pittsburgh at a disadvantage if they don't want to spend for free agents like the major market teams. They draft doesn't play an immediate factor, but it's still important to build a strong farm as it builds for the future and also grants a team assets to trade for big league talent on struggling teams. The Moneyball style analytics is also harder in this day and age since pretty much every team uses analytics to some degree. It seems like the small market teams with competent management ebb and flow back and forth between contending and rebuilding. Oakland contended in the early 00s, fell back, competed again with a couple of division titles, and fell back again. Meanwhile, the Yankees have missed the playoffs 4 times since 95 and were over .500 every year they missed. This being said, the Astros are destroying it this year and really built their franchise from the ground up, but that's also a pretty unique situation where they survived years of being dreadful to pull it off. I have no idea how a league would even go about enforcing it. If a team has the right combination of coach and player(s) that are willing to give a long term commitment to a franchise like Pops/Duncan or Belichick/Brady, then what can you do? The cap that was meant to make small market teams in the NBA more competitive is now starting to do the inverse of its intent, but I'd say the NHL has had a decent variety even with Chicago, LA, and Pittsburgh having multiple titles in recent years. Unless you had 30 LeBron James to spread to each team, there's no way to enforce parity in the NBA as the cream of the talent always take over in the end. Also I don't think we want pure parity. Dynasties are interesting, and there's a joy we get out of seeing them toppled (unless we root for said dynasty). Of course with dynasties come teams getting buried. I cheered for the Devil Rays, I know exactly what it's like to have no hope for a decade while the big market teams in your division run wild with championships. It sucks, and a younger me really wanted a cap in baseball because I felt the Rays were in a perpetual hopeless situation with the Yankees throwing all sorts of money at players and us unable to re-sign Aubrey Huff. It still stinks to be honest because I know if someone like Bryce Harper were to ever be a free agent, my team would have no chance at even looking at him. The advantage is I don't have to worry about a Ryan Howard contract destroying my team. Really the goal should be to make market size not matter, but players are human beings and human beings in their prime years enjoy places like LA. So nuke LA.
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Jul 9, 2017 19:04
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iospace posted:What's Sports Parity? It's that each team has an equal chance of winning the championship. But the reality is much different. We have super-teams, dynasties, and teams that get so close and never can finish the job. The question is, should the leagues and organizers enforce it, and if so, how? 2 words restrictor plates
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Jul 9, 2017 19:35
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My idea of parity is being able to be competitive in the playoffs and making it to the conference finals once in a while. Pure parity would mean a team would win a championship once every 30-32 years, win the CF once every 15 years, etc. which is lol never gonna happen. So when I think about parity I think about what leagues are able to take teams from the bottom to entertaining contenders the quickest. There are always going to be bottom-feeders due to poor ownership, management, etc. but from my perspective it seems like the NFL has the best parity right now with the NBA having the least. Anyway those are my dumb thoughts.
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Jul 9, 2017 19:47
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the NFL is absolutely horrible by that metric, there have been 5 teams absolutely stomping the AFC for the last 20 years. Since like '04, the only non-Steelers/Ravens/Pats/Colts/Broncos have made it into the AFC championship 3 times between 2 teams. And both lost. the NFC is better slighlty, but Ben/Tom/Peyton were kicking everyone's rear end over in the AFC for a very long time.
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Jul 9, 2017 19:59
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exploded mummy posted:the NFL is absolutely horrible by that metric, there have been 5 teams absolutely stomping the AFC for the last 20 years. Since like '04, the only non-Steelers/Ravens/Pats/Colts/Broncos have made it into the AFC championship 3 times between 2 teams. And both lost. like I said I'm dumb  e: the NFL only playing one game per series vs. the 7-game series of the other leagues does make it different, though GobiasIndustries fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Jul 9, 2017 |
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Jul 9, 2017 20:01
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marioinblack posted:A quality Lakers GM just has to clear some cap room and remind free agents that it's LA. The last big free agent the Lakers signed was Shaq. They've traded for stars during that time for sure, but the fact is when stars have had a choice they've mostly chosen elsewhere. "It's LA, come play here," doesn't work on stars. Unless you want to be one of the people who pretend that the GM of the team that traded expiring contracts and two second round picks for Dwight Howard, did the Pau Gasol trade people still complain about, once had a trade canceled by the NBA for being too unfair and was the GM over like 6 NBA finals trips was a bad GM (you wouldn't be alone in doing this, don't worry, but you'd still be wrong), they had that good GM in place. But when the team was very obviously on a path to rebuilding, players chose playing on a team that was likely to win more games AND pay them close to the same money, even if that team is small market. Earvin Johnson undeservedly somehow ending up in charge of the Lakers may get lucky and the team might be right place right time for the next Lebron super team (that in all likelyhood won't be as good as the Warriors), but if that doesn't happened he just hit reset on a rebuild for a market that was already tired of losing (not saying that the market is right to feel this way, the entitlement Lakers fans have is insane). "It's LA come play here" does work for league minimum players and ring chasers if the team is good, for sure, which is partly why LA was always able to extend their title runs. But you do have to have a good team first.
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Jul 9, 2017 20:38
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I don't have the numbers in front of me but I'm pretty sure Baseball, which is the worst about enforcing parity, has had the most teams in their championship out of all 4 major sports in the current century.
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Jul 10, 2017 00:16
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That's probably because baseball's playoff format causes more parity than basketball or hockey. Division winners can go out in a best-of-1 I forgot they added the 2nd wild card but the best-of-5 LDS still does this
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Jul 10, 2017 00:19
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Also, you can't build a dynasty in baseball with just one or two great players, like you can in the NBA, or a great QB and head coach, like in the NFL.
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Jul 10, 2017 00:33
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The Pussy Boss posted:Also, you can't build a dynasty in baseball with just one or two great players, like you can in the NBA, or a great QB and head coach, like in the NFL. Yeah. A good hitter will only impact the game maybe 4 or 5 times in a game, and even then only 30% of the time. Pitchers rotate in every 5 days.
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Jul 10, 2017 00:44
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Jackie D posted:That's probably because baseball's playoff format causes more parity than basketball or hockey. Division winners can go out in a best-of-1 I think it's less the playoff format and more that baseball is simply a more random sport.
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Jul 10, 2017 01:17
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iospace posted:What's Sports Parity? It's that each team has an equal chance of winning the championship. But the reality is much different. We have super-teams, dynasties, and teams that get so close and never can finish the job. The question is, should the leagues and organizers enforce it, and if so, how? full communism now, but with baseball, and mostly just take all the yankees money away and forcethem to play with a pee wee team
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Jul 10, 2017 02:34
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There's parity in home run derbys. I don't think the athletes are even paid for it so there is no need for a salary cap or a luxury tax or any of that poo poo. All it needs is the addition of aluminum bats.
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Jul 10, 2017 02:53
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Worst case situation is probably FIFA where, what? 4-ish of the 200+ teams are competitive? And it's almost entirely based on where the mineral extraction criminal billionaires decide to hide their money .
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Jul 10, 2017 03:41
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parity in auto racing is basically killing auto racing
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Jul 10, 2017 04:00
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I used to want a salary cap for baseball seeing what happens with the Pirates but now, gently caress it. Even if the owners could unilaterally impose one, no dollar amount they set it at would be low enough to make a difference to Bob Nutting. And it wouldn't make tickets any cheaper. They are doomed until the team is sold to someone else or baseball adopts full communism where all teams have equal access to the same pool of money to sign contracts with.
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Jul 10, 2017 05:57
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A salary cap in baseball would be murder for veterans unless you completely change the way you handle pre-arb and arb years
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Jul 10, 2017 06:04
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VikingSkull posted:parity in auto racing is basically killing auto racing Curious as to how you believe this to be why auto racing is dying.
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Jul 10, 2017 06:08
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Intruder posted:A salary cap in baseball would be murder for veterans unless you completely change the way you handle pre-arb and arb years yeah it's really hosed how the only way to make money in baseball is to be really good for a long time and hope you get horribly overpaid in your twilight years. I wonder how long until the owners start trying to get non-guaranteed contracts like football so they could just straight-up release your Albert Pujols-types
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Jul 10, 2017 07:43
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The MLBPA will never ever agree to that
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Jul 10, 2017 08:07
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The parity in formula 1 its pretty bad. Motorsport should be about running the fastest car with the best pilot and not hey lets have 10 team, 20 cars and 15 backmarkers. #forzaferrari
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Jul 10, 2017 13:26
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ElwoodCuse posted:yeah it's really hosed how the only way to make money in baseball is to be really good for a long time and hope you get horribly overpaid in your twilight years. I wonder how long until the owners start trying to get non-guaranteed contracts like football so they could just straight-up release your Albert Pujols-types *looks at Bobby Bonilla*
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Jul 10, 2017 13:40
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The problem at least for team sports vis a vis parity is most owners don't give a poo poo about winning as long as they're still putting asses in seats. The Cleveland Browns have been putting out an absolute joke of a team ever since they came back but why should they give a poo poo about spending the time and money on a good one if the fans keep showing up? They can put bags over their heads and boo everything but they're still buying tickets. Hell, hasn't been much different for the Lions. Things only came to a head when they were finally in danger of being blacked out because those fans at least finally found their breaking point and stopped going to watch them.
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Jul 10, 2017 13:57
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The Pussy Boss posted:Also, you can't build a dynasty in baseball with just one or two great players, like you can in the NBA, or a great QB and head coach, like in the NFL. The thought of Mike Trout playing out his entire career for the hapless Angels and never getting back to the playoffs is really depressing. I mean the Angels could get better eventually of course, but he's one of the best talents the game has ever seen and the Angels have only made the playoffs once in his career and immediately got swept. And it's not looking good for them getting back anytime in the near future. e: I guess they're actually only 3 games out of the wild card at the all star break so it's possible in 2017, but this is a weird rear end year in the AL. Grittybeard fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Jul 10, 2017 |
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Jul 10, 2017 14:29
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Can we not bring the personnel decision of the Browns into this. A franchise who spent tens of thousands of dollars on choosing a quarterback so the owner could ignore it and draft Johnny Manziel because a hobo told him to.
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Jul 10, 2017 14:49
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I don't really buy the premise that parity is inherently good or desirable in sports.
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Jul 11, 2017 04:53
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VikingSkull posted:parity in auto racing is basically killing auto racing Parity isnt the problem. The problem is boring as gently caress cars that no one cares about. A good parity series can produce superb racing (90's BTCC was actually a parity formula but hoooooly poo poo they were mind boggling good racing) ... as long as you get the base cars right. The problem these days is most top level series have cars glued to the road and they loving suck - pull aero off most parity top level series and watch what happens. The best example of boring cars kills motorsport BUT not all is lost is WRC. The 1.6 litre WRC cars with 34mm restrictors were just.... ugh. Hence WRC lost a LOT of interest. However... the 2017 "Group B by another name" monsters are loving amazing. They are vicious, they have all sorts of flares and wings, the motors have real balls and they are also able to slide about and are a real spectacle. Hence crowds are coming back and I expect Finland to be the kind of holy poo poo we sued to see in the early 80's... except a whoolle lot faster. The new cars are genuinely that good. WRC I might point out is technically a parity formula based on engine power restriction.
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Jul 11, 2017 05:49
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General Dog posted:I don't really buy the premise that parity is inherently good or desirable in sports. the premise is that i want my team to win but the other teams are too good, probably from cheating
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Jul 11, 2017 06:03
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I like it when new teams and players win championships, although that doesn't necessarily mean parity. I could be ok with rotating superteams.
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Jul 11, 2017 06:56
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clearly the best way to solve the big market/small market thing is to be like Australia and make like 2/3 the teams in any league be from NYC
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Jul 11, 2017 07:00
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I would say that absolute parity is a bad thing. Absolute parity being that every team has a 50/50 shot at winning any game, and that every team has an equal shot at winning the championship in any given year. That would suck. But I'd also say that the ebb and flow of watching teams get bad then get good again is an inherently good part of sports fandom. To me, parity in sports is in a larger sense. That maybe no team is further out than 5* years from being Good. Every team is given the opportunity to be competitive given good management. Or, I guess management that doesn't just gently caress up constantly or something. Even if I'm Right, and every sports commissioner agree with me, how you get to that ideal parity is something else. The same draft that might give you that sort of parity in the NBA wouldn't work for the MLB. The way that the rookies drafted affect each sport is just so wildly different. A salary cap, a soft cap, luxury tax, or no cap at all, and how much for each, how much are they evening out the playing field in each sport? I don't fuckin' know, I'm a dumb dumb. But I think it's neat. Given the different ways leagues can "control" parity, do we believe that the leagues are aiming for parity? Or do they want dynasties and poo poo? * - totally just pulled the number 5 years outta my rear end.
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Jul 11, 2017 15:36
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DJExile posted:The problem at least for team sports vis a vis parity is most owners don't give a poo poo about winning as long as they're still putting asses in seats. The Cleveland Browns have been putting out an absolute joke of a team ever since they came back but why should they give a poo poo about spending the time and money on a good one if the fans keep showing up? They can put bags over their heads and boo everything but they're still buying tickets. This has been my argument about the NFL (and the Browns in particular) for years. Outside of personal pride, there is ZERO incentive to improve your team or spend more than you have to - unless you're angling for a new stadium. NFL owners show a profit before down 1 of the first preseason game thanks to TV contracts and revenue sharing. Ticket sales and whatnot are just icing on the cake, especially when fans have been brainwashed into thinking every game counts and "any given Sunday" is a thing. Browns fans are the worst, as they bitch and moan constantly but still show up in droves hours before the game to watch a team destined for a top 5 draft pick. As long as tailgating, fantasy football, and gambling are around, parity doesn't mean poo poo to 95% of NFL fans.
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Jul 11, 2017 16:10
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EvanTH posted:Worst case situation is probably FIFA where, what? 4-ish of the 200+ teams are competitive? And it's almost entirely based on where the mineral extraction criminal billionaires decide to hide their money . When you say FIFA do you mean the international tournaments? This isn't anything that can really be enforced. Talented players come from bigger nations with a bigger history in the sport itself and those nations produce enough of those players to win tournaments. These nations have the biggest leagues and the biggest youth systems as well. Players don't get paid to play for the national team in the traditional sense and there isn't a league, there's just the world cup, the euros, the copa america, etc. T I think you meant UEFA and it's respective leagues. There is no cap, no draft, basically no oversight at all really, and there never will be unless some new league is formed. There is the recent idea of Financial Fair Play which basically means nothing in practice, and that's about as close as it gets. On an individual league level you are right. Spain, Germany, England, Italy and France all have between 1 and 5 or so teams that could conceivable win a league title. They are the teams preferred by the state and TV companies (Spain), the foreign oil owned teams (England, France), the I don't really want a cap or a draft or any of that poo poo. It would be nice if the FFP rules were not just there for criminal accounting practice sessions I guess. Gigi Galli fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Jul 11, 2017 |
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Jul 11, 2017 17:57
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isn't Financial Fair Play more about making sure owners don't spend wildly and make clubs insolvent, than about parity
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Jul 11, 2017 18:23
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I think the NBA and NFL struggle with parity the most since a superstar(s) sets you up for the long run. Golden State seems to be creatively getting around the salary cap and is set to have a dynasty for as long as they can retain Curry and Durant. I thought the Seahawks would have a dynasty but salary cap decisions kind of forced them to lose a lot of their depth at defense, which I think was the biggest factor in them losing SB49 (remember that they were ahead going into the 4th when the Pats came back to score, forcing that decision at the 1 yard line). In the end, Pats got their dynasty going again. The biggest issue with the NFL is QB play. Any team with a bad QB (or your star QB gets injured) is bound to be bottom tier, which is why you see huge deals for merely average QBs like Matt Stafford, Andy Dalton
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Jul 11, 2017 18:34
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