Football's popularity vs Baseball's

[Buccaneer]

Nothing insightful at all...

Football leaves baseball in the dust

By Sean McAdam
Special to ESPN.com

More out of habit than anything else, we still refer to baseball as the national pastime.

In truth, the tag hasn't fit for some time. Football began making inroads as far back as the 1970s, and two decades later, it wasn't much of a contest anymore. If baseball still had the hearts and minds of the American sports fan, then football could lay claim to everything else.

By any measure -- TV viewership, merchandise sold, fan surveys -- football rules. The game may not be superior, but it undeniably is more popular.

Some of that is baseball's fault; some of it is not. A look at what switched America's sports pecking order around.

1. TV
If ever a sport seemed made for television, it's football. Neatly packaged into three-hour programming blocks, it provides networks with dependable programming.

What's more, it's as if football moves across the screen, as though developed by a TV executive. While baseball features a one-on-one matchup who stand 60 feet apart from one another, football involves 22 players, all of whom are lined up in an area far more compact.

At the snap of the ball, all but a handful of players are within camera view. In baseball, the opposite is true.

Football's unique setup allows each game to (potentially) be a national telecast. With baseball, it's a hodgepodge lineup with an array of local broadcast options.

Baseball's Game of the Week takes place on warm summer afternoons when people are at the beach, the mountains or amusement parks. Football's national telecasts take place in the late fall and winter, when inclement weather in many parts of the country forces people inside to gather around the electronic hearth.


2. Violence
Football is chartitably called a contact sport. In actuality, it's a collision sport. You can watch a nine-inning baseball game and never see two players come in physical contact with one another.

Not so with football, which guarantees high-speed crashes between players of ever-increasing size and strength on every play.

The more fierce the collision, the better. And once again, TV helps out here, zooming in on these crashes and showing them in slow motion, giving them the look of a stylized ballet.

A very, very violent stylized ballet, that is.


3. Gambling
Football easily lends itself to wagering. Team A is favored by three points over Team B. Pick one and watch your investment play out for the next several hours.

Ever try to decipher baseball odds? There's something in there about one team being plus-130, and the other being a minus-120. You need a degree in calculus to make sense of it all.

Meanwhile, tens of millions watch an otherwise uninteresting Monday Night Football matchup to the very end because they've got the under, or they've picked the team with the nice blue uniforms in the office pool.

The league -- unofficially of course -- helps sanction this interest. While baseball investigates Pete Rose to the ends of the earth, football demands that its teams compile a full and accurate injury report by mid-week.

For the, um, fans.


4. Attention span
Colletively, we don't have one. Not a very long one, anyway, and it's baseball's bad fortune to demand focus and involvement.

Not so with football. A play is run, a replay or three is shown, and before you know, the offense is breaking from the huddle. And never mind that studies have shown that there's actually about 10 minutes worth of action in a given NFL game.

Thanks to TV, it sure seems more.

Baseball, meanwhile, is languid and leisurely. A single at-bat, producing no more than foul balls, can last for several minutes. To the hard-core fan, this can be fascinating and provide time for conversation and analysis.

For too many others, however, it makes baseball d-u-l-l.

For a culture accustomed to the quick-cut edits of MTV and instand satisfaction, baseball is hopelessly out-of-date.

The fact that football is generally played one day a week -- while every baseball team plays every day for six months -- is another point in the NFL's favor.

It's a serious investment of one's time to watch a team for 162 games. Not so with football, whose 16-game schedule better suits the busy lifestyle.


5. Labor peace
Football has it. Baseball can only dream of it.

The last work stoppage in football came in 1987, almost a generation ago, and lasted only a few games. The last baseball stoppage came in 1994 and wiped out half the season, the World Series, and part of the next spring training.

Only 18 months ago, baseball stood on the brink of another disaster, and though it was averted at the 11th hour, the mere possibility of another stoppage did some damage.

It's a perverse dictum, but as a general rule, the weaker the union in a particular sport, the more popular the game seems to be with the American public.

That's bad news for baseball -- whose Players Association is mighty and nearly undefeated in the legal arena -- and good news for the NFL, which runs roughshod over its Players Association.


6. Socialism
Forty-something years ago, former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle had the brilliant business sense to determine that what was good for one team was good for all. Revenue sharing has made it possible for a team in Green Bay to compete on equal footing with two teams in New York and other large cities.

Not so in baseball, where it's every club for itself. Parity has improved in baseball, and likely will continue to do so under the current collective bargaining agreement. But beyond poor management in Phoenix -- and until recently in Cincinnati -- NFL fans don't feel disenfranchised.

Try telling that to baseball fans in small-market cities likes Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and others.

None of which is to suggest that baseball has completely lost its hold on the sporting public. It's still the game that more people attend in person than any other. It's mid-season exhibition game draws more viewers to TV than any other during the summer months. And it's important grab on the American psyche was never more apparent than in the days and weeks following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

But baseball has ceded its title of American pastime, and more than likely, it's not going to get it back anytime soon.

I accept this but I think baseball has two things going for it that football will never come close to meeting:

1. History. As each baseball season goes by, it adds one more layer of frosting on an extremely rich cake that can take a lifetime to analyze and enjoy.

2. Arguably, baseball's greatest moments are far better and more memorable than football's greatest moments. Part of it is baseball's focus on individual achievements and throughout our history, we have celebrated heroic or extraordinary achievements of the individual.

[Ksyrup]

Baseball's also got a better set of definable and defining statistics that makes the game more interesting to follow.

The bottom line for me is, I just like baseball better. But I'm in the minority and accept that fact.

[cthomer5000]

Baseball also has a lot more boredom.

[Dutch]

I respect Baseball, I love football. Both have a place in American sports.
But the switch is obvious to me as to which one is the most popular. And it's #1 on the list Buc posted.

Baseball is the newspaper era's creation.

Heavy stats. If you can read baseball stats, you can read players abilities. If you can read a box score, you can nearly recreate the game batter by batter. People didn't even need TV's to know the Yankees were awesome and that Mickey Mantle was the man (or Mays or whomever)

Football is the Television era's creation.

The game lends itself to being viewed on TV so much better than baseball. (as was pointed out). A guy can score an 18 yd TD run in the newpaper, but he can make 4 tacklers miss, keep his balance, and run over a DB for the score on TV. All Baseball HR's are basically the same, without trying to sound disrespectful.

[lynchjm24]

Game 7 of the ALCS got a higher rating at Midnight on a Thursday then the Patriots Super Bowl title did on a Sunday evening.

Edit: I was speaking of the Boston television market. I think the baseball game got a 53+ and the football game got a 52.

[lynchjm24]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

But I'm in the minority and accept that fact.

It's a minority I'm proud to be in.

[Craptacular]

Baseball is a great game, but MLB is ruining it for a lot of people (myself included).

[FBPro]

Football is BY FAR more exciting and fun to follow, if baseball execs don't get a clue soon they are going to flush the game completely down the toliet.

[Dutch]

I agree with that FBPro, baseball isn't ruining baseball.

[sterlingice]

This is just going to degrade into the typical "I like baseball better" "No, I like football better" thread (as if it hasn't already).

SI

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

This is just going to degrade into the typical "I like baseball better" "No, I like football better" thread (as if it hasn't already).

SI

I like football better.

[Godzilla Blitz]

I think there are two more points that need to be made about the current plight of baseball.

1. Image: Baseball's drug/steroid policy is laughable. In my mind, this has tainted the last decade of stats, and tarnishes the image of the sport tremendously. At least football is trying.

2. Youth movement: I've got no stats to back up my argument, but I would have to think the participation rates of youth playing baseball (little league, etc.) has dropped over the past decade. Instead, soccer is everywhere. If I jog near my house on a typical summer evening, I can go by five parks in 30 minutes. Four of them will have youth soccer games going, most of them with their nets and field markings perched on top of ex-little league fields. Only one of the parks will have a baseball game going.

I think the long-term impact of this trend in youth sports participation is only beginning to play a role in reducing the interest in baseball even more. I believe the most fanatic baseball fans grow up with the game. I grew up with baseball in Boston, and it will forever be a part of me. But I played the game. All my friends played the game. All we talked about in the summer was baseball. Now? Kids play soccer (itself a great game, of course). For every diehard baseball fan that dies in the US, we're replacing them with a kid who grew up on soccer and may only have a casual, spectator interest in the baseball. I believer the long term impact of this trend will be a further erosion of fan interest in baseball in the upcoming two decades.

Lastly, I think Buc is correct when he speaks of baseball having a richer history, but Major League Baseball does a horseshit job of taking advantage of this. Think about the jumpy, scratchy video clips you see of old baseball games and players, then compare that with the juggernaut that is NFL Films. NFL Films blows baseball away in presenting its sport's history to the public. I love baseball, but I can't remember the last time I saw a good documentary on some memorable series or event. Football? NFL Films cranks out new videos every year, all of them polished pieces with high production values. They're making games that happened 30 years ago look like they happened yesterday. Amazing stuff.

In short, baseball will have no one to blame but itself twenty years from now when they look back on another 20 years of declining fan interest in the game.

[sabotai]

Baseball, for me, is fun to play and nice to go watch in the stadium. The few games I have gone to watch, I enjoyed it (except for one...it ended 1-0 and the only score was at the top of the first and we were in the nose bleeds seats). But as far as watching baseball on TV, I'd rather sharpen a pencil and shove it in my eye.

This is, right now, a TV nation and the sport that translate best to TV will dominate, no matter what anyone does. Baseball do not translate well to TV, football does.

[ISiddiqui]

Arguably, baseball's greatest moments are far better and more memorable than football's greatest moments. Part of it is baseball's focus on individual achievements and throughout our history, we have celebrated heroic or extraordinary achievements of the individual.

I agree with this. Baseball is more focused on the individual (although 'team' is definetly important for defense... which is an underrated part of winning you championships) which allows for more identification with individual players. Also it allows for the 'underdog' player to singlehandedly win the game and become immortalized (such as Bucky Fucking Dent), while in American football, the winning score is led by the superstar.

Baseball is my favorite, even in these times.

[Ksyrup]

Soccer has always (at least since I was a kid) been a popular sport to play as a kid. For whatever reason, it doesn't stay with us. I can't stand the game, but I played for several years during grade school. I don't notice any difference now.

So, I don't see soccer taking away from the interest in baseball.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by Chubby

I like football better.

I like baseball better!

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by lynchjm24

Game 7 of the ALCS got a higher rating at Midnight on a Thursday then the Patriots Super Bowl title did on a Sunday evening.

Edit: I was speaking of the Boston television market. I think the baseball game got a 53+ and the football game got a 52.

Yeah, but remove the Red Sox and the Patriots from the two games and the Super Bowl will be much higher.

I don't watch baseball games on TV if they don't involve the Red Sox, NBA games without the Celtics, NHL games unless it's the playoffs, but college basketball and football I'll watch all day. FWIW.

[Travis]

I would have easily said I'd prefer to watch baseball up until around 10-15 years ago, since the 'muscle' outbreak though, it's just a glorified home run derby in most situations now, so give me the grid iron, hell, even a game of the local little league over MLB.

[McSweeny]

Originally Posted by Travis

I would have easily said I'd prefer to watch baseball up until around 10-15 years ago, since the 'muscle' outbreak though, it's just a glorified home run derby in most situations now, so give me the grid iron, hell, even a game of the local little league over MLB.

because there is no "muslce outbreak" in football

[oykib]

I read something interesting about the declining popularity of baseball. Baseball requires training from a pretty early age in the fundamentals. Which, of course, requires that fathers be in the home with the youngsters.

With the divorce and unwed, un-partnered rates for homes today, the fathers are not in the home to play catch and whatnot. They are also unavailable to learn the nuances and history of the game at the feet of. Baseball is a somewhat boring sport when you take those out of the eqaution. These aren't things that it's easy to pick up when you're older.

One of my brothers who didn't have as close a relationship with my father couldn't understand how I could watch sports all day-- particularly baseball. It was only after becoming interested in Iaido after reading and studying about Musashi that I could explain baseball in a way that he could viscerally comprehend. That's all because he hadn't spent as much time with my father watching sports as a kid. I don't think that his road to semi baseball fandom is ever going to be common.

Most people who miss that early opportunity will never come around.

[yabanci]

These are some interesting facts that were noted in the Clarett opinion:

"According to one economist, the NFL, as a league, is valued at
slightly less than $18 billion. The National Basketball Association, the next most
valuable league, is valued at slightly less than $9 billion, Major League Baseball at
approximately $7 billion, and the National Hockey League at less than $5 billion.
At $19.6 billion, the NFL’s television contracts (the sale of the rights to air its
games) are more than the value of the NBA ($4.6 billion), MLB ($3.3 billion), and
NHL ($600 million) television contracts combined."

See Justin Wolfers, The Business of Sports: Where’s the Money?, at http://faculty-gsb.stanford.edu/wolf...f%20Sports.pdf

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Travis

I would have easily said I'd prefer to watch baseball up until around 10-15 years ago, since the 'muscle' outbreak though, it's just a glorified home run derby in most situations now, so give me the grid iron, hell, even a game of the local little league over MLB.

And, see, these are the kind of quotes I predicted earlier in the thread as things to avoid. I'll even lump GB's post in with this. There are so many people out there just lining up to take whacks at the baseball pinata with things that other sports just don't suffer from. When people complain about baseball they use things like steroids or players making too much or that there is too much offense/defense. Aren't these problems in other sports? Just come right out and say it: you don't like baseball. Or you just like taking a jab at it. It's far from a perfect game- there are many problems with it, but at least try not to be hypocritical about it. If you don't like steroid use, then don't like all sports because I'm sure it's pretty widespread in all of them. Does it matter that the NFLs drug testing policy catches 3% versus baseball's 7%? Is that extra 4% really what makes you not like the sport?

SI

[HornedFrog Purple]

Baseball is made for radio. In fact I like listening to a game rather than watching it on TV. When the MLB website started doing the audio broadcasts for the season for every team I was in heaven.

The NFL has done a great job of getting a larger fanbase, but in my case its continuing parody is starting to wear me down. There were people that said it would just be a phase as teams adjusted themselves to a hard cap but it just hasn't happened that way.

[ice4277]

Originally Posted by Godzilla Blitz

2. Youth movement: I've got no stats to back up my argument, but I would have to think the participation rates of youth playing baseball (little league, etc.) has dropped over the past decade. Instead, soccer is everywhere. If I jog near my house on a typical summer evening, I can go by five parks in 30 minutes. Four of them will have youth soccer games going, most of them with their nets and field markings perched on top of ex-little league fields. Only one of the parks will have a baseball game going.

I have always maintained that baseball's popularity base will gradually erode as people my age (mid-20's) and younger grow older. Not only is soccer gaining in popularity, but just look at the huge jump in participants/specatators of 'extreme sports'. Heck, when I was a kid in the eighties, you never saw anything like this on TV. Now they are everywhere. Plus, with the 'MTV effect', many my age group and younger do not have the patience or the time to watch baseball. While the games may not last any longer than those of the other sports, they just 'seem' to last longer. Much too deliberate and plodding of a pace for today's kids. I hardly think baseball will die, but I seriously doubt it will ever again reach its heyday in the '50's, or even the popularity level of the 1980's. I think long-term, it is destined to stay as they number-three or four most popular sport in this country.

[cthomer5000]

Originally Posted by HornedFrog Purple

Baseball is made for radio. In fact I like listening to a game rather than watching it on TV. When the MLB website started doing the audio broadcasts for the season for every team I was in heaven.

The NFL has done a great job of getting a larger fanbase, but in my case its continuing parody is starting to wear me down. There were people that said it would just be a phase as teams adjusted themselves to a hard cap but it just hasn't happened that way.

First of all, it's "parity." Secondly, I don't but this parity arugment for a minute. The Patriots just won their second super bowl in 2 years. The Eagles just reached the 3rd straight NFC title game. The Packers, Rams, Colts, Broncos have all been playoff regulars.

You get a few teams making the playoffs for the first time in a while (and 1 making the Super Bowl) and people just say "oh, parity." I think that the scheduling format is going to proved the total parity concept is crap.

I'm confident that the norm will be 8 of 12 playoff teams being perennially good teams, and i think 4 of 12 will be teams either coming out of nowhere or who've been building and improving.

[rkmsuf]

I'd rather have parity compared to having over half the teams hopelessly beaten before the first game and stay that way for at least half a decade and possibly forever...see basketball and baseball...

[HornedFrog Purple]

No it's parody.

The level of play in the NFL has degraded, I don't care what anyone else says. It is so painfully obvious to me that I at times lose interest. There is little cohesion from year to year anymore.

The Super Bowl was a good game and most of the playoff games were also, but the bulk of the regular season was at times painful to watch.

I don't want 10 teams that have an equal chance to win the Super Bowl, I want 4 or less. That's what I miss.

[rkmsuf]

Originally Posted by HornedFrog Purple

No it's parody.

The level of play in the NFL has degraded, I don't care what anyone else says. It is so painfully obvious to me that I at times lose interest. There is little cohesion from year to year anymore.

The Super Bowl was a good game and most of the playoff games were also, but the bulk of the regular season was at times painful to watch.

I don't want 10 teams that have an equal chance to win the Super Bowl, I want 4 or less. That's what I miss.

yeah because your team was probably one of them. I think the cohesion is fine and balanced well between new faces and franchise stawarts.

[HornedFrog Purple]

Naw the Cowboys show up every other decade, that has nothing to do with it. I have only 6 more years to go.

Would you bet the farm that both Super Bowl teams this season will make the playoffs next season? I wouldn't.

[oykib]

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

I'd rather have parity compared to having over half the teams hopelessly beaten before the first game and stay that way for at least half a decade and possibly forever...see basketball and baseball...

You're right about basketball. But baseball?

Tell me again-- who won the last World Series? Did any major publication even pick that team to go to the playoffs.

Wait. Last year must've been a one-year fluke. I'm sure the year before that we didn't have any suprise teams.

At least, we didn't see three of eight playoff teams in the bottom half in overall salary...

Ummm... Oh yeah...

[rkmsuf]

Originally Posted by oykib

You're right about basketball. But baseball?

Tell me again-- who won the last World Series? Did any major publication even pick that team to go to the playoffs.

Wait. Last year must've been a one-year fluke. I'm sure the year before that we didn't have any suprise teams.

At least, we didn't see three of eight playoff teams in the bottom half in overall salary...

Ummm... Oh yeah...

I guess we've had this discussion before but it feels like there is more hopelessness in baseball. Maybe because it's a long, drawn out hopelessness over 162 never ending games...

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by HornedFrog Purple

Baseball is made for radio. In fact I like listening to a game rather than watching it on TV. When the MLB website started doing the audio broadcasts for the season for every team I was in heaven.

Which is why I still miss Jon Miller...

(edit: not doing the O's broadcasts, that is)

[RendeR]

I'm really torn on this whole issue. Honestly, I love Baseball. I always have., but I simply can't make myself sit and watch the pathetic excuse for games that are being offered by MLB these days. They are tedious affairs. Maybe its just me changing as I grow older, but when I was growing up I couldn't wait to get home from school just so I could turn on the cubs game and see who was pounding them this afternoon. When the Reds played them I'd leave school early just to see the entire game.

I also disagree completely with the whole broken home-no time with dad theory. Its crap, pure and simple. I grew up in a single parent home (mother) and my summers were spent with the neighborhood kids playing baseball, constantly. mom would have to scream at me to come inside for meals or to go to bed at night. We had the benefit of a large enough yard to play almost full games and there were light poles around it from the street, night baseball at its best. There may be many reasons for kids not putting the time and effort into learning and being passionate about baseball, but the loss of the Nuclear family is NOT one of them. If the kids wanted to play the game, they would, period.

I also spent my falls growing up playing soccer, love the game, and devoted massive amounts of time practicing and playing it. The advantage it has over baseball is two fold. When you're playing the game its not nearly as boring as standing in right field for 3 hours and maybe seeing the ball twice. and secondly you can get more players involved at the same time for less money. Soccer requires a ball, nothing more. Its the simplest and easiest game for anyone to pick up learn and play, and even play with some level of ability.

Chris Berman of ESPN said it best many years ago regarding the status of Baseball and football.
"Baseball is and always will be America's Pass-Time, but Football is America's Passion."

Baseball is a wonderful game, and I think they need to take a long hard look at some "traditional" situations and change them.

Some possible changes:
The season is too long and tedious, shorten it to 100 games or whatever level really balances out to get the most fans in the seats at each game. Space them out a bit more and schedule them to work better with the region /city they are being played in so the most people can make it to the games.

Single Television contracts. Kill off the "everyone for themselves" bullshit and get the TV time handled in a package deal as the NFL did 30 years ago. Which of course leads to the next item...

Revenue sharing, I know all about the arguments for and against it and frankly, its a matter of logic. without it, the teams will never be able to compete regularly on a level field. It isn't fiscally possible. Set a hard salary cap, make the teams get a grip on reality and make everyone stronger for it.

lastly, find a way to get some excitement into the games. Speed it up a bit, something. When you can go into the snack venues, stand in line for 20 minutes and come back and still be the same half of the inning as when you left, you're not going to keep people's attention. I don't have any real ideas on this, but I know its gotta happen. Snooze fests don't hold fans in the stands.


blah, anyway, I miss the passion I used to have for Baseball. It sickens me to see the way its being played and managed right now. Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth and all those other historic figures are spitting on this era's version of their great game.

[PittFan]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

And, see, these are the kind of quotes I predicted earlier in the thread as things to avoid. I'll even lump GB's post in with this. There are so many people out there just lining up to take whacks at the baseball pinata with things that other sports just don't suffer from. When people complain about baseball they use things like steroids or players making too much or that there is too much offense/defense. Aren't these problems in other sports? Just come right out and say it: you don't like baseball. Or you just like taking a jab at it. It's far from a perfect game- there are many problems with it, but at least try not to be hypocritical about it. If you don't like steroid use, then don't like all sports because I'm sure it's pretty widespread in all of them. Does it matter that the NFLs drug testing policy catches 3% versus baseball's 7%? Is that extra 4% really what makes you not like the sport?

SI

I think GB's post was right on. I don't think that people are taking whacks at baseball just because they don't like the sport but because of what baseball does, says and handles the problems it does have (steriods, juiced baseballs, corked bats, teams not making money).

Look, I was a huge fan until the strike of '94. The writing was on the wall then that teams were not going to be competitive because of the CBA, and what was done? Nothing. Business as usual. Sooo, teams like the Pirates have to tread water to survive every year (as do some other teams), but thats O.K. to the big market teams and baseball in general. This is ridiculous. A-Rod gets $25 million a year to be a shortstop? C'mon, this was the entire Pirate payroll a few years ago. Basically baseball brings this on themselves.

As to GB's post about kids playing soccer more, I think that this is two-fold. Soccer as a youth sport must be cheaper to do (I don't know for fact but it would stand to reason) and is a sport that almost all kids can play regardless of height, weight, physical skills, etc.

Just my 2 cents.

[Ksyrup]

Shortening the baseball season and speeding up the game are horrible ideas. Those two elements, as unfashionable as they may be in the year 2004, are what makes baseball the game it is.

People question whether baseball players are athletes - a game in and of itself is not particularly grinding, it's true. But they play everyday. It's a different kind of endurance than running up and down a basketball court or a football field. And while the games can be tweaked a bit as far as the length of each game goes, the back and forth between pitcher and hitter or runner, and manager against manager, are part of the game. Plus, I believe the minor changes they made last year cut a decent amount of time off of regular season games, and they were down to around 2:45. Which, I might add, is less than an NFL game.



On the parity issue:

By Sean McAdam
Special to ESPN.com

It's Super Bowl week, which means the NFL and its dutiful chroniclers will spend a good portion of their time extolling the virtues of excess and reminding everyone how much parity exists in football.

We'll be reminded -- again and again -- that no Super Bowl champion has repeated since 1994. It will be pointed out -- time after time -- that the last six teams making Super Bowl appearances have failed to even qualify for the playoffs the following season.

Whether all this minutia is actually meaningful is open to debate. It could be argued, after all, that there is something inherently wrong with a sport in which it's not only possible, but likely, to reach the championship game one year and fall under .500 the next (see: this year's Bucs and Raiders).

Interestingly, for the first time, there were recent signs that even the NFL was becoming a bit self-conscious about its "champs-one-year, bums-the next'' pattern, issuing a press release at its conference championship games that took pains to remind everyone that some teams actually qualify for the postseason in consecutive seasons!

If only baseball did a better job trumpeting up its parity. Because, believe it or not, the playing field is more even in baseball than you've been led to believe.

Consider:

Since 1998, covering the last six World Series, the National League has had six different representatives (pennant winners).

Over the last 10 World Series, the National League has been represented by seven different teams. Put another way, almost half of NL teams have visited the World Series in the last 10 Fall Classics.

Back up a step and focus on the LCS, the baseball equivalent of the NFL's conference championship games:

In the NLCS, seven different teams have occupied the eight slots in the last four meetings for the pennant: Arizona, Florida Chicago, San Francisco, St. Louis, Atlanta and New York. Only St. Louis has made multiple appearances.

In the American League, the picture is admittedly different, with the New York Yankees serving as the AL standard-bearer in six of the last eight seasons.

But go back to, say, 1991 -- hardly a lifetime ago in the bigger scheme of things -- and the AL has had six different champions, or again, nearly half of its membership.

Indeed, while the Yankees have clearly dominated the American League over the last eight seasons -- though they haven't won a World Series since 2000 -- there's been widespread representation in the ALCS.

Since 1997, a total of seven teams have reached the ALCS: Baltimore, Cleveland, New York, Boston, Anaheim, Minnesota and Seattle.

Translation: In the last seven seasons, exactly half of the AL's teams have played for the pennant.

Baseball's spread-the-wealth nature is even more evident in playoff appearances.

Again, using 1998 as the cutoff point, 10 American League teams have made at least one trip to the postseason in the last six Octobers: Baltimore, Boston, New York, Minnesota, Chicago, Cleveland, Anaheim, Texas, Oakland and Seattle. Only Tampa Bay (an expansion franchise), Toronto, Detroit and Kansas City have finished out of the running. Toronto, though, has finished with a winning record in four of the six seasons and Kansas City was in first place in the AL Central as late as last September.

Detroit (10 consecutive losing seasons and counting) and Tampa Bay look truly hapless. But is that so much different than such perennial NFL losers as Arizona, Detroit, and, until this past season, Cincinnati?

It's much the same picture in the National League, where since 1998, nine teams (or 56 percent) have been to the playoffs at least once: Atlanta, Florida, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Houston, San Francisco, San Diego and Arizona. Of those nine, every one but San Diego has made multiple appearances.

Go back just three more seasons to 1995, and add three more participants: Cincinnati, Colorado and Los Angeles. That means in the last nine seasons, only four NL teams have failed to qualify for at least a Division Series appearance: Montreal, Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Pittsburgh.

Nineteen of baseball's teams, then -- or one team shy of two-thirds -- have made it to the postseason since 1998.

How does this compare to the on-any-given-Sunday NFL? Very favorably.

Over that same time span, just three teams have failed to qualify for the NFL postseason tournament, and one is an expansion franchise (Houston).

But it's important to remember several important distinctions:

The NFL has six playoffs spots per conference, while baseball has just four (per league). Comparing the NL and the NFC -- each conference or league has 16 teams -- there are one-third again as many playoff berths to be had.

It should follow -- and does -- that more spots means more appearances for more teams.

While only three NFL teams have failed to make the playoffs since 1998, another four -- Cleveland, Washington, Detroit and New Orleans -- have made just one appearance each in that six-year span.

That's particularly unimpressive, especially considering ...

Unlike MLB, until recently, the NFL did a bit of social engineering with its schedule, where teams finishing with poor records were rewarded with easier schedules the following year. Conversely, successful teams were punished with more demanding schedules.

The NFL purposely set its lesser clubs on an easier road to the postseason. By virtue of its schedule, MLB provided no such help, yet yielded parity anyway. To the contrary, in some divisions, the unbalanced schedule is a hindrance to poor teams trying to improve. The lowly Devil Rays must play nearly one-quarter of their games each season against the Red Sox and Yankees.

None of which is meant to detract from the NFL's week of self-congratulatory hoo-hah.

But the next time some football apologist begins spouting about the NFL's parity, remind him or her that baseball, all things considered, isn't very far behind.

Sean McAdam of the Providence (R.I.) Journal covers baseball for ESPN.com.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by RendeR

Single Television contracts. Kill off the "everyone for themselves" bullshit and get the TV time handled in a package deal as the NFL did 30 years ago. Which of course leads to the next item...

Revenue sharing, I know all about the arguments for and against it and frankly, its a matter of logic. without it, the teams will never be able to compete regularly on a level field. It isn't fiscally possible. Set a hard salary cap, make the teams get a grip on reality and make everyone stronger for it.

Good post, Ren. Tho, I'll contend that if the owners had their way, the vote would be about 29-1 to have a hard cap and revenus sharing. If the Yankees want to take their ball and go home, good riddance, but even the Red Sox, Dodgers, Braves, etc would like some salary relief and those large revenue teams will always find some way to get around the system (more extravagant foreign operations, much higher scouting budgets, more money thrown at coaches, etc) but it would be much more balanced, that much is certain. Unfortunately, there's no way in hell it gets past the players union until the state of baseball is already in the crapper- the players just have too much power right now and aren't at all willing to sacrifice some of their own money and success for future generations.

SI

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by RendeR

It sickens me to see the way its being played and managed right now. Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth and all those other historic figures are spitting on this era's version of their great game.

You know, it's funny, but Bill James and Rob Neyer have quoted fans from the late 1800's, early 1900's, mid 1900's, late 1990's and now we have your quote in February 2004, and they all say the same thing. It's just like owners griping about how much players are making - the same arguments were made over 120 years ago.

You may honestly not enjoy baseball as much as you did before. But you are kidding yourself if you think it's because of "how the players play the game these days." You've simply outgrown the game, or lost interest in it for whatever reason, and you have fond memories of when you used to like the game. If anything, players put more effort into their preparation for games in 2004 then they did 25 years ago, and they give as much effort on the field as they did then. The perceived differences are revisionist BS, even if you aren't aware of it.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by oykib

You're right about basketball. But baseball?

Tell me again-- who won the last World Series? Did any major publication even pick that team to go to the playoffs.

Wait. Last year must've been a one-year fluke. I'm sure the year before that we didn't have any suprise teams.

At least, we didn't see three of eight playoff teams in the bottom half in overall salary...

Ummm... Oh yeah...

Spoken like a true Yankees/Red Sox fan. Clearly, we need to brush up on the phrases about "the exception rather than the rule". I wouldn't be so glib but, well, one good turn deserves another.

I've never understood why some baseball fans can't get over their myopias: "Waaaaah! My team has the advantage and I don't want to lose it for the good of the game!" Do I really have to explain what your mom should have taught you about sharing when you were 3? Or fairness when you were 5? Does it prove anything if your team with 4x the budget beats Tampa Bay? Don't you want to beat someone on a level playing field rather than just fielding an all-star team, boring your fans by playing those meaningless games with nothing to gain but everything to lose (after all, you have better talent than them), finally reaching the postseason crap shoot (hm... I bet that has a lot to do with the recent world series winners) and risking disappointment because your team doesn't always win the short series.

Hell, why don't you ask the commish to completely abolish the World Series and just award the title based on best regular season record since that would play even more into your plan. It's a lot easier to trounce teams over the long haul when you have unbalanced resources: just load up on 5 Cy-Young caliber pitchers and let 'er fly.

SI

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Clearly, we need to brush up on the phrases about "the exception rather than the rule".

Read Sean McAdam's article and then talk to me about the exception to the rule. It seems to me that plenty of teams have a shot at the playoffs over a 5-7 year period, and then you've got the Yankees.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by PittFan

I think GB's post was right on. I don't think that people are taking whacks at baseball just because they don't like the sport but because of what baseball does, says and handles the problems it does have (steriods, juiced baseballs, corked bats, teams not making money).

Look, I was a huge fan until the strike of '94. The writing was on the wall then that teams were not going to be competitive because of the CBA, and what was done? Nothing. Business as usual. Sooo, teams like the Pirates have to tread water to survive every year (as do some other teams), but thats O.K. to the big market teams and baseball in general. This is ridiculous. A-Rod gets $25 million a year to be a shortstop? C'mon, this was the entire Pirate payroll a few years ago. Basically baseball brings this on themselves.

This, I will agree with pretty much wholeheartedly. Baseball does the worst job of handling their problems- they have the absolute worst PR in the world and an incompetent head who would at least look less so if they had some good PR. One of their biggest problems is image and they need to hire someone *competent* who can do something about that. I will freely admit I don't know the answer to that one and really wish I did.

Also, you're preaching to the choir about Pittsburg (aside from hearing about it from my sister who goes to Pitt)- ever since moving to KC, that's kindof been the mantra here. Hell, they had a five thousand person group (thrown together in 2 weeks by a local radio station) come out the game before the strike date two seasons ago in favor of the owner because this city badly needs that revenue sharing. As I said in another post- if this were left up to the owners, it would already have been done but their hands are tied. KC was one of the few places where the decision was heralded as a loss- baseball got to go on but no problems were actually solved and were just pushed off until the next inevitable labor negotiation.

SI

[The_herd]

Originally Posted by oykib

You're right about basketball. But baseball?

Tell me again-- who won the last World Series? Did any major publication even pick that team to go to the playoffs.

Wait. Last year must've been a one-year fluke. I'm sure the year before that we didn't have any suprise teams.

At least, we didn't see three of eight playoff teams in the bottom half in overall salary...

Ummm... Oh yeah...

Do you watch the same game everyone else does? Tell me how there is parity in baseball when you look at payrolls?

In a sense, the Marlins were a 1 year fluke. They lucked out and landed Pudge to a cheap contract with most of the money defered, because no one else wanted him at the time. Unlike the Yankee's and Red Sox, they had to make major decisions on who to keep and who to let go because of money issues.

When you see see the Yankee's, Red Sox, Braves, and Dodgers competing for a division crown each season, while the Marlins and Twins struggle to stay afloat, you can't call it parity.

There are 30 major league teams, we see the same teams every year, with a small-mid market team thrown in. These teams can spend the money to stay competetive each season while the others need to rebuild after working their asses off for a 1-2 year window to get into the post season.

As I said, you're watching a different game than most.

[cincyreds]

I like football, but baseball is the best stat game there is. I with me being a stat fanatic, baseball is KING!

Baseball = STATS, STATS = Fantasy Baseball!!

WHOOO HOOO!! It is just around the corner.

[albionmoonlight]

Baseball is not made for TV, and, just as important, it is not made for SportsCenter.

There was a scene in Sports Night where Jeremy was making highlights for a baseball game, and the highlights ran 20 minutes. They told him to cut it down to 15 seconds (numbers approx.). His point was that the only way to really understand what happened in the game was to see the physical and psychological battles between the pitchers and batters as they developed over the course of the game. I think that that's true. I also think that SportsCenter will continue to give us baseball in 15 second bites that consist of nothing more than 3 homeruns without any context.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by The_herd

Do you watch the same game everyone else does? Tell me how there is parity in baseball when you look at payrolls?

In a sense, the Marlins were a 1 year fluke. They lucked out and landed Pudge to a cheap contract with most of the money defered, because no one else wanted him at the time. Unlike the Yankee's and Red Sox, they had to make major decisions on who to keep and who to let go because of money issues.

When you see see the Yankee's, Red Sox, Braves, and Dodgers competing for a division crown each season, while the Marlins and Twins struggle to stay afloat, you can't call it parity.

There are 30 major league teams, we see the same teams every year, with a small-mid market team thrown in. These teams can spend the money to stay competetive each season while the others need to rebuild after working their asses off for a 1-2 year window to get into the post season.

As I said, you're watching a different game than most.

Can anyone here read? Read Sean McAdam's article! We do NOT see the same teams every year with a "token" small-market team thrown in. Baseball is comparable with football, over the pat 5-7 years or so. And considering the NFL has 2 more playoff spots per conference, baseball looks damn good in comparison.

And as for the rebuilding to get that 1-2 year window to get into the post-season...that pretty much describes 90% of NFL football teams, doesn't it? Why is it acceptable in the NFL, but ruins baseball? Aside from the Yankees, I think people put way too much emphasis on payroll. And hopefully, over the next couple of years, even the Yankees will prove that having a huge payroll means next to nothing if you don't spend it on the right people.

[clintl]

Both baseball and football are great games. I like baseball better, but I have no problem understanding why someone else might like football better.

However, I think baseball takes a lot more criticism than it really deserves. Yes, it has an economic system that has its problems. However, anyone who thinks that an NFL-like system could work for baseball is smoking something. It can't. Baseball can't get a national TV contract that covers over half of its revenue like football does, so it has to rely on local revenue sources for the bulk of its revenues. And that means the only real options it has are revenue sharing or diluting the market power of the big markets by adding some expansion teams there (mostly in New York and Los Angeles), and the latter is not going to happen. I don't think a salary cap would help that much because the Yankees and other big market teams would just spend their extra revenue on scouting and the minor leagues. The Yankees are no more dominant now than they were in the reserve clause era, when in effect, teams had a defacto salary cap by not having a free market for players at all.

As for the steroid issue - no NFL fan has any legitimate beef there. Steroids have had a much bigger effect on play in the NFL than they ever will in baseball.

My opinion is that the main reason people beat up on baseball is that the players actually are empowered, and that unsettles people.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

Baseball is not made for TV, and, just as important, it is not made for SportsCenter.

There was a scene in Sports Night where Jeremy was making highlights for a baseball game, and the highlights ran 20 minutes. They told him to cut it down to 15 seconds (numbers approx.). His point was that the only way to really understand what happened in the game was to see the physical and psychological battles between the pitchers and batters as they developed over the course of the game. I think that that's true. I also think that SportsCenter will continue to give us baseball in 15 second bites that consist of nothing more than 3 homeruns without any context.

Clearly, this is the case. Not only is the game of football good for TV, but the once-a-week setup is perfect for creating "must see" sports TV. Baseball can never compete with the inherent advantages football has in TV - and that includes revenue sharing. The only reason revenue sharing is possible in the NFL is because of the way the TV contracts are done. If football was like the other sports, you wouldn't see teams willing to sacrifice for the common good. But the nature of the game makes it easy for them to do just that.

Coupled with baseball's PR problems and the nature of its game, it's no wonder baseball is where it is these days. However, I'm fine with baseball being relegated to 2nd or 3rd most popular sport, as long as I can still pay to see the games. Although I would point out that even in that respect, baseball has it wrong - they restrict the number of games in the baseball package to 35 per wweek, which is ridiculous. In fairness to them, though, I think they are forced to do that because without a guarantee to Fox and ESPN of exclusive rights to Saturday afternoons and Wednesday nights, they'd have an even worse TV contract.

[The_herd]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Can anyone here read? Read Sean McAdam's article! We do NOT see the same teams every year with a "token" small-market team thrown in. Baseball is comparable with football, over the pat 5-7 years or so. And considering the NFL has 2 more playoff spots per conference, baseball looks damn good in comparison.

And as for the rebuilding to get that 1-2 year window to get into the post-season...that pretty much describes 90% of NFL football teams, doesn't it? Why is it acceptable in the NFL, but ruins baseball? Aside from the Yankees, I think people put way too much emphasis on payroll. And hopefully, over the next couple of years, even the Yankees will prove that having a huge payroll means next to nothing if you don't spend it on the right people.

I don't give a damn what Sean McAdam's wrote, I know what every baseball fan outside of a major city knows, saying that there is parity in baseball is a joke.

Name one NFL team that has no shot of making the playoffs within the next 2 seasons.

You can name several in baseball. Pittsburg, Milwaukee, Tampa Bay, Detroit, Texas, and Colorado. You probably throw some more on that list as well.

Atlanta, Yankee's, Red Sox, Seattle, San Francisco, and L.A. Baseballs teams that have the resources to make sure they are never far from 1st. While it also takes good management for these teams to stay on top (thats what seperates them from the Mets and Cubs), they have a much larger margin for error than most teams. Oakland has managed to stay on top because they have been run damn near perfectly over the past few years.

[The_herd]

par·i·ty1 ( P ) Pronunciation Key (pr-t)
n. pl. par·i·ties

1. Equality, as in amount, status, or value.
2. Functional equivalence, as in the weaponry or military strength of adversaries: “A problem that has troubled the U.S.-Soviet relationship from the beginning has been the issue of parity” (Charles William Maynes).
3. The equivalent in value of a sum of money expressed in terms of a different currency at a fixed official rate of exchange.
4. Equality of prices of goods or securities in two different markets.
5. A level for farm-product prices maintained by governmental support and intended to give farmers the same purchasing power they had during a chosen base period.

Can someone please tell me how this definition fits baseball.

[rkmsuf]

enter oykib...

[oykib]

On revenue sharing...

I have an idea. Let's raise the tax rate to 50% for everyone. I'm sure the gov't could provide the services that it needs to with 65% of the money collected. Then, we just redistribute the remaining amount evenly to every tax payer. I'm sure we'll all sign up for that.

If you're rich, then you'll still be richer than the people who started off poorer than you. How much more money do you need, anyway?

It's just as ridiculous in baseball as it is in real life. The guy who just spent hundreds of millions for the Dodgers, was paying four to six times what he'd have had to pay for the Brewers. The Red Sox group spent over half a billion dollars. They expect that kind of return on their investment.

It's just that same as you guys who spent $200,000 on law school-- not to mention opportunity costs. You don't want to be payed like a high school droput.

Football has an easy revenue sharing system based on the shared revenue of a national TV contract. When they set it up, there was not nearly as much money in TV as now. Setting up revenue sharing as it's been fancifully proposed stands to lose the top owners hundreds of millions of dollars.

Realistically, any real revenue sharing would first have to be seperated from payroll and total revenue and tied instead to market opportunity. You can't punish the Yankees, Red Sox, and Mariners for running their businesses well. Secondly, you would have to indemnify the 'rich' owners for the loss of franchise value. If the bottom twenty teams took out loans to compensate the top ten teams, it might fly.

That would solve the problem going forward, because the 'poor' teams stand to gain while the 'rich' teams lose. The 'rich' teams are not likely to see the rising tide benefit their owners-- owners don't stay that long. But they'd get the windfall now to compensate them for what they lose when they sell their teams.

The new 'rich' owners would be getting their teams at a discount as compared to what they would have payed for them before revenue sharing went into effect. So theyreally couldn't complain about the system. If the vast majority of the fans who wine about this aren't full of shit-- which, of course, they are-- baseball would have a rising tide of popularity that would raise all the franchise's boats, but particularly the ne'er-do-well franchises.

This would compensate them for the chunk of change that the doled out at the beginning of our exercise. That's the only "fair" way to do it that I've come up with.