We've Already Seen Baseball's Future:
The English Premier League and its Warning for Major League Baseball
The North East "Arms Race" of this off-season has indicated that the ownership groups of the Red Sox and Yankees will continue to raise each other in the own metaphorical game of No Limit Hold-Em.
Much like poker players, baseball teams not named the Cubs or Red Sox could count on players and luck eventually coming their way. With all things being relatively equal, GM's could make baseball decisions instead of business decisions and sooner or later, hit a big pot by winning a World Series.
The new economic climate in baseball is like that last table at the World Series of Poker. The two eventual finalists used their commanding chip counts to force the other players into picking their spots in order to stay alive. Before long, the finalists were playing straight up, just like the Red Sox and Yankees this off-season. If the post World Series scramble is an indication of what the future holds in this rivalry, Major League Baseball is starting to resemble a sport other than poker.
In 1992, the English Football Association formed the Premier League. This league was to consist of the top 20 clubs in England. Since the formation of the Premier League, only 3 different teams have been champions. Either Manchester United or Arsenal has won 10 of the 11 league titles. Now, English football has been around for decades before the formation of the Premier League, it is since the formation of the league that financial factors have split the balance of power between these two teams.
These two clubs are like the Yankees and the Braves of the past decade. Manchester United has truly dominated and won 8 titles while Arsenal have been in the hunt but won 2. The two clubs have finished 1-2 in the standings 5 times in 11 seasons. Arsenal is like the Braves and not the Red Sox because Arsenal is starting to have some financial issues. The club wants to move to a bigger stadium to increase their revenue in order to compete. Sound familiar?
The Red Sox of English soccer is a club named Chelsea. The north London team is in one of the best markets in England and was bought last summer by Russian Oil Billionaire Roman Abramovich. The new owner quickly made his mark by spending over 100 million pounds which buying players to add to his team. This 100 million doesn't go to paying the players salaries.
Chelsea also resembles the Red Sox because they haven't won anything yet and have never even finished better than 4th in the past 11 seasons. However, Abramovich has done whatever he can to put a winner on the field and even stole Manchester United chief executive Peter Kenyon to run the show. While Chelsea has managed to change the face of the premier league, they have simply added one team to the elite. Most other managers in the Premier League have already been quoted as "playing for fourth" and that the "big three should have quite a race." These quotes come by early December for a league that runs through early May. The gap in European soccer has become so big, that they have a separate league for the most successful teams called the champions league. That is the true playoff of soccer. And the playoffs are the only thing that has prevented a few teams from passing the World Series trophy back and forth over the past decade.
So what? The Yankees and Red Sox capture the AL East and Wild Card for the next several season and meet in the playoffs to decide the American League Champion. What's the problem with that? Every year this continues, the Red Sox and Yanks will keep collecting poker chips from all the other teams at the table. Teams seem bound to disappear by contraction as poker games shrink after someone is cleaned out.
This has already occurred in England, with clubs declaring bankruptcy and on the brink of collapse. In the past few years, clubs like Leicester City, Barnsley and Leeds United have all announced massive debts, and all have sold off several players to help their situations. The first two clubs required two new ownership groups to stay in existence and Leeds are reportedly trying to convince a billionaire fan of theirs to buy the club, wipe out their debts, and have them follow Chelsea's path to the top.
Barring a billionaire fan taking over the Brewers, they will remain among baseball's paupers and will end up selling off their best players to bigger teams just like the poor clubs in the Premier League. Homegrown talent is almost simply a bargaining chip for the Yanks and Sox now with established veterans brought in to fill a hole much like a star heads to the plastic surgeon for a touch up to keep their career going strong. Granted, baseball still is a great game to watch even with the imbalance in the league. In England, the Premier League had the 2nd best attendance of any league in Europe and wasn't first only because Germany has bigger stadiums. However the problems loom for both leagues as more teams are out of the title race before the year even starts.
The striking similarities between the economic development of baseball and soccer have raised issue of a salary cap in both leagues. The minimum salary and salary cap instituted by the NFL has led to substantial growth because of the parity the league now possesses with every team is held to the same standard.
Baseball's playoffs are more like the NFL's than ever before, with the hot team winning the World Series the past two years. As Billy Beane has dutifully pointed out several times, the playoffs is a crapshoot. So "small market" teams like Anaheim and Florida can get hot for the 2nd half of the season and make a run but they lack the resources to ensure success the next season.
The Red Sox and the Yankees are the only teams that parity and economic restrains don't seem to apply to. So the Angels might be noticed with their splash of Colon and the Orioles might add Miguel Tejada and Vladmir Guerrero, but they will have to get a lot of help from homegrown talent to have a window to compete.
The healthy future of leagues like Major League Baseball and the Premiership seem tied to the willingness for the players and owners in both leagues to accept a salary cap with revenue sharing to ensure parity like the NFL has.
The NFL had enough sense to realize that the only way to keep the metaphorical poker game going strong was to keep the chips divided somewhat equally amongst the players. Sure enough, that poker game is the hottest in town because each participant has a reasonably good chance to win.
The Premier League and Major League Baseball are popular because they are the best league for a country's national game. But if baseball wants to maintain any sort of the competitive balance that the Premier League lacks, the richest teams will have to handicap themselves to keep things from getting out of hand like they rapidly are. Not to mention, what good American wants to see their national pastime follow in the footsteps of soccer?
File last modified March 01, 2004
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