Dave Sandborg recently posted an article describing his thoughts on this year's World Series. I was going to comment, but then realized that I had absolutely nothing to add. I have been a HUGE baseball fan ever since (and despite) watching the ball roll through Billy Buckner's legs in '86, and yet didn't watch more than a couple innings of this year's Fall Classic. I wasn't alone. This year's World Series recorded the Series' lowest television ratings EVER - a paltry 11.1 rating and 19 share.
I would argue that this is less a reflection of lack of interest in the teams involved (Chicago and Houston have the 3rd and 10th largest DMAs in the country, respectively), as it is a waning interest in baseball in general. World Series ratings have been in a general decline since peaking at 32.8 in 1980. No WS has garnered better than a 19.5 rating since the strike year of '94.
I think the issue at hand can be summed up in one word: PARITY. With the gap between the haves and the have-nots in baseball growing every year, there is less and less competitive balance, and thus less excitement.
To explore this a little further, the New York Yankees spent $208.3 million on player salaries this year. Their highest-paid player made $25 million. In contrast, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays spent $29.4 million for their ENTIRE TEAM. In this era of free agency, he with the fattest wallet is king.
An interesting comparison often made is MLB vs. the NFL - which is rapidly becoming the most popular sport in the US. In the NFL, there is a great deal of parity. Since 2000, 9 different teams have met in the Super Bowl. That's not to say that there aren't payroll discrepancies in the NFL just like there are in baseball. Last year, the Washington Redskins had a total payroll of $118 million. The Bengals, Cowboys and 49rs, in contrast, each had team payrolls under $70 million. The Bengals and Cowboys both finished ahead of Washington in the standings.
So how does the NFL gain this parity, and the market share / fan base that comes with it, you might ask? One reason is the law of averages. Both leagues have salary caps in place. Both deal with the same free agency issues from year to year. The biggest difference: 162 to 16. MLB has 10 times has many regular season games as the NFL. Over 162 games, the law of averages says the team with the best (read: most expensive) players will win the most games. When you only play 16 games, you can win games based on better scheming, favorable scheduling, and luck. Injuries play a much bigger part of a team's win/loss record. That's why, with only a few exceptions, any team can win on any given week in the NFL. The same does not hold in baseball.
Another big difference is baseball's farm system. A player can be drafted right out of high school to a major league system. They could then spend years bouncing around the different minor league levels, and between teams as bargaining chips in trades for big league players, without ever actually playing a single inning in the major leagues. In the NFL, there is a minimum age requirement. No player can enter the draft unless they are at least two years removed from their high school graduation. What this means is you have players who have gotten at least two years of additional high-level training in college who come in and make an immediate impact on their team. The worst team from the year prior gets the first pick in the next draft, giving them the best chance of filling their need positions with the top talent available. The system seeks to maintain that level of parity from one year to the next.
Is baseball "America's Pastime"? Not anymore. Americans are bored with the Yankees. They're bored with the Cardinals and the Braves. They are even bored (can you say "overexposed"?) with my beloved Red Sox. Parity is key, and until MLB and the Player's Association figure out some way to get team spending under control and bring parity back to the league, NFL will continue to lay claim to that title.
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Comments: 3
I hear some of these arguments a lot, and am amazed every time because of what I consider to be not insubstantial holes in them. I think it all comes back to the old truth that "numbers are like people; torture them enough and they will tell you anything."
I agree that baseball appears to be on the decline, and I think it is a shame because so many of the commonly held theories above are misconceptions. For example:
1. It is true that the Yankees payroll is absurdly high - the difference between them and the Devil Rays' payroll is lunacy. That said, the Devil Rays beat the Yankees in 11 of their 19 meetings this year (compared to winning only 4 against the Yankees last year), and the Yankees' payroll this year was its highest ever. The Yankees get beaten up about their payroll a lot for a team that has not won a World Series in five years. In fact, lest this be forgotten, the most expensive championship ever was that of the Boston Red Sox (2004) at approx. $123M payroll. The last time the Yankees won, their payroll was $93M.
2. I assume it is true that, since 2000, nine different football teams have been in the Super Bowl. But surely, if number of teams is a sign of parity, then baseball trumps football. Since 2000, the following ten teams have been in the World Series: White Sox, Astros, Red Sox, Cardinals, Marlins, Yankees, Angels, Giants, Diamondbacks, Mets. And, unlike football, where the New England Patriots have won numerous Super Bowls in the last five years, six different teams have won the last six World Series. In some cases over the last six years, the Super Bowl champ has had a higher payroll than the World Series champ.
3. I think there are enough examples of baseball teams with miserable records and low payrolls knocking off rich teams that listing them would be pointless. For all their dollars, the Yankees were not in the Series this year.
There is much about baseball that needs very desperately to be fixed, but I think an important first step is to seperate myth from reality. I think the same holds true in the current political scene.
Thanks for posting a sports article to Gather...it is refreshing.