I’d rather have the games on FSN than on ESPN anyway.

And ignore championships all you want, but a majority of baseball teams’ fans have at least one World Series title to cherish within the past 27 years (my personal frame of reference as a sports fan). That’s more than football.

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That is a horribly weak argument. 1984-2011 (27 years) 18 different franchises won the WS, in that same period 15 different franchises won the SB. In MLB 24 different franchises made WS appearances, compared with 25 franchises making SB appearances.

Since 1995 (WC era in MLB) 11 franchises have won a WS. NYY/BOS have won 7, the rest of MLB, 28 teams, have won 9 championships. Since 98, NYY/BOS have won 6, rest of MLB, 7.

Take the period directly preceding that, 1969-1993, 7 AL East franchises and 7 NL East franchises won the WS, while 6 franchises from the NL East and 5 from the NL West won. This is parity.

That’s the beef of most fans outside of NYY and BOS.

If MLB had a salary floor (and ceiling), an extra WC slot, and non-guaranteed contracts similar to the NFL, parity would run rampant. Every year 8-10 MLB teams know they cannot compete for a WS. Every year 32 NFL teams and their fans feel they can make the playoffs.

I just did, citing facts that you chose to ignore.

By the way, the Browns are an expansion team that came into the league in 1999. By way of comparison, the Marlins and Diamondbacks won championships in their fifth and fourth seasons respectively. The Rays came into existence a year earlier than the Browns, and after a decade of sucking are now one of the elite teams in baseball. So the expansion excuse is kind of pathetic to be using at this point.

And the points about the Lions is also true of the Royals and Pirates. Sure, finances hurt them, but why have they been perpetually awful whiles teams like the A’s and Rays have had the ability to make the playoffs? Management counts, too.

What’s that you say, the Nats finished in 3rd place? Imagine that.

(sarcasm button)

First of all @Church, there is a hard cap in the NFL. Bonuses are exempt from the cap as long as the player is on the roster, but if you cut him then the bonuses not only count, but accelerate their hit on the cap. Second, it doesn’t matter if a lucky break here or there is responsible for parity or not. The NFL has parity and luck is one of the factors that contributes to parity.

@Nategearhart

The Browns were an expansion team that had to build from the ground up, so naturally they had some bad years followed by bad management. The Lions were managed at historically bad levels for years as well. However, the teams had the opportunity to compete, they were just run poorly. Now that the Lions have a good GM that makes intelligent moves, they went from 0-16 to making the playoffs in three years. They also have the ability to retain the players they build around once they hit free agency, unlike the Brewers and Prince.

Parity in the NFL is created by the cap, revenue sharing, free agency, draft pick compensation and some luck, but it’s based on the fact that all teams are given equal opportunities to compete. If a team doesn’t compete for a long period of time it’s due to poor management, not financial or economic reasons.

Yeah, that’s a way higher turnover than the average turnover rate of MLB: 62.5%. Oh Wait. It’s lower.

This highlights one of the great myths about sports: that football has so much more parity than baseball and other sports. Year in, and year out, baseball has comparable (and sometimes even better) playoff turnover rates. This past year there were five teams that made the playoffs that missed the post-season in 2010. In 2010, there were five teams that missed in 2009. I think the max number of repeat teams we’ve seen in recent years is 5. As for the NFL, it’s exactly a 50/50 split, which is basically what it is almost every year.

And how are the 49ers making the NFC Championship game like the Royals doing the same? The 49ers are major market team that was the dominant franchise in sports not that long ago.

Yes, there are a few absolute bottom feeders in baseball. But in your litany of teams from the NFL that you mentioned, you neglected to name the teams that haven’t even won a playoff game this century: Dolphins, Bills, Bengals, Browns, Chiefs, and Lions, plus a handful of others that have one playoff win. Meanwhile, there are seven baseball franchises that have not won a post-season series since the turn of the century, and there’s one fewer round and of course you have to win multiple games instead of just one.

So in your effort to crow about football’s relative parity, you harp on the two or three teams that have been repeatedly awful, and in those cases it’s not about the money so much as it’s been front office incompetence. And yes, the Browns, Texans, Lions and Redskins get to make the playoffs once a decade or so. I’m sure the fans of those franchises really treasure those memories of being otherwise irrelevant. And ignore championships all you want, but a majority of baseball teams’ fans have at least one World Series title to cherish within the past 27 years (my personal frame of reference as a sports fan). That’s more than football.

The only one of the major sports that is truly awful from a competitive balance standpoint is the NBA, where it’s really dominated by about 7 or 8 teams. Now that’s a sport where a majority of the fans have no hope.

I don’t expect ESPN to ever take advantage of their market power in that way, though, as there is no clear profit motive. I only point this out to acknowledge the fact that yes, the Sox and Yankees already had a bigger market than most teams, but ESPN is helping to lock that into a self-reinforcing loop as opposed to using its market might to take a tiny step toward leveling the MLB playing field.

I do wonder about the aggregate ratings power of small-to-mid-market fans, and how much behavior change would be required for ESPN to take notice…

Does anyone really care about *watching* the ESPN broadcasts?