"the best run league in sports"

[metsmarathon]

every now and again, when i foolishly tune my radio to sports-yelling, i hear someone describe football as "the best run league in sports".

and i just can't help but wonder what kind of outcry there would be if baseball were run the same way as football. even setting aside the strict salary cap, imagine for a second a baseball world where rule changes happen every off-season. where the commissioner can kick any team and any player square in teh figurative groin over nearly any infraction, real or imagined. where every call is purely subjective, and more and more replay comes into play. where the site of the championship rotates between only a mere handful of locations. where the all-star game is damned near relegated to obscurity, and isn't even played in a league stadium. where the preseason is shortened and diminished to near meaninglessness because of hte poor ratings draw. where the owners weild all the power and the players are barely piles of meat waiting to be chewed up and spit out by the league, with the rare exception of a few good throwers. where ped use is almost never discovered, and is shrugged off on the rare occasions when it is. where rules are added to shape the manner of play. where major elements of the game are apt to be discarded or highly modified.

football is the best run league in sports only because baseball is held to a much higher standard.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

...and where the league doesn't even have a team in the nation's second largest city -- in part because owners are allowed to up and move in the middle of the night!

[bmfc1]

You're right: most popular doesn't equate to "best run."

[Ceetar]

i guess it depends on criteria, but I suspect that most of this is the circle-jerk that some of these discussions have become. the NFL draws ratings so talking about the NFL draws ratings, so talking about talking about.. and of course maybe of these people get it backwards, things are 'popular' because they're talking about them, they're not talking about them because they're popular. There are admins and bosses telling them to talk about the NFL (and Tebow) and the shear volume of it, and advertising, feeds off each other to raise the sports popularity, especially in the specific metrics they want to use.

And that's all the NFL cares about. popularity and attention and the money that comes with it. Does that make it 'best run'? maybe from a business standpoint?

But if you want to talk about things like integrity of the game, broadcast, length of game, amount of delays, fan relations, ..hell, player relations. The players are pawns in this buzz generating machine they've created. they WANT these players to act out and lash out. levying fines and beating them back down is good for the buzz as well. inconsistent penalty calling and 'holding on every play' only creates things to rant about during the week inbetween games.

[Edgy MD]

This Junioir Seau story uses the bone-chilling teaser, "Within 24 months of retiring, three out of four NFL players will be one or more of the following: alcohol or drug addicted; divorced; or financially distressed/bankrupt. Junior Seau was all three."

Keep up the good work, guys.

NFL, NFL
I'm just not buying what you sell.

[A Boy Named Seo]

metsguyinmichigan wrote: ...and where the league doesn't even have a team in the nation's second largest city -- in part because owners are allowed to up and move in the middle of the night!

Speaking for LA, we don't much give a shit.

[Ceetar]

This Junioir Seau story uses the bone-chilling teaser, "Within 24 months of retiring, three out of four NFL players will be one or more of the following: alcohol or drug addicted; divorced; or financially distressed/bankrupt. Junior Seau was all three." Keep up the good work, guys. NFL, NFL I'm just not buying what you sell.

speaking of under-reported so much in fact I'm blanking on his name.. the baseball player that just killed himself.. Didn't he have concussions and similarities to these NFL guys?

[Gwreck]

metsguyinmichigan wrote: ...and where the league doesn't even have a team in the nation's second largest city -- in part because owners are allowed to up and move in the middle of the night!

The NFL has made good use of LA as leverage to get new stadiums built (ie. "if you don't, we'll move the team to LA").

[Frayed Knot]

every now and again, when i foolishly tune my radio to sports-yelling, i hear someone describe football as "the best run league in sports".

Some version of this statement is uttered by just about every sports media guy working today. I'm sure they truly believe it and are certainly free to argue it, but I think they're mostly just repeating now it as if by rote to the point where there's no need to even question the statement anymore than you would question whether water is wet.

- One of their biggest reasons is their belief that the NFL creates much more parity than baseball. It's not remotely true but the fact that they believe it is makes it so in their minds.
- They also, almost without exception, LOVE the byproducts of the weak NFLPA: things like the limited free-agency (particularly for the major stars); the regimented draft; the restrictive rookie cap; authoritative coaches and commissioners, are considered the hallmarks of a well-run league.
- They love the gambling aspect tied to football (doubly so now with the growth of fantasy) which drives fans to seek out advice and knowledge each week from ... well, from guys like them!
- And mainly you just have to remember the fact that the highly profitable marriage of TV and football means that most of them were hired to be on TV because they eat, sleep and breathe football. They don't examine the strengths and weaknesses of baseball because most neither pay attention to over even like like baseball. And most of the people they come in contract with (ie. each other) feel the same way because they're there for the same reason which just in turn reinforces their original thinking.

football is the best run league in sports only because baseball is held to a much higher standard.

The only media guy I've heard with the guts to say this is Joel Sherman at the NYPost. At the time he was talking specifically about the football media punting on the (then) most recent NFL/steroids story as it, once again, got swept under the rug in favor of the latest QB/coach soap opera. But he also expanded his point to other issues as well and basically called out his football counterparts for too often simply accepting and repeating what the league wants them to do.

[TransMonk]

I love NFL football almost as much, but in a completely separate way as I do the MLB. I consider the leagues apples and oranges with both of them having positives, but also a whole mess of things that could (should) be fixed.

As far as the NFL being "best run", if they mean like the way that organized crime is run, then yeah, I guess so. As much as I love both football and baseball, it has been over a decade since I've voluntarily listened to sports radio.

OE: Save the two weeks in April of 2011 when I discovered the WFAN app while running. Two weeks was all I needed before I couldn't listen anymore.

[Edgy MD]

I've thought about the parity thing a lot of late. What seems to be rubbing up against the NFL's attempts to enforce parity that MLB supposed lacks is the reality that, despite financial advantages of some franchises it's harder to repeat in baseball because:

• In baseball, top teams win 60% of the time, as opposed to 70 and 80 in the NBA and NFL, respectively, more or less. Top teams playing closer to the mean, gives them less margin for error.
  
• In beisbol, until recently anyway, there had been a relative paucity of playoff slots. An injury or slump that hurts a good team's season in a league with multiple playoff slots, could possibly merely knock them to a lower playoff seed, where they could redeem their bad fortune in the post-season. A league with fewer spots has less such opportunities.
  
• Baseball features pitching. It's 35% of the game or somesuch. Excellent pitching is ephemeral. If LeBrano James scores 30 points for you at 28, you won't go broke betting on him to do it again at 29. If Chris Carpenter wins 20 for you at 28, you'd be a fool to bet on him to do it again at 29. It's probably not a good bet that he'd ever do it again.

Oh, and fuck parity. Enforced dismantling of teams for being good is weak.

[ashie62]

A Boy Named Seo wrote: metsguyinmichigan wrote: ...and where the league doesn't even have a team in the nation's second largest city -- in part because owners are allowed to up and move in the middle of the night! Speaking for LA, we don't much give a shit.

BOC

[Edgy MD]

This Junioir Seau story uses the bone-chilling teaser, "Within 24 months of retiring, three out of four NFL players will be one or more of the following: alcohol or drug addicted; divorced; or financially distressed/bankrupt. Junior Seau was all three." Keep up the good work, guys. NFL, NFL I'm just not buying what you sell. speaking of under-reported so much in fact I'm blanking on his name.. the baseball player that just killed himself.. Didn't he have concussions and similarities to these NFL guys?

Ryan Freel, but I feel confident that he's not indicative of three quarters of the league.

[Guest The Second Spitter]

Lets see in the last 3 years the NFL has had:
1. A lockout (w/ litigation)
2. Bountygate
3. Replacement referee shenanigans
4. The whittling away of its ASG into a farce.

Yeah, definitely the best league.

Ceetar wrote: speaking of under-reported so much in fact I'm blanking on his name.. the baseball player that just killed himself.. Didn't he have concussions and similarities to these NFL guys?

Not sure if serious.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Ryan Freel is the guy you are thinking of. I think he had multiple concussions.

[Guest The Second Spitter]

metsguyinmichigan wrote: Ryan Freel is the guy you are thinking of. I think he had multiple concussions.

Yeah, and there's the possibility he was nuts before those concussions.

[ashie62]

How well run is professional soccer?

I get confused with the multiple leagues...

[Frayed Knot]

I've quoted these "parity" stats before, but they can use some updating and repetition since "conventional wisdom" continues to deny their existence.

Last 10 years:
MLB -- 7 different champions, 36.7% (11 of 30) of franchises have appeared in a WS
NFL -- 6 different champions, 37.5% (12 of 32) of franchises have appeared in a SB

Last 20 years:
MLB -- 12 different champions, 63.3% (19 of 30) of franchises have appeared in a WS
NFL -- 11 different champions, 68.8% (22 of 32) of franchises have appeared in a SB


[u:339mldfd]TWO[/u:339mldfd] MLB franchises have failed to at least reach a league final over the last 20 years (Mont/Wash & KCR)
[u:339mldfd]FIVE[/u:339mldfd] NFL franchises have failed to at least reach a conference final over the last 20 years (Wash, Det, Cinc, Hou, Cleve - those last two being expansion teams that weren't there for the entire period)


Not that any of those numbers will stop the talking heads from repeating, with full CAHNfindence of course, that one of the things that makes the NFL the best league is that the parity brings so many more teams into play each year.
Consider also that that the above similarities occur DESPITE the one sport having: a hard salary cap; a playoff system which allows (until this past year of MLB) 50% more teams into their post-season*; a shorter and therefore much more variable regular season plus a one-and-out playoff system.


* 3 of the last 7 SB champs would not even have made the playoffs using MLB's system

[Ceetar]

This Junioir Seau story uses the bone-chilling teaser, "Within 24 months of retiring, three out of four NFL players will be one or more of the following: alcohol or drug addicted; divorced; or financially distressed/bankrupt. Junior Seau was all three." Keep up the good work, guys. NFL, NFL I'm just not buying what you sell. speaking of under-reported so much in fact I'm blanking on his name.. the baseball player that just killed himself.. Didn't he have concussions and similarities to these NFL guys? Ryan Freel, but I feel confident that he's not indicative of three quarters of the league.

oh sure, I was just pondering if/how much head injuries lead to some of that stuff. That's a tag line, but the story of Seau seems to be that he was banged up, probably had concussions that weren't treated if even noted, and now he's dead. the head in the sand bit with it all might go beyond football being poorly run. I know it's the offseason and christmas, but Freel seems to be a very similar story.

[Frayed Knot]

The difference being that while concussions happen in baseball they're pretty much endemic to the sport of football, and that although Goodell and the NFL are currently being credited for virtually discovering the connection between concussions and later cognitive problems, it was only about 24 months ago that they were sounding for all the world like 1980s-era cigarette executives by denying that there was even the slightest hint of a connection between concussions and their sport.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Goodell and his folk are only putting the spotlight on concussions and the damage they wreak to avoid talking about that fact that sub-concussive trauma is the real-- and unavoidable-- boogeyman.

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, Ryan Freel is a tragedy baseball has to answer in part for.

But if he was a football player, there'd be nothing remarkable in his case at all.

I try and discuss this with football fans, and I too often get something that more or less amounts to fuck that forgotten mope, he got paid.

[Frayed Knot]

The Second Spitter wrote: Lets see in the last 3 years the NFL has had: 1. A lockout (w/ litigation) 2. Bountygate 3. Replacement referee shenanigans 4. The whittling away of its ASG into a farce.

Plus there's that that minor problem of having a few hundred (or is it thousand?) of its former players in a class action law suit against the league.

[Frayed Knot]

So one of the things the MWWF (mediots who worship football) cite in their love for the sport is its "perfect" season and playoff set-up.
Well this year that perfect set-up saw three of the eight divisions and eight of the twelve playoff sports clinched with 1/4 of the season left.
And this season saw five teams finish with 10-6 records but, for reasons having to do solely with convenience, only four qualified for post-season.
At least there weren't this year, although there often are, any playoff teams with .500 or even sub-.500 records.

[ashie62]

Is the 4th major sport Hockey or Soccer?

[Frayed Knot]

So the "best run league" has decided that the best option for playoff time-slots today is that the game in Texas should be played in the afternoon (3:30 CST) and the one in Wisconsin should be played at night (7:00 CST). Probably the difference between being in the upper 20s/low 30s w/daylight vs upper-teens/low-20s & dark for the fans in the stands in Green Bay. The one in Houston is of course indoors so the temp there is no different no matter when you kick it off.

The major strength of the NFL is its TV deal but the drawback is that you become beholden to that monster.

Edited January 5, 2013 by Guest

[bmfc1]

Frayed Knot wrote: The major strength of the NFL is its TV deal but the drawback is that you become beholden to that monster.

Absolutely. The networks had a problem in that the 1 PM games were going past 4 PM which meant that some of the markets that got the 4 PM games had to miss the end of the 1 PM games. The solution was to start many of the 4 PM games at 4:25. It wasn't to think of ways to shorten these bloated games which would have made the fans happy (e.g. fewer commercial breaks, less time for half-time) but to elongate the broadcast day.

[Ceetar]

it's not a drawback to the league, they're more than happy to manipulate the game times. They don't care about the fans (in the stands )

I don't understand why it's okay to have stupid wild card games on Saturday and not the Super Bowl.

[bmfc1]

Ceetar wrote: I don't understand why it's okay to have stupid wild card games on Saturday and not the Super Bowl.

The SB on Saturday night makes sense. The networks say that viewership is lower on Fridays and Saturdays than on Sundays but that wouldn't be the case for a Super Bowl.

[Ceetar]

bmfc1 wrote: Ceetar wrote: I don't understand why it's okay to have stupid wild card games on Saturday and not the Super Bowl. The SB on Saturday night makes sense. The networks say that viewership is lower on Fridays and Saturdays than on Sundays but that wouldn't be the case for a Super Bowl.

they do Monday Night football all year long, and two games to start the season, why not do that for the first week of playoffs? Seems to fit better to me.