Salary Cap Solution

Great Debates
1

Okay, let’s look at the pros and cons of having a salary capn a pro sports league:

PROS

  • Parity among all teams regardless of market size and resources.

CONS

  • We root for laundry. There is no loyalty anymore to teams or from them with regard to the players.

Now, as for the same when you do not have salary cap:

PROS

  • Capitalism is the American way! If a team can pay more for an athlete, let them! This is good for the athlete as well as franchises.

CONS

  • Some teams will never be able to compete because of their inability to pay, and this is not very sporting. This leads to players changing teams too often.

So, it seems to me that the main problem regardless of a capped or uncapped league is that players are bouncing around, for different reasons.

Case in point: In football, the Bills just lost a couple of premiere players in their twilight years, because of the cap.

In baseball, the Marlins had a garage sale of their stars, going from WS champs to a 100-loss team.

Both ways make it difficult for players to stay with one franchise for their career, and this disenchants fans no matter who them root for.

MY SOLUTION

Have a cap - a small one (heck, call it a “budget”) for players who have switched from their team of origin ONLY. Players drafted by a team (or the first team that employs them if they are an undrafted free-agent) do not count against this cap unless they do move on as a free agent or are involved in a trade.

This does not restrict the player from being a free agent. It might limit his choices, but they still are there for them, not infringing on his rights as an employee.

At the same time, a franchise is not penalized for drafting a player late, seeing him become a star, and not being able to afford him (a la Chad Bratzke of my football Giants) under the cap.

My plan encourages players and franchises to stay together, but does not take away the rights of either should they wish to part company. And at the same time, it does a better job than the un-capped leagues of offering parity than the current cap without the cons associated with it.

I’m sure this plan is not perfect. I ask Dopers to point out to me the flaws it has (I’ll answer them if I can) and to just tell me if this is a good compromise to either blanket situation or if it just is another plan with problems of it’s own.

Yer pal,
Satan

2

How about a direct support of what you really want. Have an exemption for each year that a player has played previously for the same team. The exact number is something that would require some niggling, but the important part is to make it slid up pretty relentlessly. That way, you can go ahead and pay your players for their loyalty, and still get into the action for new talent with the other teams.

A side benefit is that low paid players could get raises and not be a problem for the management because of their number. You could keep players for their entire careers, and the increase in loyalty from fans that that would generate would probably help you at the gate, too.

As an example, you take a guy like Darrell Green. He is probably not the very best corner in the league, now days. But he is still pretty darned good, and the fans love the guy. Yeah, he’s old, and only faster than three fourths of the wide receivers in the league. For his salary, he represents a big bite out of your salary cap budget. If you got an exemption based on something like this:
<P align=“CENTER”> first year: No exemption
Second year: $25,000 exemption
Third year: $75,000 exemption
Fourth year: $200,000 exemption
Fifth year: $400,000 exemption
Sixth year: 750,000 exemption
Seventh and subsequent years: $750,000 plus $350,000 each additional year. </P>

So, veteran players have some real benefit to the system, and guys like Darrell are just about free, from the point of the salary cap.

<P ALIGN=“CENTER”>           Tris </P><HR>

<FONT FACE=“Webdings” SIZE=5 COLOR="#ff2400"> ** - ** </FONT> </P>

3

I think everyone’s ignoring what the salary caps are there for. They’re there for the convenience of the owners, and they’re there to keep down a team’s payroll. Making exceptions that have the net effect of raising a team’s payroll would be counterproductive from the owners’ point of view - and that’s the point of view that counts.

4

Actually, my earlier post was too simplistic. Although salary caps exist because the owners want them to, they’re actually negotiated between the owners and the players’ unions. Typically, the negotiations end up with something like “up to x% of (expected) league revenues can be used for players’ salaries”.

Once a team has been given a cap, it’s free to divvy up that cap amongst its own players’ salaries any way it wishes. Do you want to pay two zillion dollars for that major-name quarterback and save money on receivers, or pay for a lesser-quality quarterback and get a better set of receivers?

According to this morning’s paper, the NFL is currently in a bind because a few years ago many team owners expected that TV revenue was going to continue to take off and committed themselves to a number of huge long-term contracts with their better players. Now the revenue isn’t showing up, they’re committed to those long-term contracts, and are in trouble in terms of the rest of their players. My home team (the Philadelphia Eagles) is on relatively good shape because its management was – uhh – frugal in previous years in terms of large long-term contracts.

5

…and of course I’ve already posted two messages here and just realized that I never got around to bringing up my point. Sheesh.

My point is that, assuming that you’re going to have salary caps, just having a general cap for each team and letting that team follow it however it seems best is the best approach to take. Adding a bunch of rules telling them how to follow a cap just restricts everybody further without addressing the basic problem that salary caps were meant to address.

Besides, it gives us sports fans something else to argue about <g>. “Hey, they should have dumped Sanders a long time ago. For that much money they could have gotten better linebackers and beefed up their offensive line.”

6

WGFF…

Yeah, and lost the only real offensive threat they had.

A bit off topic. Is Sanders going to sign with the Dolphins?

“Tell me and I’ll forget; Show me and
I may remember; Involve me and I’ll
understand.” - Old Chinese Proverb

7

Hey, I’m an Eagles fan. Dallas losing a bit of offense doesn’t bother me a bit :slight_smile:

8

Looks like Sanders is gonna play a full season of baseball in Cincy, take a month off, and look for who wants to pay him in December and the playoffs. Though Deion is only an average baseball player, he’ll contribute (look at him getting on base and then letting Junior drive him in) and his speed will distract opposing pitchers. If I’m an NFL team on the bubble, I sign him, no questions asked, for the cornerback and special teams play he can give me for the next two months.

I’m against any sort of salary cap in any sport. Let the market bear out. Caveat: I am also in favor of complete revenue sharing of TV rights in all sports. Do it this way, it’ll all level out more or less eventually. Let local teams scramble for local profits (attendance, selling of jerseys, popcorn sales, etc.) since that’s their job, but ALL TV money should be divided equally among ALL teams, whether baseball, football, or basketball.

9

I’m really clueless as far as a solution to this problem. I’m not even sure if it is a problem. But here’s what I think–if there’s no limitation on what an owner can charge for a ticket, then there should be no limit on what an employee of his can make.

Compared to what the owners of teams rake in, the players’ salaries are a drop in the bucket. If owners couldn’t afford it, they wouldn’t pay it.

Being an Orioles fan, I know that money doesn’t necessarily mean success. I would probably feel differently about it if I were a Pirates or Brewers fan, but I see that it isn’t necessarily the large market or the nice ballpark that comes up with the cash.

Philadelphia is one of the larger markets in the country. No offense, Eagles and Phillies fans, but what’s the excuse of their ownership? Neither of those teams are among the bigger spenders.

Revenue sharing is punishing of the teams that are superior. Why should the Cowboys have to give up the revenue from their jacket sales to an inferior, poorly run team?

Like I said, I don’t have the answer. But Salary caps and revenue sharing seem very un-American to me.

And the meek shall inherit the earth.