Thursday, November 5, 2009

The Superiority of Football

So, I suppose congratulations are in order for the New York Yankees, cause they apparently did something that was at least supposed to be impressive.

Really all they did was show exactly why football is far more interesting than baseball.

There's a lot of discussion about this between some sports fans. Baseball lovers make fun of the brutal senselessness of football. Football lovers make fun of baseball's likeness to watching paint dry.

But one thing that is inarguable that football has and baseball doesn't? Parity.

No, it's not perfect parity. Yes, there are some dominant teams in football, just as there are in baseball. Football has the Patriots, Colts and Steelers like baseball boasts the Red Sox, Yankees and Cardinals.

But the difference is that in football, no one is buying championships.

Take a look at the Yankee team's salary vs. the rest of the league's. The Yankees boast a team salary 48% higher than the next highest team's salary. Only seven teams have more than half the payroll that the Yankees have. Three of the top four player salaries are paid by the Yankees. Six of the top twenty five are. Fifteen players on the Yankees roster made more in '09 than the league average $3.24MM.

This would be fairly similar to taking the Colts, and then taking the worst players on their roster, and replacing them with the best players on the Steelers roster. Let's stick Polamalu next to Bob Sanders, Casey Hampton stuck in the middle of the DL to help plug the run, and ... well, let's just take all the Steelers linebackers for good measure.

"Holy crap! How unfair is that?!?!?"

That's not unfair...that's the New York Yankees.

The other day as I was walking around upstairs I heard on ESPN they were interviewing a few people asking who they wanted to win the World Series. After a few answers, I heard one person say "I hope the Yankees win, cause they paid for a Championship, and you should get what you pay for."

This outcome wasn't just predictable, it was almost expected. It would have been a disappointing season with anything BUT a World Championship. Executives get fired when they lose to the Red Sox in the post-season.

Can anyone imagine Pioli getting fired for losing to the Colts?

What makes football infinitely more exciting than baseball is the not knowing. Not knowing who will be in the post-season each year. Not knowing who's going to get the big name free agents. Not knowing who's going to surprise. It makes the season far more interesting across the board.

It's probably one of the main reasons football has a far bigger following than baseball these days.

1 comment:

  1. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/joe_posnanski/11/05/yankees.payroll/index.html?eref=sihp

    Apparently Mr Posnansky reads our blog.

    Oh wait. No he doesn't. Everyone outside of New York already knows this...

    ReplyDelete

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