Speaking of the players union, how much actual good did DeMaurice Smith do for the NFLPA and for the game of football during his tenure?
That's true. I think they're kind of byproducts of each other, though. More, or prolonged, fan interest would mean more dollars the league can put in their pockets. If you're keeping the fans of the bad teams engaged for another week or two (or longer), that's putting more money in the pockets of the league, in addition to whatever they're getting from ESPN, FOX, CBS, Amazon, and whoever else. But the league is also very much in the business of selling false hope to fanbases like ours. The media is going to be all up on the Jets again this offseason, hyping things up to try to get this tired, worn down fanbase to buy in for another year, and we all know that it's going to come crashing down in some terrible fashion in Week 1 or 2, but by then, we'll either already be on the hook for our tickets for the year or we've already spent the $300 on Sunday Ticket.
All true. The NFL will do anything to increase its bottom line. I just don't think kindness towards the fans is one of those things. There's always a different motive that benefits them in some way.
I don't think it is either. I don't view that extra week, thus the extended "relevance" of the teams as kindness towards those fanbases. This past season would have been just a bit better if we'd had one less week of it.
i don’t think that’s true. The calls are bad for everyone, just no one cares when the two teams involved are 4-11
Since 1994 that's 10 teams in 29 years. Before that it was 10 teams in 27 years. Bills 1993, 1992, 1991, 1990 Broncos 1989, 1987, 1986, 1977 Bengals 1988, 1981 Patriots 1985 Dolphins 1984, 1982, 1973, 1972, 1971 Raiders 1983, 1980, 1976, 1967 Steelers 1979, 1978, 1975, 1974 Colts 1970 Chiefs 1969, 1966 Jets 1968 By this metric the salary cap made effectively no difference. If you want league parody, roll back the Mel Blount rule and watch all the QBs fall right off their sacred pedestals. I'd pay to watch football like that again.
And that was my point from the beginning. "Experts" felt that the very result you cited was unacceptable, and a Salary Cap needed to be enforced to promote "Parity". In the end, the league is no better off than it was before. The Salary Cap has failed to bring parity.
If there was no salary cap, at least other teams would actually have a chance in hell to sign him away from Kansas City.
Again, these "small market teams" are collecting 349M per year from a broadcast contract! The term "small market team" is almost laughable in the NFL. The smallest market team is worth 3.5 Billion dollars for goodness sake!
Those are horse blinders, I'm not calling you names. You accuse me of making shit up to prove a point that I didn't have, I'm telling you you have a one track mind. Have a good night.
Agreed…the NFL has revenue sharing on the TV deals. However, there are other revenue streams that are not shared, like team specific merchandise, stadium naming rights, etc. So while the disparity isn’t as big as baseball, there IS still a disparity…especially when you consider some of the older teams still kind of family owned (think Pitt, Cin, LV, etc.)…those teams do not have as much funding as some of these newer owners that are already billionaires themselves. But regardless, I’m not sure what your point is…if you’re trying to say the teams make enough money then you can have that opinion. My personal belief is that a salary cap evens out the playing field. Doesn’t mean it insures parity. That’s something totally different. Money to spend is only one aspect of putting a winning team on the field. The Cap addresses that aspect. But the cap doesn’t address the quality of the people running the team and making decisions.
It’s impossible to compare the pre-salary cap era to the post salary cap era since the money is just fucking bonkers these days. The NFL probably has more parity than other leagues in teams ability to get to the playoffs and how often the wild card teams shuffle. Not much in championships obviously although that’s very skewed by the Patriots. We’ll see if the Chiefs come anywhere close to that. If they win in two weeks they’re still only halfway there. The NFC has also seen more turnover in teams than the AFC, which again is heavily skewed by the Patriots.
