Bruce Dowbiggin
The High Cost Of Baseball Parity: Who Needs It?
This week we are heading over to Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Florida, to see how MLB is getting along with its new ABS system for calling balls and strikes. According to our source at MLB the challenge system is being readily accepted by fans. If it goes as well as the time clock and catchers callig pitches elctronically it will be welcome.
In planning for seeing a game we had a choice between seeing the homestanding Miami Marlins or St. Louis Cardinals, who share the stadium in the spring. Our 16th-row seats for the Marlins/ Washington Nationals game are US $16 each. Had we chosen a Cardinals game versus Washington the next day that same seat would cost US $79.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is called dynamic pricing. The unloved Marlins can’t draw flies. The Cardinals— even a bad Cardinals team— are still a big draw. The gap between the two realities is growing fast. Leading many to say, What about parity?
As we wrote in December of last year, “MLB has seen parity and proclaimed, “We don’t give a damn!” Okay, they didn’t say that. In fact they insist the opposite is true. They’re all about competition and smaller markets getting a shot at a title. But as the 2024 offseason spending shows, believe none of what you hear and half of what you see in MLB.
Here’s the skinny: Juan Soto‘s contract with the NY Mets — 15 years and guaranteeing $765 million, not a penny of which is deferred. Max Fried signed an eight-year, $218 million deal with the New York Yankees. Later, Nathan Eovaldi secured a three-year, $75 million contract to return to the Texas Rangers. Blake Snell (five years, $182 million with the Los Angeles Dodgers) and Matthew Boyd (two years, $29 million with the Chicago Cubs) added to the splurge.
There’s one more thing that stands out. MLB has no trouble with the financial big boys in New York, Los Angles, Texas, Toronto, Atlanta and Chicago shelling out money no small market dare pay. In the MLB cheap seats, Tampa, Pittsburgh and Miami can’t send out quality players fast enough. But MLB is cool with that, too, as those paupers get a healthy slice of TV money.
So yes, they’re all about talking parity with their luxury-tax system. But to keep the TV, digital, betting and marketing lucre flowing they have to have large media markets swinging the heaviest bats come postseason. The question is, do MLB fans care anymore the way they used to about parity? It says here they don’t. More want to seed best-on-best more often. Which is brutal but refreshing.
Their sister leagues, married to draconian salary cap systems, are still pushing parity, even as they expand beyond recognition. In our 2004 our book Money Players, legendary Boston Bruins coach/ GM Harry Sinden noted, “The problem with teams in the league, is that there were (then) 20 teams who all think they are going to win the Stanley Cup, and they all are going to share it. But only one team is going to win it. The rest are chasing a rainbow.”
And that was before the expansion Vegas Golden Knights won a Cup within five years while the third-year Seattle Kraken made a run in those same 2023 playoffs. There are currently 32 teams in the league, each chasing Sinden’s rainbow of a Stanley Cup. That means 31 cranky fan bases every year demanding changes. And 31 management teams trying to avoid getting fired.
Maybe we’ve reached peak franchise level? Uh, no. Not so long as salary-capped leagues can use the dream of parity to sell more franchises. As we wrote in October of 2023, “If you believe the innuendo coming from commissioner Gary Bettman there is a steady appetite for getting a piece of the NHL operation. “The best answer I can give you is that we have continuous expressions of interest from places like Houston, Atlanta, Quebec City, Salt Lake City, but expansion isn’t on the agenda.” In the next breath Bettman was predicting that any new teams will cost “A lot, a lot.”
Deputy commissioner Bill Daly echoed Bettman’s caution about a sudden expansion but added, ”Having said that, particularly with the success of the Vegas and Seattle expansions, there are more people who want to own professional hockey teams.” Translation: If the NHL can get a billion for a new team, the heck with competitive excellence, the clock might start ticking sooner. After all, small-market Ottawa just went for $950.”
It’s not just the expansion-obsessed NHL talking more teams. MLB is looking to add franchises. Abandoned Montreal is once more getting palpitations over rumours that the league wants to return to the city that lost its Expos in 2005. Recent reports indicate that while MLB might prefer Salt Lake City and Nashville it also feels it must right the wrong left when the Expos moved to Washington DC 19 years ago.
The city needs a new ballpark to replace disastrous Olympic Stadium. They’ll also need more than Expos draftee Tom Brady to fund the franchise fee and operating costs. And Quebec corporate support— always transitory in the Expos years— will need to be strong. But two more MLB franchises within five years is a lock.
While the NBA is mum on going past 30 teams it has not shut the door on expansion after seeing the NHL cashing in. Neither has the cash-generating monster known as the NFL where teams currently sell for over six billion US. The NFL is eyeing Europe for its next moves.
The question that has to be asked in this is, WTF, quality of competition? The more teams in a league the lower the chances of even getting to a semifinal series let alone a championship. Fans in cities starved for a championship— the NFL’s Detroit Lions or Cleveland Browns are entering their seventh decade without a title or the Toronto Maple Leafs title-less since 1967— know how corrosive it can be.
Getting to 34, 36, maybe 40 teams makes for a short-term score for owners, but it could leave leagues with an entire strata of loser teams that no one—least of all networks, carriers and advertisers—wants to see. Generations of fans will be like Canuck supporters, going their entire lives without a championship.
In addition, as we’ve argued in our 2018 book Cap In Hand: How Salary Caps Are Killing Pro Sports and How The Free Market Can Save Them, watering down the product with a lot of teams no one wants to watch nationally or globally seems counter productive. The move away from quality toward quantity serves only the gambling industry. But since when has Gary Bettman Truly cared about quality of the product? So long as he gets to say, “We have a trade to announce” at the Draft, he’s a happy guy.”
When we published Cap In Hand we proposed a system like soccer with ranked divisions using promotion and relegation to ensure competition, not parity. Most of the interviewers we spoke to were skeptical of the idea. But as MLB steams closer to economic Darwinism our proposal is looking more credible every day. Play at the level you can afford. Or just watch Ted Lasso. Your choice. “
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
There’s a truism that the real world bears no resemblance to the worlds we imagine in our heads. From far-right patriots stockpiling guns in the mountains of Wyoming to unhinged antifa voidoids shouting “Nazi” at the McGill quad, the real world offers no resemblance to the ones they’re demonizing. The same goes for centre-middle voters who still watch the network 6 PM news or the wolves on Wall Street creating a new equity bubble..
Their assumptions are based on narratives created with themselves at the centre of an epic national struggle. In Canada, for instance, the only constants in the consciousness have been hockey and the equalization scheme. In the U.S. honouring Old Glory and the constitution is a stronger bond, but the national myth is still diffuse. Rarely have the two nations shared an animating principle.
Until this moment. Now there is a central force at work on both sides of the border. A core issue so deep and dangerous that all agree it forms the heart of their current existence. We speak, of course, of Donald J. Trump, the 45/47 POTUS. For better or worse, the cult of the Donald forms the seminal belief system in both America and Canada. He is, in the words of Mark Carney, transformational.
The reasons are not the same. For the Left Trump is the vulgar partisan leading America to ruin and perhaps civil war, For the Right he is the avenger, the fearless force for goodness who will restore America to greatness. Both sides laugh at him. For the Left it’s a derisive cackle. For the Right, it’s an affectionate chortle.
But neither side dares ignore him at the moment. Some might say, what about Obama? Wasn’t he a transforming force in his 2008-2016 presidency? Actually Obama’s overwhelming privilege in the absence of accomplishment is the reason Trump has ascended to this status. After the former leader of the Choom Gang in Hawaii had his pals curb-stomp Mitt Romney in 2012 the Right sought someone who fought dirty, too. Who’d punch back.
And they got him in Trump, who has perfected the intervention method used by Blake, the brutal salesman manager in Glengarry Glen Ross. Raw, unsparing, unforgiving. “Put that coffee down! Coffee’s for closers only. You think I’m fucking with you? I am not fucking with you! I’m here from downtown. I’m here from Mitch and Murray. And I’m here on a mission of mercy. Your name’s Levine? You call yourself a salesman, you son of a bitch?
Dave Moss: I don’t gotta sit here and listen to this shit.
Blake: You certainly don’t, pal, ’cause the good news is… you’re fired. The bad news is… you’ve got, all of you’ve got, just one week to regain your jobs starting with tonight.”
Like Trump, Blake flaunts his wealth. “This watch costs more than your car. I made $970,000 in sales commissions last year. How much you make? You see, pal, that’s who I am, and you’re nothing.”
He’s unapologetic. “I came here because Mitch and Murray asked me to. They asked me for a favour. I said the real favour, follow my advice and fire your fucking ass, because a loser is a loser!” His rude style has ended the Obama era for good.
In the wake of crushing Hamas he has rendered America’s progressive Left a stammering shell of its former self. Its Boomer demo is dazed, and its radical Left is talking insurrection. They tried to shoot him (twice), they tried to jail him. They tried to impeach him. They tried to link him to Jeffery Epstein. He was undeterred. Came back stronger as president in 2024. You may not like it, but those are the facts.
If America has a Trump fixation, it’s no less toxic in Canada where his intervention in the 2025 federal election shattered the polite conceits Canadians live with. He grabbed Trudeau by his fashionable lapels and hissed, “You’re a nice guy? I don’t give a shit. Good father? Fuck you! Go home and play with your kids. You wanna work here? Close!”
In America, this straight talk created a debate on its future. Faced with the same raw assessments of their nation as no better than a 51st state, Canadians rejected Trump’ and elected the nostalgia party of Mark Carney, flown in at the last minute to bury Trudeau’s mess. Assisted by their purchased media the Liberals avoided all talk of the country’s perilous finances, indigenous claims and separation threats. And ran on Trump.
Not much has changed since. Canadians eager to avoid self assessment have boycotted U.S. alcohol and travel. Their Laurentian elites— who months before considered their country a genocidal state— now paint rosy portraits of their land. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s critical style is demeaned. All because of Trump.
Meanwhile, Carney’s Liberals gave Stellantis about $15 billion for EV battery production but failed to secure any guarantees. Stellantis now will cease plans for Jeep Compass production originally slated for Brampton Ontario, and relocate their operations to Illinois. Ontario premier Doug Ford is blaming Trump.
In spite of the repeated blows to the economy, Trump’s role as whipping boy remains unshakeable in Canada nine months after the election. We would like to say you can only blame Trump for so long. Surely the impending $100B deficit budget and talk of Alberta/ Quebec cession will stir some to stop blaming the man staging the intervention and look at themselves.
But this being Canada you’d probably be wasting your breath. Already there is talk of a snap winter election to restore the Liberal majority before the NDP choose a new leader. The bot world keeps ignoring the flames while saying what a lovely fireplace! After urging Palestinian statehood Carney scurries to the Hamas ceasefire ceremony where Trump calls him “president”.
You can’t make this stuff up, But until reality destroys the fantasy worlds in his opponents’ heads expect Blake to knock on the door to announce, “We’re adding a little something to this month’s sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Anyone wanna see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired. Get the picture?”
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
It is a day that lives in infamy for Buffalo Bills fans. Jan. 27, 1991, with Buffalo against the New York Giants in Super Bowl XXV. Behind 20-19 with eight seconds left, Scott Norwood, a former All-Pro, attempted a 47-yard game-winning field goal. The kick was, in the immortal words of Al Michaels, wide right.
In the days of the Bills’ four consecutive losing trips to the Super Bowl a 47-yard field goal was within the range of an All Pro kicker. Still it was considered anything but automatic. And kicks of over 50 yards were moon shots with a high degree of failure. Sixty yards? Please, don’t make us laugh.
But as anyone watching field goals in the NFL and CFL can attest the distance barrier has been shattered. NFL kickers are making 72.5 percent of field goals from at least 50 yards. Four kicks have been made from at least 60 yards — one shy of the single-season record. Tampa Bay’s Chase McLaughlin hit a 65 yarder against Philadelphia in Week 4, one yard short of Justin Tucker’s record set in 2021.
Last Sunday Evan McPherson of Baltimore hit a 67-yarder that was wiped out by a late timeout called by Green Bay’ HC Matt LaFleur. (Jacksonville Jaguars kicker Cam Little hit a 70-yard field goal, but it was in preseason and not an official record.)
What makes this onslaught more interesting is that the record for longest FG in the NFL had stood 43 years from Tom Dempsey’s game-winning 63-yarder in 1970 against Detroit for New Orleans. (Dempsey, who has no toes on his right foot wore a special kicking boot.) It took Matt Prater and the light air of Denver to establish a 64 yarder on December 8, 2013. Since then it’s been bombs away.
Dallas’ Brandon Aubrey is the current king of effortless distance, regularly pounding them through from over 60. Many expect him to break the 70-yard mark. (Airlines have movies on flights that long.) No wonder then that the NFL has set records in each of the last four seasons for 50-yard field goals. The total of 195 in 2024 was double the total from every NFL season until 2015.
The combination of distance training plus a few new rules has revolutionized game strategy in today’s game. With the so-called Dynamic kickoff rules forcing more returns, teams are regularly starting drives at the 35- or 40-yard line. In late-game situations top quarterbacks like Buffalo’s Josh Allen or Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes need to get only a couple of first downs to get in the range of their kickers.
Now, a TD with under a minute left is not the death sentence for teams with one of the better kickers— as Bills fans will remember from their crushing loss in the AFC championship game to the Chiefs in 2022. The game featured 25 points scored in the final two minutes of regulation. The Chiefs took just 11 seconds to get to Harrison’s Butker’s range for a tying 47-yard field goal, then won in overtime.
Once the kicker played another position. Today they are specialists. The science of kicking has also improved with a plethora of kicking camps and coaches springing up to train the latest generation of long-distance drivers of the ball. With only 30 jobs in the NFL the competition is fierce, and only the very best get even a look at the pros, let alone s job. But with the money paid to a steady kicker there are thousands each year refining their craft and strengthening their techniques to get a sniff.
Another innovation improving distance was the league allowing teams to prepare their own kicking balls for games. Now they receive a supply of 60 game balls before the season to use in games. 49ers kicker Eddy Pineiro estimates the broken-in balls add maybe three or four yards to the distance on kicks. The rules stipulate that no artificial heating, stretching or inflating are allowed but Jets kicker, veteran Nick Folk, says that it gives him. Comfort zone.
“We get to kind of do just like quarterbacks get whatever they want to do to the ball, as long as it looks like a football and the logo’s still there and all that stuff,” Folk told AP. “I think they’re pretty lenient with that. It’s a very welcoming thing to be able to kind of look at a ball and be like: ‘All right, I want to kick this one this week, I want to kick this one this week.’”
In the CFL the place-kicking game is about to get a big shock as the league moves goal posts from the goal line to the back of the new, smaller end zones. Kickers will now be forced to kick much further for three points, while offences will play on a smaller field that requires more emphasis on TDs.
Paul McCallum stroked a 63-yard to set the league’s record, and like the NFL, CFL kickers are constantly pushing their range in a league with only one indoor surface. Unlike the NFL, the CFL allows PKers to use a tee. Suffice to say the reconfigured field will take getting used to. (Already traditionalists are fuming.) At least we don’t have the rouge on missed FGs to kick around any more.
For now the quest for a 70-yard field goal continues. The question will be how does the NFL react to re-balance the field’s dynamics to protect the integrity of scoring.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
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