In the wake of the Knicks' trade for Carmelo Anthony last week, I've heard a lot of writers and fans lament the consolidation of talent as a major blow to parity in the NBA. My question is: what parity?
In the past 30 years, a mere eight different franchises have won an NBA title. Since 1983, only twice has a team lower than a three seed advanced to the Finals. The fact is, parity has NEVER existed in the NBA. Each year, less than eight teams have a realistic chance of winning a championship.
The NFL is often lauded as the model for parity in professional sports. Since 1980, the league has had 15 different franchises win championships. In the past six years, three wild card teams have taken home the Lombardi Trophy. It's common to attribute this "any given Sunday" excitement to the NFL's staunch commitment to a salary cap. But parity was around before the cap was installed in 1993. In the 27 Super Bowls prior to that season, the NFL still crowned 12 different champions. And the NBA also has a ceiling on roster spending, yet can't come close to reaching the level of parity that the NFL enjoys. It's clear that the roots of football's level playing field run deeper than the creation of a salary cap.
So what is the brilliant strategy that the NFL uses to ensure that most fans can dream of a Super Bowl in August? The truth is...there is none. In reality, the cause of football's parity comes from the nature of the sport itself. Since very few scoring plays provide big chunks of points to low-scoring games in a limited regular season, random occurrences, specifically luck, play a much bigger factor in football than they do in any other sport.
To explain this, I'll give you a poker analogy. I'm not a good poker player. My talent at the game is levels below any of the pros you see on TV. And yet, I could beat one of them. Play one hand, and no matter how much more knowledgeable my opponent is, luck could deal me better cards than him. However, stretch our match to 100 hands, and my opponent's talent will shine through. The more hands you deal, the more the outcome depends on talent and the less it depends on luck.
Sports is no different. There were a total of 628 points scored in 16 Packer regular season games this year. There were 56 points scored in the Super Bowl. One touchdown accounted for 1.1% of the total scoring in Green Bay's season and 12.5% in the championship game. Compare that to last year's Lakers, who saw 16,291 points in their 82 regular season games, along with 1,244 in the seven-game Finals against the Celtics. One basket made up 0.01% of the scores in the season and 0.16% in the championship match. Looking at those numbers, a scoring play has 100 times the affect in the NFL that it does in the NBA.
Since a basketball game sees hundreds of shots and points, the impact of a random occurrence of luck is relatively insignificant. If Kobe Bryant trips while defending a jumper, then his team surrenders a mere two points out of 180 in that game. Compare that to an Ed Reed slip on a touchdown pass, which gives up seven points out of the 40 total scored that day, and you see the difference. In basketball, an underdog can rarely count on a lucky bounce to help them to an upset. With so many hands being dealt, the cream typically rises to the top. Yet how often do we say that one play decided an entire football game? And with only 16 games in the regular season and a single game for each playoff matchup, one play could mean the difference between a 9-7 season and a championship run.
I think the new NFL CBA agreement will include a salary cap. But if it doesn't, don't listen to the doomsayers who will lament the end of parity for football. Football, unlike other sports, naturally pushes teams towards an even playing field, no matter their difference in talent. Cap or not cap, parity will allow fans to count on any given Sunday for as long as football is played.
"random occurrences, specifically luck, play a much bigger factor in football than they do in any other sport." Very, very true. There is also something to be said for the NFL Playoff system, which is completely unique with respect to MLB, NHL, and NBA formats. Those formats (5-7 game series') both garner maximum revenue, but also often see the actual "better" team win. In the NFL's one-and-done model, if a team has a bad day, they have a bad season. In MLB/NHL/NBA playoff land, the truly better team will likely have a better 5 games needed to win then the lesser team will. One bad game a series does not cost.
ReplyDeleteI would consider the fact that though the NFL has parity, it also craps on its players more than any other league. Why? The average player's career is 3.5 years in the NFL. There are no guaranteed contracts. So, parity is great for the fan, don't get me wrong. It just sucks for the players.
Pete,
ReplyDeleteGreat post!!
Another factor that adds to parity in football is the relatively short careers of players. Halfbacks have about a 3-6 year lifespan. Quarterbacks, perhaps the most important position, tend to last no more than 10. Contrast that with baseball where a player can be dominant for a much longer period. I'm not sure how it works in basketball (an seriously, who cares about basketball).
I also wonder whether football is trending away from parity.
While I'd argue that football is one of the true "team sports" in that every play a group of people need to work together to suceed every play. Contrast it to basketball where dominant players are surrounded with roll players. Additionally contrast it with baseball where the "battle," so to speak, is essentially between the pitcher and the hitter. I'd also argue there's more strategy in football as opposed to basketball and baseball.
Additionally over the last decade I there has been an increased reliance on quarterbacks in the NFL. As your previous blog pointed out, supply is not equalling demand. When you look at the last 10 years or so, it is wholly evident that a team needs a stud QB to win a superbowl. As the league continues to move towards pass-happy offenses, I wonder if parity will suffer as a result. Could stud QBs affect parity in the league?
I think this is where controls like salary cap and free agency come into play. It forces teams to weaken itself in another area in order to keep a pivitol player. So I think those elements must be preserved in a future CBA.
Absolutely correct B-Man, the NFL playoff system has a lot to do with the parity. One bad play can end your season in the NFL, but one bad game in the NBA playoffs and your team still has multiple games to make up for it.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, the fleeting nature of an NFL player's career is precisely the reason that they don't get guaranteed contracts. You see an Evan Longoria come up and you know he'll be crushing homers for the next decade. But Adrian Peterson has a few short years before the hits start to add up.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteI'd love for them to keep the salary cap in the new CBA (and I do think they will) because it definitely helps parity. But if they do get rid of it, we'll never see football go the way of baseball, where a team like the Cowboys can buy superstars to guarantee themselves a playoff berth every year.
You make a very good point about elite QBs decreasing the amount of parity in the league. Whereas teams swing and miss on free agents and draft picks, the one certainty in the league is that you need a top-10 QB to win a championship. The only teams in the past two decades that didn't fit that bill were the '00 Ravens and '02 Bucs, both of which had one of the best defenses in NFL history. In football it seems that the quality of your QB, not the amount of cash in your owner's wallet, is what separates the haves from the have-nots.
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