RedRamage

Sorry, I know I said I was getting off the soap box, but just wanted to add some raw data because I'm sure one of the question will be: "Is there really a need to balance the playing field? How lopsided is it right now?" There's probably a million ways to answer that question but here's one. I looked back over the past 30 years for the number of teams each team has made it to the World Series. Given 60 teams played in the World Series, perfect distribution would say each team shows up twice in the past 30 years. OBVIOUSLY we're not going to see that because of MANY factors including that over just 30 series we're not going to see perfect distribution even if all other factors were equal. Still, for what it's worth, here are the numbers: Arizona Diamondbacks 2 Atlanta Braves 4 Baltimore Orioles 0 Boston Red Sox 4 Chicago White Sox 1 Chicago Cubs 1 Cincinnati Reds 0 Cleveland Indians 3 Colorado Rockies 1 Detroit Tigers 2 Houston Astros 5 Kansas City Royals 2 Los Angeles Angels 1 Los Angeles Dodgers 4 Miami Marlins 2 Milwaukee Brewers 0 Minnesota Twins 0 New York Yankees 8 New York Mets 2 Oakland Athletics 0 Philadelphia Phillies 3 Pittsburgh Pirates 0 San Diego Padres 1 San Francisco Giants 4 Seattle Mariners 0 St. Louis Cardinals 4 Tampa Bay Rays 2 Texas Rangers 3 Toronto Blue Jays 0 Washington Nationals 1 2 teams have five or more appearances: Yankees and Astros. 8 teams have 3 or 4 appearances 6 teams have 2 appearances 6 teams have 1 appearance 8 teams have 0 appearances 33.3% have MORE appearance then average 20% have exactly average 46.6% have LOWER than average Instead of the expected bell curve that's higher in the middle, we have a upside down bell curve that's higher on the edges.

Next: Cap/Floor for baseball... Again, I can see an argument saying that there shouldn't be a cap on how much a player can make or that we should penalize a team that does good marketing and therefore has more money to spend. And I can see some value in that argument. However, we've seen salary caps be effective in leveling the playing field in other sports and I appreciate that aspect. If we have a contest to see how many balls we can throw into a bucket with the most times getting a ball in the bucket, if I have 100 balls to throw and you only have 10... I probably going to win the contest more of than not, even if I'm not as accurate as you. I feel the same applies towards sports. If my GM has a $300M payroll to work with, more often than not my team is going to be more successful than your team, who's GM only have $90M... even if your GM is better than mine. Now, if we're going to set a cap and we're going to require sharing of media revenue, we also need to set a floor to ensure that the teams getting the benefit of the revenue sharing aren't just pocketing the extra loot. Is the floor the most effective method of ensure a club fields a competitive team? Probably not, and I'd be open to exploring other options (such as investment in player development, scouting, training camps in other countries, etc) but there has to be a clear and definable method to the other options, one that can be easily checked and verified by the league to again ensure the receivers to the revenue sharing aren't just pocketing the profits and not caring about the team they put on the field. A salary floor is one easy method to do this so I'd argue for that, at least until we can find a better method. Okay, I'll get off my soap box now.

I 100% agree that this (and the rest of your post) are true, but I don't think it's precludes the idea of a cap/floor. Rather it further highlights the needs for a cap/floor along with better revenue sharing... at least in my humble opinion. One one hand the Yankees and Dodgers (to pick on the usual suspects) should be lauded for building the following that they have. Granted, they've had the benefit of playing a large market, but so have the Mets and Angels, and they don't have have quite the following the first two teams do, so it's not just the large market that have made them successful. So yeah, again, on one hand it's hard to argue that they've been TOO successful and therefore should be punished by having to give some of their money to other teams. On the other hand if MLB consisted just of the Yankees and the Dodgers (and maybe 2 or 4 other teams) it probably won't have nearly the following it has and those teams would have the fan following that they do. The Yankees and Dodgers need the other teams to play against. The YES network isn't going to be successful showing the Yankees playing scrimmages against themselves 162 times. So on the other hand I think it's very reasonable to say that the Yankees success (in terms of media revenue) are in a significant part because of the other teams in the league and therefore it's reasonable that they should have to share that revenue. The debate, in my mind, is not IF, but HOW MUCH should be shared.

That's the part that I think people miss when comparing big vs. small markets. It's not just that you have enough money to sign the big names... it's that if you miss on them you're not handicapped for the next 5 years. How many times over the years have we said something like: "Well, when player-X is off the books, hopefully Ilitch will be willing to spend more." Now I know this is an oversimplification, but there is truth to it.

Agreed 100%.

Answering my own question because I like to hear myself talk (or type): Probably not entirely no... telling someone they can only earn x-amount of money because you want to make other teams remain competitive is a bit anti-capitalist. So is there a way to make it more fair? My humble suggestion (which likely has a million holes in it) would be to: Set a salary cap, and a salary floor. Pool media deals... maybe something like 75% of media revenue goes into a common pot with 25% remaining with the original team. Cut up and distribute the media pool: 75% goes to teams, 1/30th for each team. 25% goes to players, not sure how to divide this up (evenly for each? based on years in MLB? I dunno) But this goes back to owners needing to open some of the books up.

Get a good team in a big market = better media deals = more revenue to spend on the team = better team in a big market = better media deals = ... It's not quite as simple as saying that the small markets don't have the media revenue to compete, but I do feel that's a big part of it. I've always felt that not having a salary cap is kinda like letting some players use PEDs, and in fact letting the most successful a player gets letting them have more PEDs. It creates an uneven playing field for front offices. You could be the best GM out there in terms of picking players, but if the other guy can just throw more money at players that you want AND not suffer the same draw backs of making a mistake on a contract, you're not going to be as successful. Now again this is only part of the problem. You have to have owners who WANT to win and are willing to pay to win. But a salary cap would at least level the playing field a bit. But is it fair to players?

https://www.detroitlions.com/video/2025-lions-schedule-release Interesting... as someone not from Detroit I didn't recognize all the places, but cool to see some landmarks of Detroit that I did know. I do think they missed out on an opportunity though... they should have had the Bengal/Lions game in front of Comerica Park.

I honestly have a very hard time seeing the Lions signing Rodgers. I think they'd avoided plenty of talented players because of culture fit questions, and Rodgers isn't the QB he used to be. The dude is 41 now and I know QBs can usually play longer than other positions, but still 41 is old. So you have a guy who's talent level is declining and who's about as far from a culture fit as I think you can get outside of criminal activity... I don't see it.

That doesn't surprise me at all. There's sound logic there, at least looking at this from outside the organization. The Lions defense was obviously the issue last year and you're two biggest stars there are unproven right now. McNeill probably won't be starting the season and Hutch is a question mark whether he'll be 100%. Next it's a road game for the Lions, so GB gets some advantage there. Now add in that the Lions just lost both of their main coordinators and you'll expect that there will be at least some work figuring out how the new DC, and especially OC, want to run things. Add all that up and yeah... I'd probably lean towards the Pack having the slight advantage as well. From the Lions perspective this is great bulletin board material: Coaches to the players: "They don't respect you. They don't respect Dan Campbell. They think it was just AG and Ben who were running things here and make it all work. They think that now that those two are gone you're all going to fall apart."

Anyone need new wall paper for their phone?

Honestly I'd prefer my team does NOT play on Christmas. Too much other stuff going on then.

The Lions did just get an opening day game a few years ago so it's entirely possible they are just trying to spread the love around a bit.

Ah, I did not realize that... then yeah, that was absolutely the right call and not any sort of generous gift from the refs.

Both teams are winning on about an average of once a week.