I know the Jays are known to hide their profits as they are owned by Rogers media which broadcasts the majority of their games on TV and all of their games on the radio.

i’d say financially, football is the best run…but it’s also the most strict and least kind to players….but it’s definitely the most “play for pay” league….the thing that bugs me often about baseball is contracts like what will happen this offseason….manny had an extraordinarily great season, even while switching leagues to a “tougher” pitching league (and tougher hitter’s park), and he’ll try (and likely get) four GUARANTEED years in his late 30s….not that he shouldn’t try for it if someone’s willing to give it to him, but it’s absurd the amount of guaranteed money thrown around….that said, i couldn’t imagine having an nba system….mid-level exceptions and light handed luxury taxes make their salary “cap” a joke….

Salary caps do little to introduce parity, and more to drag down player salaries. A salary cap doesn’t help the Royals retain their players because they can’t (won’t?) spend money on a $70 million payroll. So there will always be teams that spend very little, and a bunch of teams that spend the maximum amount. How does that reduce disparity? All it does is limit salaries, which is preposterous since the players are the ones doing the work.

A better solution is more revenue sharing, but then you run into the problem of freeloaders like the Royals and Pirates.

i copied this off an old idea….one i found would still have the same problems in #3 and #4….so here’s the revisions to those:

3. Salary cap will be adjusted yearly as the entire salary of the 40 player roster at league average wage….using a $1 million number, that would be $60 million….

4. Minimum salary will rise by the same rate as average salary the previous season, never less than 15% of the average salary

using these, the 2009 floor would be $78,871,125….the cap would be $126,193,800…the league average salary from 2008 for those number is $3,154,845, making the minimum $477,273

these numbers look huge for some teams until you realize that the floor would have been the median salary last year WITHOUT the huge monetary benefit that shared TV money would create, and only 4 teams outspent the cap number….

(1) MLB teams, unlike the other sports, derive a great bulk of their money from local TV and radio deals. While the NFL simply divides a national TV deal 32 ways, MLB has a national TV deal AND local TV deals that allow the Yankees to generate much more money than the Royals. If you are to put all that money into a big pot and split it 30 ways, you reduce the incentive to get the best TV deal you can and maximize profit. Plus, it is unfair to penalize the Yankees and Mets and Red Sox who have already invested millions in setting up their own sports television networks to then force them to share those profits with teams that have done nothing.

I don’t see how the national deal favors large market teams. I believe it is split 30 ways – do you have evidence to the contrary? It is the local deals (YES and NESN vs. Fox Sports Kansas City) that is the cause of the disparity, not the national deals with FOX, ESPN and TBS.

2. A salary floor makes a good deal of sense. I don’t think it should be year-to-year though, some teams will want to “go young” once in awhile, so maybe make it an average of three seasons.

3. I don’t see how a salary cap helps at all for the reasons I outlined above. The problem is revenues. Teams like the Royals aren’t going to spend anywhere near the maximum. So you still have major disparity issues and all you’ve done is dragged player salaries, unfairly to players.

4. Makes a good deal of sense.

a few points that seem more off the hip than well researched….salary cap proposals as a whole INCREASE average salaries and especially help those players just starting their careers….

and some info on parity in the NFL, just fyi…while you (and media types who don’t feel like researching) say the patriots have “dominated” since 2000, they’ve simply done a minor version of what the steelers, niners, and cowboys did in different eras of the league….but what is different than those eras is that there have been 12 different franchises play in the Super Bowl since 2000….and EVERY team in the league has had at least one .500 or better season since 2000….no other sport can say that….