Is the NFL communist?

[George_Bonanza]

I mean revenue sharing, salary caps... That's sort of like the real world equivalent of taxes to cut down the discrepencies in the haves and have nots of society. This is why tiny markets like Green Bay are perenially contenders while rich teams like NY aren't guaranteed the best free agents, a la the NHL or MLB, the filthy capitalist-gone-wrong leagues.

[trotsky]

1. In a way, yes.

And I love it. Makes for a much more competitive league. Plenty of surprises every year, rather than the same teams, year after year, being basically the only ones competing for a title.

[Fight_n_back]

2. Its not a salary cap

it is a talent cap. Why not a revenue cap? If the owners make over a certain amount they have to start having free games or something.

There are no great teams now and sports is about acheiving greatness.

the revenue sharing makes sense because the NY Giants don't make any money if no one comes to play them. Having revenue sharing AND a talent cap AND a college draft is NOT socialist but good old fashioned capitalist labor exploitation.

[jenk]

3. it gets boring after a while, I prefer a league with dynasties

rather than a league with mostly 8-8 teams and 2 different teams in the super bowl each year. It's like every year there are 2 designated "surprise teams" after a while it's not surprising or the least bit interesting.

Football peaked in 1994, since the cap it's been all downhill.

[VermontDem2004]

14. Suprising teams?

I wasn't the least bit surprise when Tampa and Oakland played in the Super Bowl last year, the year before that I expected a St. Louis-Oakland Super Bowl but New England beat Oakland due to a bad call in which later lead to a St. Louis-New England Super Bowl. BTW, there was only 3 8-8 teams last year. 3 out of 32 does not constitute as "mostly". Plus the salary cap has nothing to do with it, the players comming out of college or so much talented and so great which later led to this. The talent level is almost so even among most of the teams, Arizona had a playoff team last year but unfortanetly after their hot start 12 starters and 6 replacement starters were diagnosed with season ending injuries. If you are going to critize the NFL atleast be informed while doing so. :)

[lynndew2]

4. Not Communist cause if it were

then all the touchdowns would belong to all the teams in the league and they would end the season in a 32 way tie...lol:P

[Ohio Dem]

7. Nah. My Bengals would still go 3-13. nt

[lynndew2]

9. LOL that throws the whole commie thing off

[Deja Q]

5. Doesn't bother me

Especially when some players' salaries are so ludicrously high.

And yet they want taxpayers to pay the bill for new stadiums.

They charge $50 for a single crap seat, then they can pay for a new stadium.

[HuckleB]

6. Hmm.

Weak union = communist? Nope. An oligarchy of the owners, perhaps, spunging off taxpayer subsidies (like all sports), while keeping the workers under wraps.

[George_Bonanza]

12. The flip side: Strong unions

That's the problem in the NHL. The NHLPA is too greedy and will not budge. I side with the owners on this issue. Hockey is not that popular throughout America and has miniscule TV deals compared to the almighty NFL, yet the average salary in the NHL exceeds that of a football player? Something's wrong here. Player salaries should be relative to the state of the league. And the fact is that the NHL's teams are rapidly losing a lot of money due to excessive player salaries which in turn drives away customers because it makes seats expensive. The NHL is a gate revenue dependent league, and high player salaries kill that.

[Yavin4]

8. Don't Forget The NFL Draft

which awards weak teams with the first picks.

[George_Bonanza]

11. Sort of like a welfare system to help the downtrodden get back up, huh?

Or is it a bad analogy?

[KG]

10. Democratic Socialism works!

:)

[trigz]

13. Communist with wages of $X zillion a year? Hardly. (n/t)