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A column I wrote back in the early oughts. The last column that was published in the Alternative Mag I wrote for here in Cleveland.
If you like college or pro football, and more of us each year are drawn to the games, chances are you agree with the basic premise behind Affirmative Action. But if your cup of tea is pro baseball, and we all know where the attendance for that sport is headed, then you are probably inclined to dismiss anything remotely connected with the concept of Affirmative Action.
Why you ask? It’s Simple; football seeks competitive parity while baseball revels in market domination.
Beyond the obvious differences between the sports, such as Football fans at both the college and pro level paint their faces while Baseball’s number one advocate is George Will, lie fundamental distinctions that split along the progressive conservative ideological line.
For example, football approaches everything like a work in progress. Nothing is sacred and everything is subject to change if it makes the game better. Every year, sometimes it seems every minute, there are new guidelines, a continuous tinkering with the game that both confounds and delights fans. With this "we'll try anything" approach to improve the game goes a willingness to admit mistakes. This makes the game feel relevant. In contrast, baseball's last attempt to evolve was the designated hitter rule and that is still being nit-picked decades after it was adopted.
Football thrives in diversity, not just on the field, which is important, but also in its approach to the sport, where it is imperative. Rules implemented and enforced at both the college and pro level have embraced parity that should, as free marketers will tell you, have stifled competition and destroyed the game. (Does that argument sound familiar?) But just the opposite occurred. Meanwhile, baseball continues to resist every attempt at leveling the playing field within the game itself. If you follow the argument of those same free marketers who claim pure competition produces the most efficient result, then why is MLB limping into the 21st century faced with the real possibility that several teams may soon be downsized?
On the collegian level, not that long ago, football teams were able to offer up to 120 athletic scholarships. It wasn’t unheard of for a coach to grab players just to keep them from a rival team. Would these players see action? Not likely as depth charts at every position ran deep. Schools with large endowments and national reputations dominated the sport. When the number of legal scholarships dropped to 85, the sport took off. Players, who once rode the bench at Enormous U, are now able to start and excel at smaller colleges. Competition replaced dominance as more teams representing smaller schools joined the fray thus expanding the fan base.
Pro football? Pete Rozell long ago recognized the value of having competition open to as many teams as possible. By conducting the players draft in a worst to first order, the bottom team of last year could easily become a competitive team next. This made the assessment of talent and the ability of the coach and front office perhaps as important as the product on the field. The NFL thrived even when competition was “shackled” by these restrictions.
Because of these steps, which can easily be considered Affirmative Action, football has a universality that baseball can only envy. Consider this: network executives are always fretting about who will make it to the World Series. Last year, corporate media's biggest fear was a match-up between small market Minnesota and medium market St. Louis. Where’s New York? We must have California! And this year’s College football championship face-off between Ohio State and Miami would have, if it was a rematch of the Cleveland vs. Miami World Series, sent network executive grabbing for the antacid bottle. Instead, this match-up enjoyed monster ratings.
Baseball’s refusal to embrace anything except complete market-based competition between its clubs inherently produces a narrow parochial base of fans while the football model of evening the competitive playing field between teams transcends such limited territorial boundaries. New York dominates in baseball because it has more resources at its disposal. It’s that simple. Teams such as Cleveland or Kansas City may only have one chance to grab the brass ring before limited market size forces them back to mediocrity. As for football, the second largest media market, LA, doesn’t even have a pro team.
The charge that Affirmative Action stifles the efficient operation of the markets by limiting competition is simply groundless. Even Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, hardly a moderate let alone remotely liberal, recognizes what opponents of Affirmative Action refuse to admit; that an unrestricted marketplace doesn’t always produce the best outcome. Just ask Bud Selig.
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