MLB, NBA, NFL - Different Degrees of "Corruption"

[ritehook]

With some forum talk re bias in big games, I was reminded of the observation a few years ago of an astute sports analyst.

Maybe it was on ESPN, I can't recall.

But he stated - correctly, I think - that baseball's main emphasis is on records. That is what the doping scandals are all about - should so-and-so have an asterisk after his name if he breaks a record while taking a performance-enhancer.

All the baseball fanatics I've known have been walking encyclopedias of records.

With the NFL, goes this sharp analysis, the main emphasis is on teams. It's all about a team - the players also to be sure, but not to the extent as in the NBA.

Tbe team is god in NFL. And the League draws hellfire when it lets a team - especially an old team, like Cleveland a few years back - desert one city for another. That also brings undesired political heat.

NBA is all about star players. Someone in China may not know where Chicago or Cleveland are, but they will instantly recognize the name of Micheal Jordan and Lebron James, and of course the several top Chinese players in the NBA.

These sports are all primarily businesses. They have to appeal not only to diehard fans but also to casual onlookers, world citizens. So they tolerate doping and referee favoritism, and in the case of NFL and NBA, sponsor it. Who cares?

These "sports" are products, and all products must be properly packaged. Fuk the purists who insist on old-fashioned bias-free judging. Ain't no place for those out-of-step Puritans in the new global market.

[Wheell]

Agreed. However, there are market forces you aren't mentioning that lead to corruption. I have come to accept a little bit of arsenic in my water and a little bit of corruption in my sporting events... and a lot of corruption in my elections, but that has always been true.

[mmarino]

As a major in sports management, through much studying of exactly this, this is why the NFL is the most successful league. They market themselves as teams - therefore the reasoning for rules such as not being allowed to take your helmet off on the field.

[DaveRabbit]

These "sports" are products, and all products must be properly packaged. Fuk the purists who insist on old-fashioned bias-free judging. Ain't no place for those out-of-step Puritans in the new global market.

right on bro - fvck the purist fvck the sport - fanatism is for kids. it's all about the money for them as it should be for us.

[ritehook]

right on bro - fvck the purist fvck the sport - fanatism is for kids. it's all about the money for them as it should be for us.

Right. But we're fans not only because we enjoy the game, but because we want to make a few bucks by correctly analyzing the outcome of some of the contests.

Ideally, we'd get market-free officiating. I realized last century that this ain't always so, not by accident, human error, but due to NFL's wish sometimes to get at least one Dream Team in their showcase event (which I rarely bet, tho I'll watch it, mostly with disgust).

Lacking that, you do have to factor in at least a little of the NFL's more or less habitual playoff game corruption into your handicapping. NFL marketers are creaming in their drawers over getting not one but two Dream Teams into their global commercial extravangaza in February. (Favre vs Brady - ready to puke yet?)

(If it happens I simply will not watch or listen to any sports show in that two week period. Regurgitation ain't my fave activity. Hey, what's happening in Iran, or with the election, or sh-t, even with Britney, etc)

With NE being a two TD + fave, no offiiciating help is likely going to be needed. But if SD gets close, you will almost certainly see a fake call against them.

Won't likely affect the big pointspread, and if it hits 16 I'll make a small bet on the Bolts, even minus LT. Rivers will play.

[Willie Bee]

MLB, NFL and NBA all emphasize the same thing: Money. It's not about the records in MLB, the team in NFL or the player in the NBA. There might be some attention paid to all of those things by one group or another in the marketing department at each league's headquarters. But trying to compartmentalize all three of these sports into some neat little column seems a useless and erroneous exercise to me.

Each league appeals to different types of fans and bettors. Some fans and bettors cross over to two or more of the leagues, but everyone has their favorite for as many different reasons as there are fans and bettors. Of course, some bettors don't necessarily have a clue about the history or drama of any of the leagues, they just like the action. Just using the words the action, or setting them off in italics like that for the reading eye, will give some bettors a little woody.

As for which league is the most successful, they all have been at various times. Baseball, which was long a king before professional football and basketball started to climb past it, is making a very strong and a very quiet comeback to the top of the heap. That is, if you measure success by just dollars and cents. The estimates that were laid out in a recent CNNMoney.com piece by Chris Isidore show that MLB has basically doubled its annual revenue since 2000 and has caught the NFL with about $6 billion for 2007. So I hope that wherever there is sports management being included in curriculum, these facts are being studied and related to just how they have been able to do it (i.e., MLB is probably the #1 league on the list in terms of internet sales and MLB's huge push to make the entire world its market has exceeded what most people thought).

As for marketing 'teams,' what I found true some 35 years ago remains true today. I was never really a Yankee fan, but when you're halfway around the world, traipsing through some deep Thailand jungle and spot a Yankees cap, the only baseball cap you see for months, then I've got to think there's at least one team in MLB that has done as good a job if not better than any team in the NFL. Certainly sports merchandise from the NFL and NBA has skyrocketed since then, and you do see a lot of Chicago Bulls, Oakland Raders, etc, jerseys and caps on people these days. But that familiar NY logo on navy blue caps, a design/style that is the same and just as popular/successful now as it was 90 years ago or so, that's still the most recognizable American pro sports logo there is.

As for, "Fuk the purists who insist on old-fashioned bias-free judging," feel free to fuk away. I can live with being accused of having "bias-free judging."

[Junkyard Dog]

As a major in sports management, through much studying of exactly this, this is why the NFL is the most successful league. They market themselves as teams - therefore the reasoning for rules such as not being allowed to take your helmet off on the field.

where do you go to school?