Featured Entry - Economic Systems in Professional Sports

The professional sports leagues in America, although often associated with each other with similarities, are pretty diverse in some key economic parts. Notably, the National Football League and Major League Baseball use very different systems when it comes to acquiring players. Personally, from the stance of making the league more interesting (resulting in more interest in, and thus, more profit), I think the NFL has an advantage in its method. The NFL has something called a “cap,” which is set the same for each team, so when trying to keep a good team and bringing in draft picks & free agents, no team has any fiscal advantage over the other. That is why standings change so drastically each year and dynasties are far and few. In the MLB, however, the monetary gains of a team (products, advertising, tickets, food sales, etc.) connect with its player spending money, so teams with higher fan bases and/or that are located in big cities are at a large fiscal advantage (ex. NY Yankees vs. Kansas City Royals). That way, the same teams can stay good for more years than it should be allowed to, in a sense. That is one reason why I personally like the NFL much more than MLB.

- Andrew Citrin