Is contraction really the answer?
Should Major League baseball start eliminating under-peforming teams? What about the NBA or the NFL?
Fox Sports Ken Rosenthal is the latest to ask the question, putting fans in Oakland and Tampa on, if not high alert, at least an elevated level, writing that:
Fans of the Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays need not worry. But don’t be surprised if the “C” word — contraction — returns to the baseball lexicon soon.
I’m already hearing rumblings that certain big-market teams want to drop the A’s and Rays, even though the idea stands little chance of actually becoming reality.
Still, a major battle is brewing over revenue sharing, baseball’s method of rich teams helping the poor. Contraction would be an extreme solution, but one that addresses the big-market concern: Why keep struggling clubs afloat?
This comes on the heels of stories last fall that the NBA would consider contracting teams as a way to solve the league’s financial troubles:
“It’s a sensitive subject for me because I’ve spent 27 years in this job working very hard not only to maintain all of our teams, but along the way add a few,” commissioner David Stern said during his preseason conference call.
“But I think that’s a subject that will be on the table with the players as we look to see what’s the optimum way to present our game, and are there cities and teams that cannot make it in the current economic environment. I’m not spending a lot of time on it.”
While we understand the financial realities of pro sports and it makes sense that fewer teams would possibly be better, as Cleveland fans any talk of contraction makes us nervous.
The big unanswered question is: How would teams be selected for elimination?
Certainly the Browns wouldn’t be contracted if the subject ever came up within the NFL, not after everything that went on after the move. And Cleveland couldn’t have supported the Cavs any stronger than they did in the past seven years; same with the Indians from 1995 to 2001.
But teams generally cycle through good times and bad, and fan support cycles with them. Teams that are down now would, in theory, be the ones facing contraction. But is that fair?
If we were having this conversation in the 1970s or ’80s, it would be hard to argue that the Indians should not be eliminated. Year after year of owners with no money fielding bad teams in a crumbling stadium in front of 5,000 fans each night would have left the Tribe as prime candidates for contraction.
Same with the Cavs during Ted Stepien’s reign of errors and the dark years pre-LeBron, when Ricky Davis and Trajan Langdon played before a sea of blue seats on a nightly basis.
Imagine Cleveland as a one-sport town, where we would get 16 Browns games a year and that’s it for pro sports. Not something we like to think about.
We sometimes lose sight of how other fans are impacted by their teams, because nothing anyone else goes through compares to the pain of being a Cleveland fan. But on the issue of contraction, we would feel their pain.
Because this time they might be coming for them. But next time, what if they come for us?
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Yeah, poor Denver (speaking of not having sympathy for other teams).
Again, don’t remember this being such a problem last July.
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If this truly is Liverpool’s away shirt for next season, the only thing we have to say is Blech!
Adidas can’t really think putting the Reds in the color of cross-town rival Everton is a good idea. That would be the same as having the Browns come out for a game in black-and-gold.
Please tell us it ain’t so.
Red Right 88 