A little about parity

Something I have talked about before came up again on Sunday. This idea of parity in sports. For whatever reason, Baseball seems to be the sport that takes the heat for having the most uneven playing field. So to speak.

What you hear is that in Baseball, only the Yankees can win. Only the rich teams can compete. Then football season starts and you hear about how the NFL is great because any team can win the championship every year.

You hear this, but it isn't true.

The first clue was that, prior to Sunday, the Patriots won 3 out of the last 4 Super Bowls. Baseball has had 5 straight years of a different champion, including two teams in two years where neither team had won a World Series in almost 90 years.

Then came Sunday. The Steelers won the Super Bowl. And Paul Tagliabue stated that they are the third team to win their 5th Super Bowl title.

Now that is three teams (Steelers, Cowboys, 49ers) that have won 15 out 40 Super Bowls. Thats 38%.

I did a little research and some comparisons.

Numbers of different champions in the last 40 years.
NFL 17
NBA 13
MLB 19

but considering the NFL has more teams than MLB, and considering that the people that argue this point are claiming to be out to help the little team, its more significant to look at how many have not won.

Number of different teams that have not won championships in the last 40 years.
NFL 15
NBA 17
MLB 11

Now tell me which league is harder for the little guy to win in?

Yet for whatever reason I have to hear people I know saying things like "I don't really care about Baseball because my team can't compete." Yeah, your team can't win because ESPN told you they can't. Stop listening to them!

-T