Free Agency Brings Parity to NFL
By Andrew Kessler
Sports Writer

This is one I will argue to the bitter end. There was no better sporting event in the country this weekend than the very game I encouraged all of you to go out and see a week ago. With apologies to the amazing victory by LSU over Kentucky, this year’s game between Pomona-Pitzer and CMS was simply as good as sports get. With rain pouring on the field, (and emotion and effort pouring out on the field even harder) the Sagehens defeated the previously unbeaten Stags 12-7 in a game that featured more ups and downs than a David Lynch script. For all of those folks who made the intelligent decision to brave the weather and take in the contest, I commend you…but you already know that it was one of the best decisions that you made all semester.

Moving on to football at a higher (but not more important) level, the NFL is clearly the best of the four major leagues from a competition standpoint. One can truly say, with the exception of the Bangles, that on “any given Sunday” anyone can win. No game illustrates this better than this past Monday’s contest between Oakland and Denver. The Raiders came into the game having lost four in a row and looking as old as Al Davis, while the Broncos were seemingly on track to become the dominant team in the AFC. But true to form for the NFL this year, the Raiders came out and dominated their division rival on the field a mile high. Amazing…right? Well…maybe. While one would have to call this game an upset, it can not be seen as atypical for a league with unprecedented parity.

This parity has come about primarily for one reason, free agency. Ten years ago the NFL began its era of “true free agency” after the players successfully won their landmark McNeil case, which paved the way for the current system of player movement. While it is the stars of the NFL who you know, football is the ultimate team sport and each game is won by the entire team. Free agency allows lesser teams to change the bulk of their team quickly and it often results in top teams hanging on to their absolute best players but losing much of the core of their squad which is often the part of the team that makes it as good as it is. While the NFL originally thought that free agency would hurt competitive balance because it would allow for all of the wealthier teams to “buy” all of the best players, the League, as well as the fans, have learned that this is not the case for two very fundamental reasons. First, all NFL teams are of the “high revenue” variety due to their humongous national television contracts. This is what makes its situation different than that of Major League Baseball and the NHL, and a little different than the NBA. Second, no matter how much money a team would offer Peyton Manning, he is not going to the same team that Bret Favre is on. The same is true for Ricky Williams and Tiki Barber and so on. This rationale of star players of the same position not overlapping one another also applies to the three other leagues mentioned. However, the combination of it with the “uniform high revenue nature” of all NFL teams is what makes the league and its response to free agency unique amongst the “big four.”

Gamblers may complain about the current state of the NFL since the team they let their loot ride on looks like a lock for the Super Bowl one week and then gets beat on the next. Among fans who aren’t addicted gamblers, however, you will be hard pressed to find much dissatisfaction as every week there is excitement and every week we see a new hero. Your team is in the playoff hunt throughout the whole season, but never has secured a thing until the final weekend of the regular season. Things are so close that the whole season almost seems like one big playoff. When sociologists try to figure out why football has supplanted baseball as the national pastime, and conclude that it must have something to due with the violent nature of the country they should climb out of their towers, get out from behind their desks, and look at the plain facts illustrated right here.