Salary Caps

Disco Raheem

I've noticed reading a lot of your sports debates the issue of how much each team spends on player contracts.

In Australia, every code of sports played has salary caps. Basically, that means there's a set limit that every club can spend on player salaries. How they divide it up is at the clubs discretion, but go over and theres big trouble (as happened to the Rugby League team the Bulldogs.)

I really can't imagine how it's even feasible to run a competition any other way, I mean especially after reading that whole yankees thing it seems like a total joke.

Just a bit of an observation, and was wondering what other people thought about the idea of salary caps.

Miakal

I'm not a sports dude, but I thought there was a salary cap in baseball...?

I thought that it was just set extremely high, thus making it pointless.

It is a joke, though. It's unfair that some teams would have so much to spend on players while others don't. How can you really have adequate competition that way?

Drunksader

Every major US sport save hockey I believe has a salary cap or something like it. Baseball and Basketball have luxury taxes, (correct me if I'm wrong on hoops) and Football has a very stringent cap that has kept the game amazingly competitive. In my opinion all sports should adopt the NFL's salary cap model.

Freak

I think the NFL and NBA are the only leagues out of the "big 4" that have actual salary caps, and while the NBA's is really strange and confusing, the NFL's is near-perfect in my mind. MLB has those luxury taxes, but they really do next to nothing, since teams can spend however much they want on any one player. The NHL's collective bargaining agreement ends in 2004 and the owners are pushing for a cap to be instituted, but that would take time to appeal to the players.

Dr. Giganto

The NFL has a very stringent cap. In fact, i think its a little too restrictive, in that it prevents teams from being successful for long periods of time. for example, neither of 2002's super bowl teams even made the playoffs last year. But overall, it works really well

The NBA has both a salary cap and a luxury tax. There are ways to get above the salary cap, but if you surpass it, you have to pay the tax. Its very complicated to explain the details of it. but in general, it works pretty well. and it at least allows "dynasties" like the Lakers, and allows teams to have some sort of long-term success, while still allowing bad teams to pull themselves out of the gutter (like the Nets did recently)

Major League Baseball has no salary cap, which allows the Yankees to have a payroll of $180 million. but if you go above a certain amount, you pay a tax. but the yankees are the only team that pays the tax. i think the threshold is something like $150 million. Baseball is a mess, and its more than just the payroll/economics thing. The people running baseball are so ####ing stupid. They really have no idea what theyre doing