With a salary cap, players can be affected in many ways, some good and some bad. A star player could make the same that player has made without a salary cap, but a player with a lot more experience would make less because the total payroll would exceed the available amount . So, where does the parity come into play? Parity means the state or condition of being equal, regarding status and pay (“Parity”). The star player of the team would make less because he/she would be a rookie. Where’s the justice in that?
Starting in 1960, the NFL (National Football League) has become the most successful sports league in the United States. The NFL salary cap appoints how much the team can spend on each player’s salary in each given year, which is supervised under the (Collective Bargaining Agreement). The difference in the pay is a huge gap, but since the NFL has a hard salary cap, there is not debating if the player deserves more or less. The 32nd highest paid player in the league is Sidney Rice who receives a $7,00,000 dollar salary, also a $1,200,000 million prorated sighing bonus, and receives no roster bonus( Gains 2). Versus the highest paid player, Dwight Freeney, whose position is Defensive End, salary is $14,035,000, a 2,500,000 prorated signing, and $2,500,000 Roster bonus( Gains 2). But you cant forget the deals, and the endorcement contract each of these players will receive. The Manning brothers are all over your TV, you see them with Oreo and Reebok (Bulla).
On September 16, 2004, the National Hockey League had a dispute that led to a lockout. The argument was about the end of the collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The NHL was trying to establish a salary cap like the NFL, which did not come easily (Podell 1). The negotiation between the NHL Players association and the NHL did not come easy. The disagreement was that NHL clubs spent too much on players’ salaries. The clubs spent over 76 percent of their revenue on their players, despite the fact that the NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and the league are having problems keeping clubs out of the red. In 1997, when the Boston Bruins gave two rookies, Joe Thortan and Sergei Samsonov, the maximum salary allowed under the rookie cap ( 2). These contracts came with bonuses clauses as well. If the criteria were to be met, the base salary would nearly triple. From then on out, high draft picks would be in high demand and would receive equal or similar contracts. The multimillion dollar offers, made to a few free agents, served to raise the so-called bar, leading to comparable salary increases for comparable players. Teams have tried anything and everything to legally circumvent the “headaches” of salary caps. They have tried to transfer players into minors or sign talented ones into big shot contracts (Campbell 50). With the salary cap the NHL was trying to implement, the players felt that the idea was unfair and inflexible; they did not want to cut their salaries. For example, in 1997 Joe Sakic of the Colorado Avalanche signed a three- year, $21 million US “offer sheet” with the New York Rangers. However, Colorado exercised its right to match the offer and grabbed him at first chance. The NHL player association (NHLPA) is currently negotiating with the league on concepts to achieve cost certainty. Some of the options were to have luxury tax like the one baseball league used in North America (Podell 2). The problem with that is that it would not help the league get out of debt. Salary caps, similar to those used in the NFL and MLS, were also brought forth to the table but the NHLPA felt that it was unfair and would not satisfy the salary of the players.
The MLB, like the NHL, has also had some issues with salary cap, lockout, and strikes. The MLB has had a few strikes in the past; including a major strike in 1994-1995. There was another major incident that included Curt Flood, Former Cardinals/ Phillies player. The biggest strike that major leagues sports, at that time, before the 2005 NHL lockout, had seen was in the years 1994 to 1995, and lasted 232 days (Staudohar 8). During this strike, they agreed to look for an exception of the antitrust law in baseball. This was passed into law, which is known as the Curt Flood Act of 1998. In 1970, Curt Flood was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies and ended up filing a lawsuit against the MLB over antitrust laws. Flood said himself that, “his freedom in the labor market was restricted by the reserve clause” (9). An agreement in 1977 stated that players would become eligible for free agency after 6 years. There is a negotiation process in the MLB. This consists of four steps and they consist of the following: “(1) dividing the revenue (2) Joint problem solving (3) constructive attitude (4) Intragroup dynamics among the owner and players” (Staudohar 9). There is always a big disagreement about money, and in fact, it is the biggest disagreement. There is no evidence of joint problem solving that has been found in baseball besides for the recent cooperation with antitrust matter (Staudohar 9)
As mentioned above, the MLB uses a “luxury tax,” for the teams whose payroll exceeds a certain amount and this helps smaller market team because it uses that income to help increase their payroll to help make competition greater. The results can be quite unfair because of enormous difference in salary . Even with the difference in salary in the MLB, there has only been two times that a team with a payroll over $100 million has won the World Series, which shows that a smaller market team can win it if they get a group of good players that play together
Salary caps are important in sports because they make for a tighter competition. Even though there has been a lot of debate over how much a salary should be, the solution is that there is a salary cap for almost every major league sport in America, Canada, and in most of Europe There have been problems with the caps too, but things have been resolved for the most part, including a salary cap being issued for the NHL in 2005 after a season was canceled. There have been many strikes and lockouts in major league sports, but the longest was the 2004-2005 NHL lockouts. For the MLB, there was a major strike in 1994-1995, but it was the longest strike that the MLB has seen, and was the longest holdout that any sport has seen at that time, until the NHL lockout in 2004-2005. Different people have different responses to the salary cap. Even an owner had something to say about letting the players make what they make. There are pros and cons of a salary cap. On the one hand, with salary caps, the competition is tighter and that the star player is more distributed because the leagues cannot afford more than one. On the other hand, salary caps can affect certain players, and these players can complain about them, which sometimes leads to a lockout/strike. Salary caps are a part of most sports and will be around for as long as sports are around. Ultimately however, the salaries must be based upon the performance of the players.
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