Plan B Forum

Major League Baseball:
• Is comprised of 30 teams with each team having 25 players, for a total of 750 rostered players during most of the season.
• Each of the 30 teams plays 162 games, thus there are 2,430 total games in a season (playoffs and W.S. excluded).
• Total MLB revenues are approximately $7,000,000,000.
• MLB generates approximately $9.3 Million per rostered player.
• MLB generates approximately $2.9 Million per game (playoffs and W.S. excluded).
• Each MLB player generates approximately $57 thousand per game (playoffs and W.S. excluded).
The National Football League:
• Is comprised of 32 teams with each team having 44 players, for a total of 1,408 players.
• Each of the 32 teams plays 18 games, for a total of 288 regular-season games.
• Total NFL revenues are approximately $9 Billion.
• The NFL generates approximately $6.4 Million per rostered player.
• The NFL generates approximately $31 Million per game (playoffs and Super Bowl excluded).
• Each NFL player generates approximately $350 thousand per game (playoffs and Super Bowl excluded).
The National Basketball Association:
• Is comprised of 30 teams with each team having 12 players, for a total of 360 players.
• Each of the 30 teams in a normal season plays 82 games, for a total of 1,230 regular season games.
• NBA total revenues are approximately $4 Billion in a typical season.
• The NBA generates approximately $11 Million per rostered player.
• The NBA generates approximately $3.25 Million per game (playoffs excluded).
• Each NBA player generates approximately $135 thousand per game (playoffs excluded).
NOTES:
1. Playoffs are a significant source of revenue for the leagues (maybe 25% of total revenues), and the players get a generally small share of that extra income, in one way or another.
2. MLB supports an extensive and expensive minor league system, while the NFL and NBA rely heavily on Division 1 NCAA athletics to provide their “minor league” system – at no cost to them.
Observations:
a. While the NFL is “king” in total revenue and revenue per game, when you consider that one football game (per week) is approximately equal to seven baseball games, the difference is not that significant.
b. The MLB and NBA seasons are both ridiculously long – starting too early and lasting far too long. Baseball should not be played in the snow, and there is no rational basis for playing basketball in May and June. There oughtta be a law limiting any sport to 5 months, from the first game of the regular season to the last game of the playoffs.
c. NFL players are pussies; the game is only 60 minutes long for Christ sake, and most of that is just huddles and people milling around doing nothing. NFL rosters should be 25 players with a 5 player “taxi squad” to allow for injuries. There is no reason why half the team can’t go both ways; the people on the other side of the ball would be doing the same.

There is no reason why half the team can’t go both ways

I thought you had issues with that...

There oughtta be a law limiting any sport to 5 months, from the first game of the regular season to the last game of the playoffs.

I was shocked you made this statement, I am surprised you would be in favour of additional regulations for business. You also missed the NHL, projected revenues of 2.9 Billion, eh!

c. NFL players are pussies....

Would YOU like to play a few scrimmages in their place?

Restricting sports seasons can easily be justified under the Commerce Clause. Everything else can.

A typical football game is comprised of 80-100 plays from scrimmage, during which the players actually exert themselves for less than ten seconds each, on average. Thus, the total time of exertion for any player (currently playing 1/2 the game) is approximately 500 seconds, or something less than nine minutes. That is being very generous. In an 18 game season (assuming no injuries) a typical "starter" therefore actually plays football for about 2-1/2 hours. Non-starters play a fraction of that. Kickers, maybe 15 minutes a year.

Yeah, I think they could go both ways. High school kids do it all the time, and SURVIVE!

You are only considering physical exertion Dave. There is also a huge amount of mental exertion involved but I have a funny feeling you will scoff at that idea...

The three major professional sports are 90% stupid waste of time.

Maybe its 98%, I forget. There is a whole world out there. Get your ass off the couch and go look at it.


yrs,
rubato

dgs49 wrote:Restricting sports seasons can easily be justified under the Commerce Clause. Everything else can.

A typical football game is comprised of 80-100 plays from scrimmage, during which the players actually exert themselves for less than ten seconds each, on average. Thus, the total time of exertion for any player (currently playing 1/2 the game) is approximately 500 seconds, or something less than nine minutes. That is being very generous. In an 18 game season (assuming no injuries) a typical "starter" therefore actually plays football for about 2-1/2 hours. Non-starters play a fraction of that. Kickers, maybe 15 minutes a year.

Yeah, I think they could go both ways. High school kids do it all the time, and SURVIVE!

Like the Unions or the owners would change any of it...

Sean, certainly there is mental exertion, and the physical and mental preparation are also considerable.

But the question is whether the 44-man rosters are logically justifiable, given the nature of the game. I maintain that they are not. Since both teams would be subject to the same roster limitations (relative fatigue would be a matter of conditioning), the only real justification for having extra players around is the risk of injury. A team probably needs two backup quarterbacks. But linemen, running backs, receivers, and blockers? Most of them have played on both sides of the ball at various times during their development, and could do so again at the professional level.

As pointed out above, the insurmountable obstacle is union contracts. Reducing rosters would be a major change in "working conditions," and would thus require that it be resolved through negotiation. And the NFL is dancing around the borders of the anti-trust laws, so they can't risk too big a brouhaha. And reducing roster sizes would make the owners richer, and would release hundreds of would-be criminals onto the streets. Can't have that, can we?

Parenthetically, I note rubato's rather odd admonition: "...get your ass off the couch and go look at it."

Look at it?

How about , "Get your ass off the couch and go out and do something yourself!"

There are actually about 120 to 140 plays per NFL game. No professional athletes experience lasting injury more than football players, or experience more pain, so it is silly to call them pussies. For line players, the play is the equivalent of a wrestling match, and these huge bodies go 100% exertion for the entire play. Similarly, other players go full effort for those 5 to 10 seconds, often ending in a collision. These are a few of the factors why players tire as the game progresses (its not like they are doing ten second jogs on a treadmill bike, rather they are doing 60-70 intervals of 10 seconds at 100% effort). If you wanted to have a far inferior product on the field, and far more injuries, you could make the changes you suggest, but I think the ratings show that most Americans are pretty happy with the way the NFL is set up.

Long Run wrote: No professional athletes experience lasting injury more than football players, or experience more pain, so it is silly to call them pussies.

I take it you are talking about USA sports here, and not internationally.

Now that you mention it.

Was I mislead by the thread title?

Long Run, I'll accept your numbers of plays in a game. I don't care enough to check. I have no doubt that football players are quite exhausted by the end of the game - at least the starting linemen must be. Everybody else? Not so much.

The question is, would the audience know any difference if all players were similarly fatigued? I don't think so.

What makes the game exciting is the competition, and as long as it's competitive it will be entertaining. A good high school game is just as entertaining as an NFL game (and many HS players - mainly linemen - go both ways).