After reading all the comments on Jim Larranaga’s retirement, I am struck by one thing: There has never been a professional league that pays its players that has been able to succeed without two things:
1. Some mechanism of parity. They all have a draft so one team can’t buy all the best players, they all have some degree of revenue sharing (it’s the key to the NFL’s success) or they have some rules where in theory, everybody has a chance at the beginning of every new season.
2. Some mechanism restricting player movement. They can still get paid all the market will bear, but there are contracts that spell out a length of time. Teams can sign a player for only one year if they want, or if they want to develop someone, they can sign multiyear deals. And since the contracts spell out a length of time, a player can’t decide on Christmas Eve to leave, unless the decision is mutual.
These two issues are really the big deal. It’s not just about money or paying players. And the NCAA is currently the only professional sports league I’m aware of that does not address those two issues. Addressing No. 1 may result in 60 or 70 teams leaving to form a new super-conference because they don’t want to share revenue with everybody. But they’ll still have to share revenue with those 60 or 70 teams.
All I see is they’re going to kill the Golden Goose if they don’t get their head out of the sand on these two issues really soon and do something…
I totally agree