What makes an exciting sports league
Soccer is slowly starting up again in Europe. However, don’t expect many big surprises. You will see the same few teams dominating their national leagues. It is typically a battle among two or three teams: the usual suspects.
In Germany, my money is on … surprise … Bayern Munich. Bayern Munich won eight of the past ten Bundesliga titles. Borussia Dortmund won the other two in 2011-2012 and 2010-2011 championships.
In France, Paris Saint-Germain won seven titles and left some scraps for Lille, Monaco and Montpellier.
In Spain, the beginning of the season can be exciting when a team from Granada or Malaga can lead La Liga for a few weeks. After that, it is all Barcelona or Madrid. Real Madrid is on its way to win another title, bringing in to three in the past ten years. Barcelona won six titles however, with Atletico Madrid winning one title.
Manchester was home to most of the English Premier League title celebrations in the past ten years, with City taking five, and United, two. London celebrated when Chelsea won two titles. The biggest parties however must have been when underdog Leicester won or perennial loser Liverpool won this year, for the first time in thirty years.
In the Serie A in Italiy, Juventus has won 8 titles and is one its way to win again this year. AC Milan won the other one.
The top positions in each of the national leagues is for only a few very rich teams. The national leagues is just practice for the larger European competition: the Champions League. The Champions League has been largely a Spanish affair in the past ten years.
I advocate to level the playing field for all European teams. Build a broader base of potential winners. Games will be more exciting. The overall quality will go up. The economic winnings will be larger and more divided. When Seville has a shot at winning the title, the economy of that city will flourish. And when the next year, Valencia is doing well, plenty a paella will be served.
One way to achieve this is to mirror the salary cap in many US leagues. Some of them have a hard cap, whereas the NBA has a soft salary cap. Let’s look at the winners from the past ten NBA championships: Toronto Raptors (1), Dallas Mavericks (1), Cleveland Cavaliers (1), Miami Heat (2), San Antonio Spurs (1), Golden State Warriors (3) and the LA Lakers (1). It is a much wider group of teams.
Neymar was transferred from Barcelona to Paris st-Germain for a record 222 million Euros. Manchester City became the first club to spend a billion (!) Euros on its team. The cost of Leicester’s starting eleven that won the 2015-2016 Premier League title was 32 million Euros.
With those differences in transfer sums and squad salaries, you can get lucky and win the title once. That is if your star player remains healthy. The top teams have a bench of top quality players and the depth of their bench is key for winning at the end.
With a salary cap, your star players will be more distributed in the league. You get clusters of great players who bring the team along. In the NBA you can had Michael Jordan - Scotty Pippen, and now Stephen Curry - Klay Thompson, LeBron James - Anthony Davis - Dwight Howard, etc.
The players will still be extremely wealthy. But most importantly, you get a more exciting league where more teams have a shot to win it. Add in a play-off system and it is all a lot more fun.