When Sports Were Just Games

When Sports were just Games

by: Rick Cilenti

I grew up in front of the T.V. watching bone-crunching hits and massive home runs in old Cleveland Municipal Stadium. I saw the last game the Browns played there and I started bawling like a blubbering idiot when they left the field. Back then sports were much more simple. The games were played for fun. There were no high-school kids bringing down the quality of NBA games, There weren't any greedy me-first 19 year olds trying to sue their way into the NFL. Nor were there any teams spending 190 million dollars to buy a World Series like the Yankees. But when the 1995 NFL season ended I was finally introduced to the most horrid part of sports... economics.

Economics ruined my favorite game and economics had taken away my favorite team. The Browns weren't just my team, they were Cleveland's team. They were taken from us because Art Modell couldn't force the taxpayers to build him a stadium. He had enough money to help Cleveland build a football stadium we could be proud of, but he'd rather make money. Never mind the rich tradition of football we have in Cleveland. Never mind the fact that we were a playoff team the year before. The new stadium was going to cost him money. That's when I realized that allegiances and loyalty don't matter to owners or players. The only thing that matters to guys like Modell is the almighty dollar.

Football is not the only sports that has been ruined by recent economic changes. Baseball has had its own struggles with economics. It starts with the large gaps between large and small market teams. While some small market teams like the Florida Marlins, Oakland A's and the Kansas City Royals have been able to perform well, most like the Devil Rays and Pirates stink. The most telling statistic that shows this gap is that the Yankees have a 190 million dollar payroll. That is a full 40 million above the team in second. The team with the lowest payroll is the Tampa Bay Devil Rays at 20 million dollars. That is a full 5.2 million dollars less than Alex Rodriguez! One player makes more than 25 players! It is also $170 million dollars lower than the Yankees. So what does baseball's Commissioner, Bud Selig, do about this problem? He doesn't propose some sort of salary cap like the NFL, he says that the MLB needs contraction. Contraction?! He wants