Socialism in Sports

In all of the major U.S. sports leagues (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS), there is a bit of socialism.  Socialism in this context is defined as redistributing the wealth to make a more even playing field.  In all of these leagues, generally teams with worse win-loss records and performance get better draft picks.  In the NFL and NHL, there are also hard salary caps which does not allow teams from bigger metropolitan areas to flex their financial muscles to outspend on players from smaller markets.  The other leagues also have some sort of salary cap with certain exemptions.  The major North American sports leagues all have some sort of socialism inherent in its operations.  The major European Soccer Leagues do not.

This is in direct contrast to European Soccer (Football) Leagues such as La Liga and the English Premier League where there is no salary cap, or progressive draft order.  The most famous teams, generally have the most money, who can buy the best players, and generally have the best teams.  These are the best leagues for a super owner to buy championships (Manchester City, Chelsea).  I think that this makes these sports leagues much worse for sports fans. When is the last time another team besides Barcelona or Real Madrid won La Liga?  Does Everton have a chance to win the EPL?  Is Hamburger SV even a team in the Bundesliga anymore?  Teams become entrenched with the European system which creates more or less of a permanent caste system.  The rich get richer and soak up all of the opportunity.  The middle and the poor are left competing for brownie points or avoiding relegation. There is pretty much 0 chance of rising to the top, unless you find a rich Middle Eastern owner who is willing to lose a lot of money.

Right-wing politicians in the U.S. constantly talk about the culture of dependency that emerges as poorer populations become reliant on welfare-based, safety net programs and how this causes the poor to stay poor.  The Republicans also have a talking point that states that any "redistribution of wealth" decreases motivation to win.  An example can be how the Pittsburgh Pirates of the MLB constantly suck, no matter how many good draft picks they got. 

However, if you watch sports at all in North America, you know this isn't true.  All teams try to win regardless of the league policies.  The "socialist" policies help all teams have chances and windows to win.  Let me emphasize that these are simply single "socialist" policies that are not dispositive, "capitalistic" factors such as the best management, hard work, great coaching, and great teamwork predominant the likelihood of whether a team is successful.  Teams will always want to win, no matter what.

The 2010-2011 Seattle Seahawks are a great indication of this.  Heading into that last game of the season, they were 6-9 but had a chance for the playoffs.  No one gave the Seahawks any kind of chance to win the Super Bowl.  Had the Seahawks lost, they would have had a draft pick in the 8-13 range.  Instead of settling for a really good draft pick, the Seahawks won that game, made the playoffs, and won another playoff game.  They got the 25th pick in the draft.  Why would the Seahawks disadvantage themselves within the socialist redistribution framework?  Because, something else, winning, was more important.

The Republicans' narrative is usually: "If you raise taxes on the rich and put it to some general use for the entire public, such as education spending, the hard working rich will stop working hard and the poor will become dependent on the subsidies and stop working hard."  That simply will not happen.  If taxes were slightly higher, people will still want to make money.  As to the culture of dependency, welfare recipients will still be poor and being poor really sucks.  Those who see potential for opportunity will try to move up in the world.  I've known a lot of "less well-off" people in my life.  Among all of those people, I've only met one person who actually had the mentality of wanting to be a permanent leech on society.

It's ok to have some redistribution of the wealth to promote more opportunity, like the NFL.  This system will still emphasize hard work, innovation, and individual responsibility, because the biggest rewards of the system can only be achieved through those metrics and not by being a recipient of the redistribution system.

What are the takeaways from this talk?
1. a little bit of wealth redistribution is not going to kill hard work or desire to make money
2. a little bit of wealth redistribution promotes opportunity among all participants
3. some wealth redistribution is ok as long as those receiving the redistribution are still motivated to move up in the world
4. the analogy with sports is this: draft order=progressive tax system, winning=making money/not being poor
5. no redistribution=less opportunity, the potential of a permanent caste system
6. the best system is having a primarily capitalistic system with some socialist elements promoting opportunity for the middle class and the poor

Here is an article with a similar point of view.