NFL: The REAL National Pastime

The Dallas Cowboys are often called America's Team, even though the most popular team in the country is usually the previous year's Super Bowl champion (with the Green Bay Packers second, because our fan base is loyal enough to stick with the team when we move).

Oh, they used to be—in the late 70's and early 80's, people loved the glitz and glamour and the razzle-dazzle offense. They loved the cheerleaders (who chooses a team based on pretty women who are a distraction from what you are there for?), the superstars, and the Super Bowls.

Similarly, baseball has been called America's Pastime, even though football passed baseball in popularity decades ago. But just like everyone outside of Dallas with regard to America's Team, we know that America's Pastime is a hollow claim based on a past.

It was the game of most of the 20th Century. Kids grew up idolizing the players and spending their summer days listening to, reading about, playing or going to the games.

But with the creation of television, the world started to change.

There are many reasons it has spent an entire generation on top, but I will look at just the top ten...

1.  Football is better suited for television; baseball is frankly boring to watch. Even in person, baseball is relaxing; football is exciting.

2.  It is faster. Baseball involves a lot of standing around. There are eight players who stand in the field and have no cause to move on the majority of pitches. Most of the other team just sits on the bench during play.

3.  For that reason, players do not have to be athletes, especially pitchers. Take a look at David Wells, John Kruk, Tony Gwynn, and Prince Fielder—would they be able to make it in football?

Heck, Lenny Dykstra played one of the most athletic positions in baseball (centerfield) as a smoker! No one could do that in football.

4.  The one position in which there are heavy football players, even ones who are fat, is the offensive line and defensive tackle position. But those players are stronger than any baseball players, having to wrestle with other 300 lb. players for as much as thirty minutes. They exert more energy and take more physical force in one game than baseball players do in an entire week.

5.  Which leads me to another flaw of baseball—no contact. Football takes an ability to deliver and endure huge hits; baseball does not. In fact, football takes a lot out of a player beyond the game, calling for a higher sacrifice; a baseball player seldom sees any effect after his career was over.

6.  Despite this, baseball players make more than football players on average, and their money is guaranteed. NFL players can be cut and are out of luck, so they have much more at stake not only physically, but financially. Thus, while all athletes are overpaid (though not as much as the people who pay them), football players are less so.

7.  Football is more of a team sport. Archie Manning was one of the best quarterbacks of his era, but he never had the numbers to show it because his supporting talent was not good enough. A baseball player needs his team much less, and one player can still hit or pitch well without support.

8.  For that reason, baseball became a game obsessed with numbers and milestones, and players getting to a certain number of home runs, hits, strikeouts, etc. While among them are included some team milestones, like wins for a pitcher or runs batted in for a batter, every stat in football is a team accomplishment because they require ten other players acting in concert.

Even players like Dan Marino, who statistically is the best quarterback ever, is not considered to be because he never won a championship.

9.  The baseball season is so long that the individual games mean little. If you drop an entire series to a lousy team early in the season, it is no big deal. In football, a loss you endure early in the season could be devastating, costing you a playoff spot.

10.  Perhaps the greatest deficiency baseball has is its imbalance. The winners do not change much from year to year. Rarely does a team make the kind of run that the Tampa Bay Rays made last year, from worst to first.

However, it happens all the time in the NFL. For instance, in the entire history of the NFC South, every winner has been a third or fourth place team from the previous year.

This point bears more scrutiny.

You know teams like the New York Yankees, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, and Chicago Cubs are going to be in contention because they spend more than other teams. Meanwhile, you know teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates, Kansas City Royals, Cincinnati Reds, and Washington Nationals/Montreal Expos are going to be near the bottom because they do not have the money to spend.

I will still bet that even though Kansas City is doing well early—when it comes to the trade deadline, they will have to get rid of players eligible for free agency. But with a hard salary cap and full revenue sharing, all NFL teams have the same chance of success.

I often liken this difference between the system favoured by Republicans and one favoured by labour. In baseball, there are few limits to the advantages and resources of the wealthier teams.

Sure the New York Yankees pay a luxury tax for going over the soft cap and therefore share some revenue with smaller market teams, but they can pay over $200 million in salary, tens of millions more in the tax, and still earn a profit.

Meanwhile, a team like the Pittsburgh Pirates, despite getting some of that money, will pay a salary less than one-fourth that of the Yankees and still take a loss. For most of this decade, only about a third of the league even turns a profit in a given season.

In the NFL, all teams turn a profit. Having 32 strong teams (okay, 30—the Lions and the Raiders are proof that even with a level playing field you can fail) makes the entire game stronger.

Even in down times, the NFL is relatively healthy. While the league did lay off people from its front office, more savings came from the salary cut Commissioner Roger Goodell took ($3 million), even though he already made about two-thirds the salary of his much less competent counterpart, Bud Selig.

So there you have it: the NFL has superior excitement, superior play, superior athleticism, superior competition, and superior leadership compared to baseball. In a word, it is superior.