I have to make an argument for why pro sports should not have a salary cap. So far, I have:

1. fans pay to watch the game and the income from those fans should not be limited in its distribution to making their team better

2. no cap forces owners and GMs to be more careful about big transactions - paying ungodly amounts of money for a player is a risky investment, and

3. the best athletes deserve to be paid as much as a team wants to pay them - not limited by a cap.

Does anyone have some ideas I may be missing?

Sportsclubs should not be able to take huge loans to finance their signings.

#2 is wrong

for example: yankees

caps are needed imo, they might need adjusting, but they are essential

No... paying your stud 3B $33M when he hits .286 and slumps through the playoffs is a huge waste and should have been redirected to other players.

As is gambling $24M on a lazy, carefree LF who ends up missing a lot of the season for testing positive for substances (Ramirez & the Dodgers)

Can you possibly think of any other example than the Yankees that satisfies your accusation?

you're kidding right?

your post completely proved my point, it SHOULD have went to other players, but it didnt, because there is no cap so blowing all that money doesnt limit what you can spend on other players(assuming you have the money, and lets face it, these are professional teams, they have the money.. or can get it)

and i dont watch baseball at all, so no i cant think of another example, ill let you do that for me

1) It's supid to limit talent to make it "fair" for the weaker franchises. This just makes the game meaningless and less interesting.

2) When there is no cap in place, players are payed based on the value of their production/talent. It's basic supply and demand. When you mess with this principle, things get fucked up. What ends up happening is that the weaker players have to settle for even lower salaries because a large chunk of the teams cap space goes to the star player(s). As a result, all players end up getting paid less than their services are actually worth and this can result in a shortage of talent in the future. This shortage would probably occur amongst the lower paid players, the bench, not the star players who will still be making millions. But the overall quality of the game can only be hurt by this.

3) The goal of a pro sports team should be to build the best team possible. It's hard to think of the current Lakers or Celtics as the best teams in the world because really they are only the best teams that are possible under the limits of a salary cap, which is not really the best.

This post was edited by Paran0id on Dec 3 2009 08:06pm

You need a cap to keep a league from being one or 2 team sided

MLB is a perfect example, 6 of 8 top pay rolls made the playoffs

But the tiny-market Rays made the WS last year

23 teams made the playoffs this decade
8 different teams won the WS - including Florida, one of the bottom-feeders in payroll
14 different teams made it to the WS

NHL:

7 different teams won Stanley Cup
10 different teams reached finals

2 teams account for half the Super Bowl wins this decade, and one of those has appeared in FOUR.

How is this "fair"?

Pro sports is not about forcing every team to be mediocre to prevent great teams from arising.
This nonsense about salary caps being necessary... it's a highly flawed theory... a falacy that will only hurt pro sports in the long run.

well to be fair, the pats were cheating