The goal here was to reign in the spending power while -maybe- giving a boost to the little guys. That’s actually the key to Revenue Inequality in the BBA (and maybe beyond). You can’t “help” the little guys to equality, but you can make it tougher on the big guys. Dropping the Cap limits how much of a team’s finances can be out on the field, and standardizing contracts cuts a big chunk of revenue from top-tier teams (who often scrape up north of $80M in media deals) while often boosting the small fry (who make something in the low $60Ms at best).
And so, you ask, has it been worth it?
Are we on our way to Apex Financial Utopia?
Well, hmmm. Maybe not quite Utopia, but if Year One is any indicator, I’d say the concept is working. I took a quick cut on overall revenue around the league for the past three years, choosing three simply because the true media contract data for 2060 is lost to time. It’s okay to look at the 2060 vs. 2061 comp, but 2059-2061 is probably better. So I did both. I plotted the revenue each team made each season, sorting from least to most (note, I added an extra $5M to each Nashville and Montreal as a placeholder for their final postseason payouts).
Here is the result.
Bottom line, the first year, top team revenue dropped from the low $190M range to the $170M range. The very bottom teams actually gained revenue thanks to HIGHER media contracts than they would have gotten.
You can read the chart yourself…
My first reaction, though, is that from the standpoint of league parity, this has been a great result. The BBA economy is a bit of an aircraft carrier, of course. It will take some time to really settle into results. But I like what I see.
Anyway, as I noted above, I expect this year to be more of the same. Big revenue teams will lose more, and small revenue teams will probably lose, too, because that $60M deal will be a few $M less than the low $60s they were making. But the gap will get closer, meaning it will continue to get a bit harder for the big guys to run off and hide with their stash.
That’s my thought, anyway.
The world will reveal its plans in it’s own good time.