Balance, Balance, Balance
It follows that if one team consistently wins most of its games it must be over-matched against its opponents, rather than more skilled or better coached in the sport. Thus, there can be justifiable pride in winning, only if the contestants are evenly matched; there is only ignominy for a team that wins disproportionately.
Put another way, if 9th grade teams routinely win against 7th grade teams, where is the glory of their victories? Yet we commonly see professional commercial sport workers spiking balls in the end zone or hooting derisively from the infield at their defeated opponents when the broadcast revenues for the winning team (e.g., NY Yankees) are measured in multiples of those for the losing team. So, when a New York team with a vast personnel budget beats an Arizona team with less robust salary revenues, where's the glory? We wouldn't idolize the 9th grade pitcher who mowed down successive 7th grade batters, would we?
The corollary to this is that in a sporting activity no individual or team will win a disparate or disproportionate number of competitions if the teams (or players) are truly balanced.
Commercial Sports Cost Communities Too Much
There is also an ugly sixth disadvantage commonly practiced by CSBs, and that is the blackmail and extortion which they employ to force municipalities, states and counties to give them tax abatements and subsidies which taxpayers must fund. In King County, Washington, for example, despite serious majority opposition to Paul Allen's blatant extortion tactics, timid city, county and state officials overrode voter resistance and funded sports complexes which are still being paid for decades later. And those subsidies and tax breaks don't even guarantee reasonable admission costs for regional taxpayers.
Even a decade ago, ticket prices were outrageous. This writer recalls attending a Seattle Sonics game (Good riddance, Sonics! Glad to see you gone!) when seats too far away from the court to see players' facial expressions cost $75, and that price didn't include the $5 beer which tasted like horse urine. Football seats, I understand, can be even more expensive these days, while season tickets can cost more than modest used cars.
Taking 4-5 neighborhood boys to a Mariners game 10 years ago set this writer back several hundred dollars, and the boys couldn't even see the plays because of the distance from the field. The boys (and this writer) would have benefitted far more by grabbing some mitts and a ball that day, as we often did, and heading back to the local schoolyard for a couple of hours playing pick-up ball.
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