Are Dynasties Dead?
The New York Yankees are in their fourth straight World Series and are trying to win their fifth in six years. The greatest organization in professional sports is dominating again.
Baseball has allowed that to happen by letting the best stay the best. If a team wants to improve their team, they can. But in other pro sports, dynasties may have died.
The Dallas Cowboys, Boston Celtics, and Montreal Canadiens no longer embrace championship trophies consistently as they once did. The once storied franchises are not being written about anymore.
Dynasties are a part of what made sports great. The same teams fighting for a title. Every year, the game was important. All of the best rivalries happen when two teams are both at the top of their game and the winner means something.
Now the roller coaster ride teams are on tarnishes that. The 49ers and Cowboys had some of
the best championship games of this decade and neither has made the playoffs in two years.
How can this happen? It starts with the league. The leagues goals for what they want ther audience to see.
Sports have become a business and pro leagues are starting to think like true businessmen. What does are consumer want? How can we produce the best product? The answer is different in each sport and that is why dynasties are dying in football and
basketball much quicker than baseball and hockey.
The strict salary cap in football forces team to reload or regroup every year. One year they look great and the very next year they struggle.
The Atlanta Falcons struggled in 1997 and 1999 and in between those two seasons they won the NFC Championship Game.
The St. Louis Rams and Tennessee Titans both missed the playoffs in 1998 and went to the Super Bowl in 1999. The Rams were one of the worst teams in football the year prior.
But that is what the NFL wants. They want parody. Parody allows every team to have hope, and any team that doesn't, realize they can turn things around quickly.
The Yankees and Atlanta Braves will win close to 100 games year in and year out while the Kansas City Royals and Montreal Expos will do the same in the loss column.
The hope a team without money has, is that someday a group of people with money, buys the team and starts spending.
Many teams that struggled this year in baseball, such as Detroit, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and San Diego all have new stadiums or are getting stadiums built. That should increase the money that they can spend, but will it be enough?
No. But this is what Major League Baseball wants, at least for now. The owners and players will talk in the off-season and come to terms on some major issues that will include how teams are run and how baseball is run.
This could effect the top tier teams and help the bottom tier. Or it could spread them further apart. If teams do become more equal, it could be the end of the last dynasties left in sports.
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