MLB Salaries and the Other Leagues: Yes There is a Difference!

As we noted in our last post (Rich vs Poor), there is a large chasm between the wealthiest and the poorest clubs in the MLB landscape.  We wondered whether this difference between the haves and the have nots was also true in the other sports. In the table below we compare MLB with the other three major sports in terms of salaries.

Obviously, the numbers speak for themselves as MLB far outpaces all the other sports in terms of the gap between the top and bottom teams.  That salary disparity is one that has a far greater negative impact on the sport rather than the length of the game.  The conclusion from this data is that the other three major sports base their success on their expertise in identifying and developing talent.  Baseball though differs from those other sports as a salary cap does not exist, which means the larger markets can and do outspend their small market brethren. 

The reality is that in some ways these small markets with less deep pockets become almost a minor league team to the larger market clubs.  Teams such as Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Miami, to name a few, simply will not or cannot pay the salaries to keep their top talent, so every year we see those and other teams constantly rebuilding and jettisoning such talent, before it gets too expensive to the richer teams for younger more cost controlled players.  This payroll disparity thus shortens the competitive window for these small market clubs.  If one ever bothered to ask the fans of their small market teams what annoyed them most about the current state of their franchises it would probably be losing their homegrown talent and NOT shaving minutes off the game via a pitch clock.