Championship teams should be based on outstanding management strong partnerships between owners and players and excellent performance.
That is the case in the National Football League, where smaller market teams can succeed.
Unfortunately, that is not the case in Major League Baseball, where a half-dozen franchises with wealthy owners and sweet cable television deals annually - and exclusively - vie for World Series Championships. And the fans suffer because of that condition.
Pittsburgh area sports fans faced starkly contrasting experiences in 2001 as the Pirates and Steelers each opened new stadia.
The Pirates, a small market franchise with few resources compared to their large market counterparts, lost more than 100 games as it fielded yet another in a long string of losing teams. The glitter of PNC Park was largely overshadowed by the futility of the team that played in it. Sans changes in Major League Baseball's financial structure, the Pirates most probably will continue to lose.
As the baseball season wound down, the Steelers stormed into Heinz Field and subsequently posted a 13-3 record - the best in the American Football Conference. The Steelers, also a small market team, came within a game of the Super Bowl. Over the past decade, the Steelers regularly have made the playoffs, and likely will continue to do so.
With a salary cap in place and profit sharing by owners, NFL teams succeed because of good management, good coaching and sterling on-field performance. NFL teams that fail to do so lack one or more of the above traits. As a result of the system, both small market and large market teams can contend for championships.
Baseball owners, meanwhile, cannot agree on a method to even the playing field for all of its teams.
The New York Yankees secured the services of slugger Jason Giambi because it could spare the $120 million it took to sign him to a seven-year deal. Following a year in which the team played in, but lost, the World Series, the already-excellent Yankees radically improved its lot.
The cash strapped Pirates, meanwhile, continued to unload veterans to save cash and laid out $4 million to sign journeyman second baseman Pokey Reese to a two-year deal.
There is little doubt that the Yankees will contend for a World Series championship this year. It would require a miracle to elevate the Pirates to that level.
While Major League Baseball franchises equally split money from its national television broadcast deal, each team is left to strike its own cable deal. As a result, such teams as the Yankees and and Chicago Cubs reap many times the cable dollars as their poor sisters in Pittsburgh, Minnesota and Montreal.
While Major League Baseball places moderate tariffs on teams that spend excessively for players, the process does little to equalize revenue. And because Major League Baseball places no cap on total team salary levels, wealthy franchises can stock rosters with stars.
Poor management often dooms the Cubs and their ilk. But excellent management does not, can not, benefit the Pittsburgh Pirates of this world - at least not enough to contend for championships. Because when small market teams locate and produce great players - and the Montreal Expos stand as proof of this - they cannot, because of financial limitations, hold on to them.
To further complicate the matter, the Major League Baseball Players Association does little to help solve the problem.
NFL owners understand the value of parity. They and the players understand that when every franchise has at least a possibility for success, every franchise makes more money in the long run.
Fans flocked to PNC Park last year because it was shiny and new, and they paid more for tickets, parking and concessions to do so. The same will not be true in the future should the Pirates continue to fail.
And given the current situation in Major League Baseball, the Buccos can do little more.
