Another weekend down the drain . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17641-2004Feb29.html

I love Boswell, but I think he misses a larger point about the Caps and the NHL. The bigger point is that there are too many teams that are too expensive for the buying public. There are way too many teams, not enough talent, and alternative diversions.

What are you going to do with that kind of market? If the NHL were "widgets" in a perfect market, people would stop selling it because they would not be making a "profit" (I'll use that loosely, meaning that the owners may get some sort of utility and prestige from owning a professional franchise). Since the market is sticky and there are all sorts of reasons why teams can't leave the market, it causes many inefficiencies. There are many examples of teams dying a slow death, and the Caps are just one of them.

The consequences for Major League Baseball are similar in that there is way too much competition and that baseball does not offer a good value to its customers. Outside of five or six cities, where does baseball make economic sense? I don't think that the imbalance of the major TV markets is necessarily wrong or bad for baseball (It's been going on for a longtime), but that there is such a dilution of talent, that the game's integrity is hurt.