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 Parity or mediocrity?
Posted: Wednesday September 08, 1999 02:20 PM
Parity was pretty much invented by Pete Rozelle, the brilliant, late commissioner of the National Football League. If only Pete were still alive as the new NFL season approaches, he would be truly thrilled. Parity reigns! Indeed, such is parity in the NFL now that, probably, this season, no team is good enough to win the Super Bowl. Oh yes, of course, someone must win. The New York Jets, maybe, Jacksonville, Minnesota, Miami. But someone must win only because someone worse must lose. Whereas once athletic giants walked the earth, bestriding our stadiums and arenas, nowadays -- in all sports -- victory only goes to the little bit better, who arrives at the game modestly, on tippy-toes. The one great team of this decade was the Chicago Bulls, but even that was more a case of Greek mythology, with a God named Michael Jordan descending from Mount Olympus to monkey around with all the mere mortals. Otherwise, it's difficult for the best teams to sustain their dominion, because modern conditions incline teams to the mean. Parity, of course, sounds good. Hey, Pete Rozelle would cry out to me: Everybody has a rooting chance! Yes, but the ugly face of parity is mediocrity. Especially in the world today, where there are so many images vying for our attention, a sport needs some familiar shining star to concentrate the notice of casual fans. In baseball, for example, once again, the home-run competition between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa has a wider appeal than do the incidental pennant races. The NFL was much more involving when the Dallas Cowboys -- pompously billing themselves as America's Team -- ruled football, because then most everybody knew the Cowboys well enough to have an opinion about them. Somehow, the anonymous Jacksonville Jaguars -- this year's passing fancy -- fail to bring America's emotions to a boil. Alas, free agency and salary caps encourage players to abandon championship juggernauts and play for larger salaries on lesser teams. This redistribution of the wealth is all very democratic, but it diminishes identity and involvement. The proliferation in numbers of teams and playoffs also destroys would-be dynasties. The Atlanta Braves have been division winners every year since 1991. In another era, they'd be esteemed world-beaters. As it is, Atlanta only made the World Series four times and only won once, so the Braves are only champions in the land of might-have-been. The fact is, sport today is watched in two parallel universes -- by the emotional hometown fans and by the critical national TV audience. It's all very nice that every fan's team has a reasonable chance, but the price of parity is that the NFL is becoming very much like the Miss America pageant, which is also getting under way soon. At Miss America, the contestants are all kinda talented, all kinda smart, all kinda pretty -- so the ratings keep plummeting. Americans don't want to see kinda. We'd rather see Miss Universe, where there's nothing ambiguous. It's just bring on the babes -- va, va, va voom. Like that, all sports leagues need really beautiful, sexy teams out front. The current Miss America-type NFL teams that are just kinda good, kinda nice make for kinda boring seasons. Note: I erred last week in writing that it was the Buffalo Bills who
endured the bad call that gave the New York Jets an infamous victory late last
NFL season. In fact, it was the Seattle Seahawks who suffered that injustice.
The Seahawks were badly enough treated by the officials without my also failing
to credit their misery. My
apologies.
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