Replies

Both extremes are bad. If one or a few teams dominate a sport year in and year out, many casual fans lose interest. Like when the Yankees always won. Of course, it was always fun to root against them.

But if any team has a shot at winning a title, the same thing can happen. Fans like to see great teams. If winning a title is not too hard, that trivializes the sport as well. Personally, I like to see any sport have four or five exceptional teams for the other teams to try and emulate.

It seems to me, that when the Yankees won all the time (I am not a Yankees fan by any stretch), the TV networks were falling over themselves to shove money at MLB. They were willing to pay more if the Yankees would play the Red Sox in the playoffs every year. The majority of fans like a few super teams, like the Yankees. The Yankees are truly America's team. The NYT published a map showing what team is popular in every area of the US. In every area that doesn't have a local MLB team, the Yankees were the favorites. The Yankees were the fan favorite in places like Nebraska, Mississippi, Montana, etc. Secondly, since parity has come to MLB, the TV ratings have falling off the cliff from late 1990’s early 2000’s high. With the young demographic, MLB is way behing the NFL and the NBA. It is struggling to stay ahead of MLS by a small margin.