Parity isnt a problem in hockey even with the discrepancy in salaries. Look at the finals.
1999: Dallas-Buffalo
2000: Dallas-New Jersey
2001: Colorado-New Jersey
2002: Detroit-Carolina
2003: New Jersey-Anahiem
2004: Tampa Bay- Calgary
That's pretty even.. no real dynasties except New Jersey and they're no excatly a rich team. If you watched hockey 20-30 years ago, you would have lived through 3 dynasties.. Montreal (76-79) Islanders (80-83) and Oilers (84,85,87,88,90).. How do you think people in places like Hartford and Winnipeg felt about 'parity' back then.
Sports is a different phenomenon in itself and is very hard to compare to regular business because there is only one prize. In the real world, Company A and Company B are not necessarily competing with each other.
Let's take your little corner coffee shop and Starbucks. If you work at the corner store and Starbuck hires you for 5X the amount.. you'd go, but the corner store wouldn't be hurting, they just hire someone else cheap and make their small profits every year.
The problem with sports in north america is that there's only one prize. All teams go for it and if one team spends more, then the other teams have to spend more also or cry foul. The salary cap only works in the NFL because they have a huge pool to split up from tv money. And even that's a questionable argument.. have you seen the NFL lately? there's 16 games a week and at least 10 of them are mediocre. If you weren't betting, you probably wouldn't be watching. There's alot of BAD teams.
I dont think a salary cap would work in hockey or baseball because it would really dilute the talent pool. It sort of works in basketball because each team only needs 1 or 2 superstars and the rest are grunts. Basketball games are terrible these days, there are no mid-range players.
Does anyone follow english soccer? That is a system that's 100% free market.
Players are owned by their teams and can be bought and sold to other teams. Plus there are many prizes.. the rich teams go for league and european success.. the mid teams go for UEFA Cup qualification, the bottom teams fight for survival from relegation, and the top teams in the lower division tries for promotion and so on. Plus knockout cup matches.
Think something like that would work in the NHL?
You could have Medicine Hat Play Guelph to make the next division
Or better yet, the New York Rangers get relegated!
BlackCoffee