PRO FOOTBALL: FREE AGENCY : Open Market Could Be Beneficial for NFL

Though flawed by instances of club-owner collusion, the free-agent market has been good for baseball, a University of Illinois law professor observed recently.

His research suggests, Stephen Ross said, that since 1976, free agency has furthered competitive balance in both leagues, spreading around some of the better ballplayers and enabling more teams to contend for pennants.

Furthermore, if a free market came to the National Football League, he said, it would have the same effect on pro football--helping the bottom clubs and increasing the quantity of title contenders.

Ross is a Los Angeles-born specialist in antitrust and sports law. A graduate of the University of California and its Boalt Hall law school, he is in his sixth year at Illinois after a tour in the Reagan Administration’s Department of Justice. He has also worked on antitrust matters for Congressional committees.

His views on free agency--as expressed in a year of NFL player-owner antagonism--aren’t shared by the owners of the league’s 28 teams.

Their dispute with their 1,500 players--a fight that has left pro football without a collective bargaining agreement for three years--centers on free agency. And the heart of the problem is whether a free market would promote competitive balance.

The players say yes, the owners no.

The owners’ principal stated objection to free agency, indeed, is that it would harm NFL competitive balance.

At stake, the Illinois law school educator said, isn’t what’s best for the teams but for U.S. sports fans--although they don’t seem to realize it.

“Most fans and (antitrust-case) judges tend to dismiss the (NFL’s) free agency conflict as a silly fight between rich owners and rich players,” Ross said. “But that is a basic misunderstanding of the facts. The issue that should most concern (the courts) and also the fans isn’t just who gets the money but what happens to the game.”

And with free agency, he said, it’s a better game for more teams and more fans.

Question: What evidence supports that point of view?

Ross: The turning point was the Andy Messersmith decision in 1975--the (case) that gave baseball players free agency. Since then, in every way you can measure balance, major league baseball has been more competitively balanced than it was in the years before Messersmith.

Q: What are some of the ways you measure such things?

A: There have been closer pennant races. A larger number of different teams have won championships and division titles. Fewer teams have had losing seasons. There have been fewer pennant blowouts. In the seven years before Messersmith, you had 34 teams in the pennant races. In a comparable seven post-Messersmith years, you had 48.

Q: How many were actually title-winners?

A: In the seven years before Messersmith, 11 teams won all the division titles. Post-Messersmith, in the same number of years, 17 teams won titles. You had eight blowouts in the seasons just before Messersmith--that is, eight teams winning by 10 or more games. Post-Messersmith, you had three.

Q: Were those numbers reflected at the gate?

A: Yes, from 1975 to 1985, attendance rose 57% in major league baseball. The thing that makes for the interest in sports--the thing that makes the excitement in stadiums or on TV--is the close fight, the close game, the close race. In team sports, the way to get more excitement and more fans is with a better balance among the competing teams. And more free agents mean more balance.

Q: Pro football is a game in which draft choices also lead to more balance.

A: The problem with the draft is that it limits the weaker teams to one pick in each round--same as winning teams. The draft doesn’t do as much for competitive balance as it could.

Q: But it does help?

A: Some, because the only two ways to improve an NFL team today are by drafting or trading. Trouble is, when 28 franchises share the best college talent, it takes a long time to draft a good team. The trouble with trading is that, normally, you have to give up a good one to get a good one. To get free agents, you only give up money. And you get immediate results. Building with free agents can be much faster than building with the draft.

Q: Faster and more costly.

A: Revenues are shared in the NFL. Each of the 28 teams generates about the same amount of money. In a free market, what matters is who wants to spend that money for players and who doesn’t. The irony is that while publicly advocating competitive balance, the NFL actually impedes the efforts of its weaker teams to improve. They are barred from spending for the free agents that could make them more competitive.

Q: Even so, the NFL is proud of its competitive balance, which, it says, is basically due to its rules restricting free-agent mobility.

A: To refute that notion, all you need is a statistical analysis of the seasons since the 1970 merger. In the 17 years through 1987, if all NFL teams were equal, each team would have made the (final four) 2.67 times--that is, two or three times. Instead, the top eight franchises each got to the conference finals five times or more. Seven never got there. Only six of the 28 franchises went two or three times--as would occur if the league were competitively balanced.

Q: One NFL argument against free agency appeals to many critics. If the players were free, the NFL says, they would head for the big cities. Isn’t it true that anyone would choose Los Angeles over Green Bay?

A: No, I don’t think that’s true at all. It clearly isn’t true of athletes. In the NFL especially, with their short careers, players have different priorities. The first priority for most is just to play the game.

Q: In Green Bay?

A: Sure, football players hate sitting on the bench. They would much rather start in Green Bay or Buffalo than sit around as a backup in Florida or California. Starters have more fun and make more money--even in Green Bay. With TV and gate revenues shared, the Packers are on a level field financially with the Raiders or anybody.

Q: But doesn’t it stand to reason that, given a choice, most players would rather play for a winning franchise in a pleasant climate?

A: No, the evidence shows that most football players are more interested in other kinds of things, such as who the coach is. Or the coach’s philosophy. Or the geographical preferences of their families, who usually like to live near home. Or their own boyhood homes. When Ahmad Rashad was a free agent--he was one of 12 in a fluke situation in 1976--he chose to play on a losing team, an expansion team, in Seattle, just because he likes Seattle.

Q: One more thing about NFL club owners. They contend that regardless of whether free agency works in baseball, it would be disruptive in football, which is more of a team game. Do you see that?

A: Football is probably more of a team game, but that isn’t what’s relevant in player acquisition. The relevant thing is that you can only be competitive in any game with top-quality talent. And if you need, say, one or two key players to be a contender, the easiest and quickest way to get them is to buy them on the open market--as the Dodgers did in 1988 when they bought the World Series.

Q: The Dodgers?

A: Yes, after an also-ran season in ‘87, the Dodgers were never going to make it all the way to the top in ’88 if they hadn’t brought in a key free agent, Kirk Gibson.

Q: Are you recommending a completely free market?

A: No, no. The NFL should have many limitations on free agency--limitations of the (following kind):

--A rookie wage scale, to keep the clubs from throwing away money that belongs to veterans.

--A rule restricting free agency to players who have been in the NFL two or three years or four at most.

--A rule prohibiting playoff teams from signing free agents or, perhaps, just limiting the number they can sign.

--To help the bottom clubs in bidding wars, NFL revenue-sharing should be reformed to include luxury box income.

--Finally, 20% of total revenues should be subtracted and awarded at the end of the season to the winning teams.

Q: How would that 20% be cut up?

A: Say, 10% to the Super Bowl champion and the rest to the other playoff teams. Or you could subtract 50% of total revenues--and award it on a declining basis to the first through the 28th best team. The idea is, the better you are, the more you make. The weakest teams ought to be losing money.

Q: Aren’t they?

A: Not in pro football. The NFL’s world is upside down. Most NFL losers make more money than winners because their payrolls are smaller. The league’s real (money) winners are the teams with luxury boxes--and that isn’t in the best interests of sports fans. What we’ve got to do today is get somebody looking out for the fans, for the public. We’ve got to enlist the trial courts or the appellate courts--or Congress. Somebody.