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    Making it in American Sports

    I watched a film at the weekend called Sugar. It features a young Dominican trying to make it at baseball for Kansas. I was aware before the film about the camps that the big baseball franchises had in the Dominican Republic through a BBC documentary podcast.

    From the movie I gathered that the route for a DR hopeful is training camp -> rookie ball -> A -> AA -> AAA -> minor -> MLB. [spoiler for movie]In the film the young hopeful reaches a Single A affiliate[/end spoiler]

    Now, my knowledge of American Sports is limited. I've played basketball so have a decent understanding of the rules of the game but not a lot of understanding of the professional game beyond knowing about 20 absolute star name players. With NHL and NFL I know the rules through computer games and watching occasional NFL games. My knowledge of baseball comes from films and books for the most part. I've never watched more than an innings of the game and don't understand a lot of the statistics. The unifying thing for me with all games was that they have a draft and that's were new players come from.

    Now I realise that I simplified that far too much. In the case of American Football I believe I'm right in saying that the only way to play in the NFL is coming through the collegiate system. I'm aware of other avenues such as the indoor league and the occasional punter/kicker from Europe or Australia. The majority of the players in the NFL are North American and have played in the high school system though.

    It lead me to think what happens with the other three sports. All three have players from outside USA and Canada who can be considered world class. How do players from Europe end up in the NBA or NHL, is it the league who own their registration or the individual franchises? Does the player put himself up for an international draft? Are there international transfer fees to European clubs?

    I had heard of baseball affiliates before. I imagined them as a type of lower league team that the MLB franchise had an agreement to loan players to. The movie made it seem like all the teams that were affiliated to the MLB franchise were bankrolled by them and all the playing and coaching staff were from the major league. Is that correct? What do supporters of the local league teams think of their town team being populated by a load of out of towners with no connection to the club? How is salary cap measured for all these development sides?

    #2
    Making it in American Sports

    In minor league baseball (which is what A, AA, AAA is), there are "farm teams" which serve as feeder teams to major league teams. There are some privately owned minor league teams that switch allegiances, but for the most part, being an affiliate to a major league team is really important, and there are some AAA teams that are well known because of their connection to a big major league team.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_team#Baseball

    There is also a draft in baseball, in which both players from college and also high school are drafted. It's nowhere near a big a deal as the NFL or the NBA drafts, I think mostly because college baseball isn't as big as college football or basketball. Plus, players who are selected in the baseball draft don't always go to the team or the minor league affiliates of the team that selects them; high school players go to college, and some college players decide to stay in school. There are also multi-sport athlete examples where a guy is selected in the baseball draft, but he opts to play football or basketball professionally. The baseball draft is also kind of complicated--all these different "classes" of players. I don't understand it at all.

    Foreign players are included in the NBA draft. I assume that they're out of contract with their foreign club, and I don't think there are any "transfers," because that's not how contracting in the NBA works.

    For foreign baseball players, I'm not exactly sure how it works. The Red Sox payed an ungodly amount of money just to be able to talk to Daisuke Matsuzaka's Japanese team a few years back, and then offered him a contract. They didn't draft him.

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      #3
      Making it in American Sports

      All three have players from outside USA and Canada who can be considered world class. How do players from Europe end up in the NBA or NHL, is it the league who own their registration or the individual franchises? Does the player put himself up for an international draft? Are there international transfer fees to European clubs?

      The NHL draft consists traditionally, and mainly, of players who've played Junior Hockey. These are kids who sign professional terms (or their parents do) at about 15 and spend the next three years on buses driving through mostly small Prairie, Ontario or Québec towns. At 18 they become eligible for the NHL draft. These days they're joined by elite players from US universities and Europe (it's become more common in recent years for young European players to play a year or two of Junior, to show they can "handle" the North American game.)

      The Junior hockey/draft system meant that for many years Hockey players tended to be the most unschooled of professional athletes. Few went to college, many didn't even finish high-school. This is perhaps why hockey players have been seriously screwed over the years, not just by the NHL, but also by their own players' association. It's changed somewhat with the influx of Europeans and university grads but the history of financial exploitation runs until relatively recently.

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        #4
        Making it in American Sports

        Quickly and roughly:

        Everything below Major League Baseball is defined as minor league. Training camp is something separate, it's run by the major league club at the beginning of the season for conditioning, instructional, and evaluation purposes, and players can be assigned to the major league or minor league camp. It's not a level in and of itself.

        The two main sports with "traditional" farm systems are baseball and hockey; I believe their practices more or less mirror each other. In these sports, the minor league affiliates are subject to the major league team's needs and orders, although their ownership is not usually held by the major league team. The coaching staffs and the vast majority of players will be appointed and paid by the major league team. Players move up and down through the levels at the direction of the parent club. Ideally, instruction and management (onfield and front office/boardroom) at every level will be with one voice and direction, everybody with the same techniques/focus/etc. The closest European example I guess would be the proverbial Ajax pipeline of youth players and how they're taught in the Ajax system.

        Foreign players are handled differently by every sport/league. Generally, they are subject to being drafted (I'm thinking of the NBA and NHL here) and their domestic rights belong to their drafting team. The entire point of a draft is to avoid a Man City/Juve/Old Firm/insert favorite overwhelmingly rich example. Players may not be drafted (I believe) before their senior year of high school and/or turning age 18-legal adulthood. The franchises own the registration AFAIK. To the best of my knowledge, no (North) American professional team has paid a transfer fee (apart from negotiation fees for certain Japanese baseballers) and the thought of having to do so scares the living shit out of the NHL and NBA. This may well crop up soon in hockey with that huge more-or-less Russian league, I suspect.

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          #5
          Making it in American Sports

          The two main sports with "traditional" farm systems are baseball and hockey; I believe their practices more or less mirror each other.

          Pretty much I think, except NHL teams carry only one minor league team — rather than the three or so MLB clubs have — and sometimes two will even share the same franchise.

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            #6
            Making it in American Sports

            The minor leagues are not nearly as important in hockey. NHL teams have an AHL affiliate and the AHL team may have an ECHL affiliate, but it's not as tight of a system. Also, most of the top draft picks in hockey will never play in the minor leagues. They will go straight to the big club after they sign a contract. Very few players get from the ECHL to the NHL. In baseball, almost every player will spend time - sometimes four or five years - in the minor leagues. It's just a tough sport to learn how to play at a high level.

            Drafts:
            Baseball - American players 17 or 18 (I forget) are eligible for the draft held in May/June. There are many rounds. If a player is chosen he can sign with that team and they'll assign him to one of their minor league affiliates, usually starting at short-season single A (short season starts in June, after the draft, so most of those players in that league were just drafted). If a player doesn't sign with the team who drafted him, he becomes eligible for the next draft, over and over until he signs or reaches a certain age, I think.

            Players often decide to turn down an offer in the hopes that they can get a better one after they prove themselves in college for a while. If a high school player decides to go to a four-year college/university, he cannot be drafted again until after his third year in college. This is why it is very common to see junior colleges listed as a players' college. They probably were undrafted or drafted very low out of high school, so they chose to go to junior college on the chance that maybe the following year or two years later, they'd be drafted high. They don't want to make the three year commitment to school. However, if after their two years at JUCO, they still haven't been drafted or think they can do better, they can start playing for a four year school - maybe even graduate.

            The higher one is drafted, the better the signing bonus. It is usually several million for the high rounders, but then falls to about $2,000 for everyone else in the lower rounds. It's a problem because sometimes players can't afford to sign the guy they picked, so he ends up going back into the pool for next year. Teams get compensated for unsigned picks with additional picks in the next draft.

            This means that there are some minor leaguers who are millionaires just based on their potential who may end up as total busts. If you've seen Bull Durham, you'll recall that Nuke LaLoosh bragged about owning a Porsche with a sweet Blaupunkt stereo.

            Officially, the term minor league baseball only refers to the farm teams (single A, double-A and triple-A) that are affiliated with a major league club. There are also independent professional leagues of has-beens, never wores and guys who are trying to prove themselves in the hopes that an MLB team will pick them up and put them on one of their "real" minor league teams, with the scant hope that they can work up to the majors that way.

            Also, sometimes a player who has used up his college eligibility will be drafted, but because his agent is Scott "I'm out to ruin baseball" Boras, he won't sign with the team that picked him, and will therefore have no choice but to play independent ball until he is drafted again the following year. Then the negotiations with that team all start over again.

            Hockey - players can only be drafted once, when they're 17 or 18 (each draft is specifically for players born between certain dates about 18 years prior).

            Once they are drafted, that team owns their rights for a certain number of years. I forget.

            Players who aren't drafted in their year are free agents. Sometimes a guy will go undrafted, go to college, figure out how to be really good, and then be able to shop himself around to teams after college.

            Some of the best players go straight from being drafted to the NHL. But some will not. Some will decide to play US college hockey. However, they can quit their college team and sign with the NHL team that owns their rights anytime (which is bad because coaches of college teams that have a lot of players who were drated never know who is going to be on their team month to month).

            Players who are in Major Junior Hockey (the CHL leagues AdC describes) can sign with their NHL club, but still continue to play for their junior team until the NHL team decides to bring them up. It's also possible for rookies to play in the NHL for a while and then be returned to their junior team for a while.

            Major Junior players are not eligible to ever play US college hockey.

            Most of the best US college players will spend a year or two in playing in the USHL or another American Junior league between high school and college to get better. These are junior leagues, but unlike the Major Juniors, they don't forfeit their "amateur" status or college eligibility. Many good players will start playing for one of these junior teams before they have graduated from high school, depending on whether their school has a good program or not. For example, a kid from Pittsburgh who thinks he can play in the NHL isn't going to get the competition or development he needs playing for a public high school team in Pittsburgh. He'll have to get that on an elite junior team. However, a kid who plays high school hockey in Minnesota or for some of the prep schools in New England, may be ready to jump right to college hockey or, at least, the USHL.

            Sometimes when an NHL team signs a draft pick, they'll assign that player to their AHL affiliate. More common, obviously, the lower that player was taken in the draft.

            Football - Play for your high school team. Get recruited to play college football. Play college football for up to four years, but if you think you can be drafted into the NFL in a high pick then you can forgo one or two years of college eligibility and declare for the NFL draft. Unfortunately, once you declare and hire an agent, you forfeit your college eligibility, so if you declare and then don't get drafted or get drafted low, tough shit.

            If you are drafted by an NFL team, you'll sign a contract with them and play for that team, unless they cut you. There is currently no minor league for the NFL. NFLE was for a while.

            If you're not drafted, you are a free agent and can maybe find an NFL team that will invite you to their pre-season training camp to try out. Sometimes undrafted free agents turn out to be diamonds in the rough.

            Players who can't find a way into the NFL may get a chance to play in the Canadian league or the Arena League. After proving themselves there, they may find an NFL willing to sign them. But being signed just means you get to try out in camp and maybe get a signing bonus. You could still be released. Obviously, teams are loathe to cut players drafted high and/or given big signing bonuses because that money still counts against their salary cap.

            Basketball - almost the same as football, except that players cannot join an NBA team until at least one year following high school graduation. Football doesn't need a rule like this because no player is ready to be in the NFL right out of high school. But the NBA has had players like that, but with the new one year rule, their are a few "one and done" guys who just play one year in college (and pretend to be students during that time) before being drafted into the NBA.

            Players who aren't drafted can try with some various minor league circuits or go overseas.

            However, unlike the NFL, the NBA now has an official minor league called the D-League. It can assign players on its books there or free agents can try out and catch-on with one of those teams hoping to prove themselves and then get called up to the NBA.

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              #7
              Making it in American Sports

              Thanks all, particularly Reed for that excellent post.

              Is there a limit to the amount of funding that a MLB franchise can provide to overseas academies and minor league affiliates?

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                #8
                Making it in American Sports

                No; those expenses don't count against the "salary cap" (which in MLB's case is really a "tax" rather than an absolute limit).

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                  #9
                  Making it in American Sports

                  MLB's overseas academies is in the news right now because the FBI is investigating alleged bonus-skimming schemes and because the Nationals have just fired everyone in their DR operation - plus their GM Jim Bowden - after they discovered that a prospect they payed way to much for is 23, not 16 as they thought when they signed him, and not named what they thought he was named.

                  I don't understand why MLB can't include all players of all nationalities in their draft. The NBA and NHL do it without much fuss. But in baseball, American players are part of the draft while in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, etc, it's a corruption-riddled free-for-all.

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                    #10
                    Making it in American Sports

                    I think a worldwide draft is eventually inevitable, but it will likely take other scandals of that sort for it to happen.

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                      #11
                      Making it in American Sports

                      Also, most of the top draft picks in hockey will never play in the minor leagues.

                      Do you mean the top one or two or all first rounders? Admittedly our scouting system has always been the absolute pits but I can only recall a couple of Canucks first round picks that have gone straight into the NHL squad and stayed there.

                      One point of the very few that Reed didn't make regarding Major Junior Hockey. If a player isn't drafted they can stay at the Junior level for a certain number of years (until they're 20 or 21 I think) and see if they're picked later.

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                        #12
                        Making it in American Sports

                        I don't think many first round picks ever play much in the AHL. They stay with their junior, college or European team until they get a regular spot in the NHL. But I'm not sure of the exact numbers. Certainly, few top picks spend more than a year in AHL and nobody gets drafted and sent to the ECHL, whereas in baseball, even the highest picks usually start no higher than single A ball.

                        My understanding of the NHL draft is that if you aren't picked by the time you're 20 and you're from North America, you become a free agent, regardless. Older Europeans can be drafted, but I'm not sure until what age.

                        So if you don't get picked you can play in junior until you're 21 and then you can go to wherever you can catch on. For lesser players who aren't going to get a big signing bonus, it's not really in their interest to be drafted. They're better off being able to look for the best offer. Of course, with players who nobody rated enough to draft, its unlikely that there's going to be a big bidding war for their services, but sometimes it works out. Example, John Curry, played in a Minnesota high school but didn't impress the scouts much and wasn't drafted out of high school. So he played another year in prep school then walked on at BU, played his way into a starting job and a scholarship, was all- everything and then signed with the Penguins after he graduated. So far he's played mostly in the AHL, but he has played a few times for the Pens and may move up soon.

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                          #13
                          Making it in American Sports

                          I don't think many first round picks ever play much in the AHL. They stay with their junior, college or European team until they get a regular spot in the NHL.

                          I dunno I'd have to do a year-by-year search but I think we've had a few that were sent to Winnipeg or, before that, Milwaukee to be "toughened up." If you're an eighteen-year-old first-round pick, they're waiting for you to bulk up, learn NHL style play, and become part of the club culture. The AHL, with its old-pros and coaches employed by the Big Club is surely better for that than Junior?

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                            #14
                            Making it in American Sports

                            I thought that if the player was under a certain age the only options a team had afer a certain number of games was to either keep him in the NHL or send them to back to junior. It might make more sense to play in the AHL, but I guess that's a deal the NHL worked out with the CHL.

                            Some teams do more with their AHL affiliate than others.

                            The core of the Caps other than the Russians, plus the coach, were together in Hershey* and won the cup. But prior to the lockout, I don't recall the Caps ever getting much production out of guys that had spent signficant time in the minors (back then their affiliate was the Portland Pirates.)

                            Other teams aren't as lucky. I think it's the Panthers whose affiliate is the Chicago Wolves, which sucks for them because the Wolves business model is to just win, and not worry about developing players or trying to get them into the Panthers' system.

                            *Hershey also draws more fans than any other AHL team, I just learned.

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                              #15
                              Making it in American Sports

                              I thought that if the player was under a certain age the only options a team had afer a certain number of games was to either keep him in the NHL or send them to back to junior.

                              On reflection I think you're right. What confused me was that three of the last six Canucks first rounders came from the NCAA, they were all sent to Manitoba, two of them are still there. One of the others is Austrian but was drafted from the WHL and sent to the Moose, the other two spent time back in Junior (one is now dead.)

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                                #16
                                Making it in American Sports

                                I'm picking up some chatter on luxury taxes for the Premier League. Anyone care to give me a quick overview or point me towards one?

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  Making it in American Sports

                                  The system is fairly simple in concept. The Collective Bargaining Agreement (among the MLB clubs and the Players' Association) includes a set level of salary expenditures on major league players for a given year. That level is a fixed dollar amount, not a percentage of revenue/turnover, etc.

                                  Instead of being a fixed salary cap that clubs cannot exceed, however, they are instead "taxed" on the amount by which they exceed the "soft cap" at a rate that is also set in the agreement. The payments are made to MLB, which is then supposed to redistribute them to "small market" teams in an effort to redress competitive balance.

                                  Some historical figures here.

                                  Some excerpts from an academic economic analysis here.

                                  It's more difficult to get details of what MLB does with the money it collects, but there are some historical figures here. That page is from the blog of the guy who was for a long period the single best analyst of the economics of baseball, who died tragically young and has yet to be adequately replaced.

                                  It is generally thought to be easier to get players' unions to accept a luxury tax concept than a fixed cap, though the question of how funds are redistributed is obviously a very important one. It's also worth noting that one of the most salient criticisms of the current MLB system has not been that "big" clubs spend too much, but rather that there is no "minimum payroll" that clubs are required to spend, thereby allowing "thrifty" owners to operate their clubs as genuine profit making enterprises (this of course is much easier in a closed system without promotion and relegation).

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                                    #18
                                    Making it in American Sports

                                    The NBA also has a soft cap--the NFL and NHL have "hard caps." The NBA systems is really complicated--there's this whole thing called an escrow system that makes my eyes bleed just thinking about it. Basically, though, the NBA has a luxury tax that requires teams that exceed it to match the amount they are over by and pay that to the league. So a team over the luxury tax limit by $1m owes the league $1m. The level the luxury tax kicks in at is actually higher than the salary cap, because the league gives teams some leeway in making sure they can resign their players, and see that they might have to exceed the salary cap. The luxury tax is computed each season as a percentage of total income, and really this gets quite boring so I'll stop.

                                    Under the most recent collective bargaining agreement, teams can use a one time option to release a player and not have his salary count towards the luxury tax, though they would still have to pay that player. This was quickly dubbed the "Allan Houston rule" in honor of a Knicks player with a huge contract, though the Knicks didn't release him because they suspected that he would retire due to injuries, which is what happened.

                                    Not too many NBA teams go over the luxury tax. Here are the offenders from last season, and the amount they paid the league:

                                    * New York Knicks $19,723,946
                                    * Dallas Mavericks $19,613,295
                                    * Cleveland Cavaliers $14,008,561
                                    * Denver Nuggets $13,572,079
                                    * Miami Heat $8,318,879
                                    * Boston Celtics $8,218,368
                                    * Los Angeles Lakers $5,131,757
                                    * Phoenix Suns $3,867,313

                                    The league distributes equal shares of the luxury tax income to teams that were under the tax level, and keeps some for "league purposes."

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                                      #19
                                      Making it in American Sports

                                      Even as an American, and only generally into sports, this is great thread.

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                                        #20
                                        Making it in American Sports

                                        I'd expect the NHL to introduce a soft cap soon. Partly because the NBA is Bettman's spiritual home and he tends to like whatever they like. Secondly because some sort of revenue sharing is the only way to keep many of the franchises he's beating the drum for extant. Tampa Bay are selling season tickets for around $250 next year, that's about CDN$5 a game, the price of a beer at GM place. There's absolutely no way they can field a competitive team at that price.

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                                          #21
                                          Making it in American Sports

                                          It is generally thought to be easier to get players' unions to accept a luxury tax concept than a fixed cap, though the question of how funds are redistributed is obviously a very important one. It's also worth noting that one of the most salient criticisms of the current MLB system has not been that "big" clubs spend too much, but rather that there is no "minimum payroll" that clubs are required to spend, thereby allowing "thrifty" owners to operate their clubs as genuine profit making enterprises (this of course is much easier in a closed system without promotion and relegation).
                                          The players don't ask for a salary floor (which the NHL has, NBA and NFL too, I think) because they want to be ideologically consistent. They refuse to accept a cap, so they won't push for a floor either. Idiocy, if you ask me.

                                          A few teams were, at least in the not too recent past, basically spending NONE of their own money on players. From what I read in a credible source (Buster Olney, I think) a few years ago the Tampa Rays (then Devil Rays) and the Pirates had player payrolls were each around $30 million, which was roughly equal to what they were getting from the revenue sharing. I don't know much about poker, but I guess this would be the equivalent of just folding every hand.

                                          The weird current situation that we have now makes it easy to see why teams would do that.

                                          If I'm the owner of the Pirates, for example, my logic is "Why should I have a $60 million payroll, like the Reds do, and probably finish about where, for example, the Reds do (5th place out of 6 teams in a relatively weak division) when I can spend $30 million of somebody else's money and finish only a little bit further out. The fans aren't any happier with 5th place vs. 6th place and I certainly can't afford to spend like the the Mets or Yankees such that money can paper over all the dumb personel moves I make, but thanks to the Rays and the popularity of Moneyball, I can con the fans into believing "I have a plan." Meanwhile, I I'll just sit here in my publicly funded palace of a stadium and collect revenue sharing from the Yankees and the Red Sox."

                                          The Rays were playing that game for a while too, but over the last few years they got some better people in the front office and were smart with the draft. If a team can be very shrewd in the draft, it can get players for well below what they're "really worth." Now they've now got a very good young team on the cheap. Last year they had the second to lowest payroll at around $43 million. This year they've raised it to a slightly more middle class $60 million, but that's still pretty low. Most pundits have them finishing third in the ALE (guess who is 1 and 2?) and out of the money again.

                                          The A's and the Twins have done well with little too, but you have to have a very smart front office to operate that way. The Pirates do not - or at least, did not - have a smart front office. They got new management last year that seems to be at least a bit better.

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