(06-14-2016 12:31 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  $500M for a hockey team??? Sorry, but hockey either already is or it will be the #5 pro sport, once MLS really gets going (might take some time).


C2,

For football, talent doesn't matter so long as the teams are even. You can argue that a QB alone creates enough of a disparity, when everything else is even.

If the Pro-Bowl was played mid-season, and gave some type of advantage to the conference of the winner ... I still say it wouldn't get greater ratings than a regular season game. People care about the team more than anything, in football.

Even football has a limit, look at the caliber of athletes for P5 schools and the caliber for non-P5's in general.

Baseball is the most immune, as it is the game where size matters the least, which is why they have no problem taking steroids and shrinking their size. Joking aside, baseball players don't have to be large and it is the game that has changed the least over the decades, thus it is timeless in the type of player needed to play it. But even they have a limit in how many can be Major Leaguers realistically or else we'd see very few players promoted from the minors each year. Basketball is by far the worst.

Some other things I want to address: Las Vegas, more than any other market, needs a glamour team. Even if it's a college sports team, look at UNLV under Tark. That's why they need a team like the Raiders or Lakers, which has the added bonus of having an LA connection. Vegas is a colony of SoCal.

And this isn't just a Vegas issue but places like Miami, which should have no pro sports teams and even a place like Dallas needs the right team or no team at all. You can't just look at a spreadsheet and look at numbers and statistics, you have to analyze. I think Florida, beyond the small loyal/built-in fan bases they have, should have zero pro sports teams, especially the Jaguars and Heat as well as in baseball. Even the Bucs, which has great fans, struggles at the gate with some of lowest attendance in the NFL (unless something has changed). The Cardinals probably shouldn't be in Arizona and especially before they built UoPS.