Why Professional Sports Needs a Salary Cap

           In today's world, laws are constantly made to prevent the rich from getting richer and the poor from getting poorer. While most groups are achieving in this goal an area that lags behind is professional sports. In some sports leagues there is no salary cap, meaning teams can spend at their free will to sign the players they want. This allows bigger, more profitable teams to outbid smaller teams for the best players, a system like this has allowed the New York Yankees to pay Alex Rodriguez, one of the top players in baseball $33 million while the San Diego Padres spent $38 million on their entire staff in 2011, according to bleacherreport.com

courtesy of blog.lohas.com

          Historically, athletes tended to stay with one team their entire career whether the team was good or bad; it is only recently that players change teams via free agency. Unless there is a salary cap larger teams will induce free will spending and will eliminate the competitive balance in sports. (a salary cap is when the league puts a limit on how much teams can spend on players)
           In addition, without a salary cap smaller teams will be unable to fill their stadiums with fans as well as compete with other sports teams within the same town or market. With minimum salary players teams in smaller markets have trouble attracting fans as they fail to put a competitive product on the field due to a lack of funds. In baseball for example, the Pittsburgh Pirates, a small market MLB team, not only have to try to compete with the rest of the league with minimum money but also teams in their own city such as the Steelers and Penguins (both successful and profitable teams in their respective sports).
            In final analysis, in order to preserve the competitive nature as well as make sure all teams in all sports make a profit professional sports leagues need salary caps. Clearly salary caps are a much needed part of professional sports and without them it would eliminate what all Americans love about sports, a true underdog story.