Let it go! – There is no Parity in Football Anymore.
There is a lot of talk in the sports world about the parity that has been created in college and pro football. Due to many factors, analyst, players, and fans alike all contend that an environment exists in football today that has created an even playing field. Every year brings the chance that your team could finally break through. Thanks to the fact that this thought has permeated throughout football, the popularity of the sport is at an all time high. However, when you really examine the results, is this actually the case?
Let’s first address what is meant by parity. According to Merriam-Webster, parity means the quality or state of being equal or equivalent. When people speak of parity in football, essentially they are saying that an even playing field exists. The difference in quality of the teams at the top and the teams at the bottom in football is thought to be very small. In essence, any given team can essentially move from the cellar of the sport to the penthouse very quickly. There are certainly examples of this. You could point to the Arizona Cardinals last year and their run to the Super Bowl before falling to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the NFL, or you could look at the yearly attempts of the non-BCS schools as they try and break into the BCS Bowls and the success that is often found when they reach those games in college football. It would seem that based upon these successes and others, that the little man in football is in fact not so little.
If parity does exist in football, let’s examine the way in which in came about:
In the NFL there were two huge developments that created a system of equality. The first change was free agency. Teams no longer had to rely on their successes in the NFL Draft. Instead, a team could spend their time and money scouting and pursuing players already in the league. This open market allowed teams to achieve success despite having a poor draft record. The second development was the revenue being shared from massive TV contracts. As the NFL gained in popularity, television networks came calling in the way of huge contracts as they outbid one another for a chance to televise what was fast becoming the most popular sport in America. This money, which was shared amongst the different teams, allowed smaller markets to compete with bigger markets when it came to signing players.
In college football, there were also two major developments that changed the face of the game. The first development was the change in the number of scholarships that could be offered by any given institution. When the NCAA reduced the number of available scholarships to 85, the ramifications were massive. No longer could the powerhouse programs continue to stockpile talent. Gone were the days when a team like Nebraska could have 4 running backs that were each All-American level talent on their roster. Since the biggest schools could no longer offer scholarships to virtually every player that they wanted, the athletes had to go elsewhere. Just like in the NFL, the other big change in college football had to do with TV. As college football continued to become more and more popular, people could find it in more and more places on TV. What was once just a Saturday event on the major networks, college football became a sport that was on TV three to five times a week on numerous channels. As the opportunities increased for teams to be televised, more and more colleges gained national exposure. Twenty years ago, unless you lived in Ohio or another town with a MAC school, the only college you knew of called Miami resided in south Florida. High school athletes realized that they could go just about anywhere and still receive national exposure on TV. This again made it harder and harder for the perennial powerhouses to stockpile talent.
So, given these developments in football over the last twenty to thirty years and seeing some of the stories of success that we have seen from non-traditional powers, is it safe to say that we are now truly residing in an age of parity in football?
The NFL has traditionally been a league dominated by dynasties. For years and years, teams like The Steelers, The Cowboys, the Raiders and The Packers dominated pro football. This was the case up until the late 1990s as The 49ers, The Cowboys, and the Packers dominated that decade. As those traditional powers eroded though, the idea of parity came to the forefront. Evidence of it was everywhere as teams such as The Broncos, and The Patriots realized their first NFL Titles. The term “Any Given Sunday”, popularized by the film starring Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, and Jamie Foxx, became the calling card of the NFL. It meant that in the NFL, anything was possible on any given week. Just because a team realized success one week did not mean that future success was certain. On the surface, this certainly seems to be the case, but upon a closer look it appears that things are in fact not all that equal. Looking at the current decade that we are in, it has primarily been dominated by two teams. The Steelers and The Patriots have won five of the Super Bowls this decade and are only a drive away from a sixth title. Outside of these two powers, there has existed a secondary level of teams that have seen spurts of success in years they were not mired in the middle of the pack. Teams like The Colts, The Giants, The Ravens, The Eagles, The Chargers, The Rams, and The Panthers have filled this niche. Each year these same six or seven teams are battling for the same playoff spots, hoping that The Steelers or The Patriots will have an off year. Rarely do other teams emerge in their spots. The lack of parity becomes even more evident when one compares the teams at the top to those at the bottom. For a league that prides itself on equality, it seems like it takes nothing short of a miracle to move out of the basement. Has anyone heard of Detroit, Buffalo, or Oakland? 
These teams are at the bottom of a mountain so tall that an 8-8 season for any one of them would probably pass for a Super Bowl Title at this point. Their newly received friends: Cleveland, Washington, and St. Louis also seem to be looking up at the same mountain. When you are bad in the NFL, you are really bad. To think that your fortunes can be turned around in just a year or two are simply not justified. Even if you look at Arizona last year, they really didn’t just appear out of nowhere. The Super Bowl might have been a bit of a surprise, but in all fairness analysts had been predicting good things for The Cardinals for a number of years. They were a work in progress since they hired Dennis Green in 2004. It only took Arizona five years to see their hard work pay dividends. That isn’t exactly what one would call overnight success.
Things really are not that different in college football. The same sense of parity seems to prevail though the college landscape that exists in the NFL. This really is just a great job by the media of creating hype. At the beginning of each year, ESPN and other media outlets have this idea that anybody could end up in the National Championship Game. Why is it then that the same 10 teams are fighting to get into the game each year? In fact, the idea of parity loses momentum before the season even starts. When the polls come out at the beginning of the year, the same teams are always ranked at the top. Teams such as USC, Ohio State, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, and LSU start the season on top and usually finish the season on top. Sure there are anomalies for these teams, but they are few and far between. Even when you look past these teams, the other teams at the top of the conferences are the same virtually every year. In the ACC it is Virginia Tech, Boston College, Wake Forrest, or Miami. In the Big East you have West Virginia, Cincinnati, South Florida, or Rutgers. In the SEC you can add Alabama, Georgia and Auburn. In Big Ten you could think of adding Michigan and Penn State. In the Pac-10 you could add Oregon, and in the Big-12, well there is nobody else. So, out of the 120 teams in the FBS (formerly Division 1A), it comes down to about 20 teams each year. Would you define parity as having the same 20 out of 120 teams competing for a legitimate shot at the championship every year? 
Even when you bring the non-BCS schools into the equation, there is no change. None of these teams have ever played for the BCS title, and they remain a long-shot to do so. In fact, examining the non-BCS schools goes further in showing the lack of parity in college football. If you were to guess who would be competing out of the non-BCS schools for a shot at a BCS game next year, who would you guess? TCU, Boise State, Utah, and Fresno State would be the likely choices. It seems that even amongst the non-BCS schools, the same four schools dominate the conversation every year. So, when you break down college football, 80 percent of all of the FBS schools have no realistic shot at playing for anything significant each year. That is not what anybody would define as parity.
Thus, when one really examines parity, does it actually exist in football? That depends on your definition. Can anyone be successful in the short-term? Certainly they can. Cinderella teams will always exist. If these anomalies are your definition of parity, then football is an even playing field. However, if by parity you mean that everyone actually starts out on the same level each year, and that after a tough stretch a team could reverse their fortunes with only a year or two of hard work, then parity does not exist. Football remains a game where the strong dominate. If your team is at the bottom of the mountain, you should probably buy yourself a comfortable chair to watch them in because you are going to be there for a long time.
