RE-ALIGNMENT IN SPORTS

Recently the NHL called off plans to re-align the league into a more geographical conformity. They called it off until they figure a way around the player’s association’s objections. They planned to go from two three-division team conferences to four seven or eight team conferences.

Aside from the disagreements within the league structure, is re-alignment always a good idea? What does it mean to the teams, the fans and league? How do you deal with the record books, the records set in the past and determining who is really a great player in comparison to the others competition? What about scheduling and travel, which impacts player’s health?

Many years ago in 1955, Major League Baseball had just two leagues with eight teams each. Life was simple, the winner in each league met for a World Series to determine whom the champion of baseball would be. There was no wild card, and the schedule was only 154 games, one all star game and a few preseason games and that was it.

Then in 1958 both the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants moved to the west coast, creating more travel time for teams like Philadelphia and Pittsburg particularly. The west coast teams had the advantage; the visitors were tired from the trip west.

But there are a lot of advantages for re-alignment, especially for revenues, attendance, and interest overall. Any hockey combination of Boston, the two New York franchises, Philadelphia and Pittsburg along with Washington would be an interesting rivalry in one geographical section. You would then set up less inter-divisional play and create greater intensity from the player and his play. In 1955, both the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants played each other 22 times, the games were at a peak interest and the cross-town rivalry was played up. It was excitement on a level close to a playoff game.

The NFL had it very uncomplicated back in 1955. There was an Eastern and Western Conference made up of six teams each, and geographically, most of it made sense. The problem in those days was there were two Chicago teams, the Bears in the Western Conference and the Cardinals in the Eastern Conference, and an East Coast team in Baltimore playing in the Western conference! But they played only 12 game-seasons and the Championship game.

In 1955 in the NBA, there were only eight teams split into two four-team divisions! The league was setup so that six teams out of eight qualified for the playoffs! Six of those original teams out of eight re-located, and some changed their names totally!

In the western division, there were three mid-west teams and one from Rochester, NY, and there were two teams in the Eastern Division, one from New York City, the Knickerbockers and the Syracuse Nationals, that’s three teams from New York State out of eight playing a 72 game schedule, plus playoff games!

Then there was the NHL in 1955. Six teams comprised the whole of the NHL, compared to 30 teams today and room for expansion. There was a 70 game schedule and two rounds of playoffs for the Stanley Cup game. The local of the six teams included a New York/Boston rivalry, a Toronto/Montreal Canadian rivalry and a Midwestern Chicago/Detroit rivalry. Once the league expanded, new rivalries were created and new alignments were needed. Today with 30 teams, it is a problem, unless you can bring them closer together in leagues or conferences or divisions as you wish, and limit the travel to just those in your section.

The best thing to come out of re-alignment into geographical norms would be that when the playoff games are decided as to who plays whom, speculation about which team is better is better for the sport, makes for interest and creates a stronger fan base due to local loyalty. With inter-league play in New York, the passion runs high, the two teams, Mets and Yankees, draw very well, tickets are at a premium. That would stay if the teams were in the same division, and played more than six games. Those additional 12 games that they would play would mean a huge revenue bump in the gross receipts of everything from tickets and hotdogs, to parking and subway fares.