Does a Higher Payroll Equal More Wins?

One of the pillars of conventional wisdom when it comes to sports is that spending more equals more wins.  If that were the case, then the New York Yankees, also known as the Yankee$, would have a lot more than two World Series rings in the past decade.  So obviously, there is more to it than spending a lot of money.  One of the reasons that this doesn't work as well now is that it is usually the older players who command the most money.  They are the ones with the track records and histories to justify the big salaries.  But they often are the ones who have past their primes, and who won't deliver as much as they have due to their skills declining as they age.

But that's baseball.  The NFL has a hard salary cap, and it has a floor.  So, the question is, in a more level playing field, does spending money equal success on the field?

Surprisingly, the answer is no.  The top five spending teams in the NFL and their payrolls are:

• New York Giants, $138.4 million
• Houston Texans, $128.3 million
• Miami Dolphins, $126.9 million
• New Orleans Saints, $121.6 million
• Chicago Bears, $120.7 million

Of these teams, only the Super Bowl winning Saints made the playoffs.

The bottom five teams as far as payrolls go are:

• Kansas City Chiefs, $81.8 million
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers, $84.6 million
• Seattle Seahawks, $89.1 million
• Dallas Cowboys, $90.3 million
• Cincinnati Bengals, $93.8 million

On this list were the division winning Cowboys and Bengals.

So it's clear that in a more level playing field, spending does not equal winning.

That brings us to another question.  Which team gets the most bang for its buck?  In order to determine this, what we did is break down the cost per win among NFL teams.  The leaders here are:

• Indianapolis Colts, $7.4 million per win
• San Diego Chargers, $7.5 million per win
• Dallas Cowboys, $8.2 million per win
• Minnesota Vikings, $8.3 million per win
• New Orleans Saints, $9.4 million per win

Now we're seeing a pattern here.  The teams that spent their money wisely, and who spent the least per win all made the playoffs.

On the other hand, the teams that squandered their money and paid the most per win?  Not a playoff team among them.  They are:

• St. Louis Rams, $99.7 million per win
• Detroit Lions, $50.0 million per win
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers, $28.2 million per win
• Washington Redskins, $25.0 million per win
• Oakland Raiders, $22.3 million per win

The key to winning in the NFL appears to be spending wisely.  This is likely due to the salary cap and floor.  General managers in the NFL have to balance their needs with the cost of filling those needs.  And everyone has a budget.  It's not like MLB, where teams like the Red Sox and Yankees can just outspend teams like the Twins and Devil Rays.

Want a league where everyone has a shot at winning?  Implement a hard cap like the NFL has, and make general managers spend their money wisely.  That will put a premium on intelligent decisions on players, and it will help alleviate competitive imbalances that exist in MLB.

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