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Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher
Still more parity than leagues that do not have a draft system in place.
In the last 20 years here are the winners of the English premiership:
Manchester United (12)
Arsenal (3)
Chelsea (3)
Blackburn Rovers (1)
Manchester City (1)
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Manchester United = 3rd in EPL payrolls
Arsenal = 4th
Chelsea = 2nd
Blackburn = 14th
Man. City = 1st
Man. City sepnds roughly 10x more on salary than the last place team in the EPL. Even the outlier there (Blackburn) spends 3 times more than the last place team. All this proves is that in a league with no meaningful cap, parity is hard to achieve. It says nothing about the effects of not having a draft. Do you really think Blackpool would be competing with Manchester United if only there was a draft lottery that favoured them?
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That's one example and many of the European soccer leagues would look similar. You do have a point about the cap being a huge factor in parity as well. But to suggest there is no evidence that the draft helps parity is a ridiculous claim. It quite obviously helps parity. It is one of the only ways a horrible team can attract talent. Without it the bottom feeders would stay horrible, never being able to attract quality free agents and rarely able to get young talent.
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It doesn't matter. Teams that continually draft high still have trouble attracting talent (Edmonton, Florida, Columbus, etc...). Teams that spend and are are in favourable cities or have respectable histories will attract talent - bottom line.
Teams that draft high get more affordable talent in the short term, but the ability to keep and attract talent is a function of spending, not drafting. Having a salary cap forces some talent down to the have-not teams and is the big equalizer that the draft lottery never was and will never be.