Maybe it’s time the World learns from the U.S.

Parity.  Within the context of the sporting world it is a word that ellicits praise or hurumphs of derision.  If you look at the history of the major football leagues in Europe and South America, hegemony lies within the grip of a handful of teams.  In England they are known as the “big four”, Scotland has the Old Firm, Italy has the twin headed monster of AC Milan and Inter Milan, and Spain seems to always revolve around the Real Madrid and Barca.  Now this is not to say there are not disruptions, recently Valencia won back to back titles in La Liga, and Blackburn once broke the grip of the big four in the EPL.  Yet if anyone expects an Athletico Madrid, or Fiorentino, or even Bolton to win their respective leagues they can at best be described as overly optimistic.   Meanwhile in the U.S.  every major sport has built in mechanisms that allows even a small market teams to compete with larger teams in terms of size and wealth.  A key mechanism in this is the salary cap.  The cap allows for a leveled playing field in terms of going after free agents and and building teams.  With football going more global with each passing year, will populations outside of England, Spain, and Italy be consistently enamoured of leagues where no matter happens within the course of a season, the eventual champion will always be down to  two to four teams?  In order to maintain the strides some of the major football leagues have made in the world market, making the leagues more competitive and less predictable must be the next step in development.