Liquidation Sale

Does anyone care about the Detroit Lions?

Seriously, why do the Detroit Lions exist? I found myself asking this question after yet another year of watching the Lions play awful football on Thanksgiving Day. The Lions are so terrible that two Hall of Famers in the prime of their careers, Calvin Johnson and Barry Sanders, both decided to retire from football altogether so they wouldn’t have to play for the Lions anymore. I started to think about why a team such as the Lions continues to exist despite seemingly no one caring about them and posting the 2nd worst attendance record in the entire NFL. The team that’s currently in last place, the Jacksonville Jaguars, also confuses me with its existence.

It’s hard for me to comprehend the vast number of poorly-run sports organizations. There are so many teams in all of the North American leagues that are plagued year after year with either poor attendance figures, incompetent front offices, owners unwilling to spend to win, inability to attract talented free agents or all of the above. It makes me wonder why these teams even exist if they never plan to try to compete for a championship. And despite what any owner says, every single one of these franchises is profitable because of revenue sharing. If not, they would’ve sold their ownership stakes long ago. The biggest myth any owner convinced their fanbase is that they are losing money by owning the team but I digress.

I felt that this newsletter would be the perfect time to discuss these teams in dire straits and propose a solution to fix these franchises. Similar to a liquidation sale, I think that these teams should be gutted and have their rosters disbanded. This would have fewer teams in each league, lead to shorter schedules, and increase the talent across the league as there’s more talent to go around on not as many rosters. Once the teams are back to square one, we should decide whether to keep them or to relocate them to a new city. I feel like every North American sport has around 4–6 teams that are prime candidates for liquidation and a fresh start, so I’ll list them below with a few choice words about some of the them.

• NFL — Detroit Lions, Jacksonville Jaguars, New York Jets, Washington Football Team, Cleveland Browns. There’s no reason for any sport to have two teams in the same city, and there’s no reason for any sport to have a team in both Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland. I also threw in the Jaguars and Jets for their histories of incompetent front offices and inability to lure any talented free agents to their franchises.
• NBA — New Orleans Pelicans, Sacramento Kings, Los Angeles Clippers, Brooklyn Nets, Detroit Pistons, Minnesota Timberwolves. The Sacramento Kings fired their head coach Luke Walton this month, and my first thought was “Wait, the Kings still exist?” We should fix that, along with fixing the other cities that have multiple teams like Brooklyn and Los Angeles. Finally, what will it take to get one of these god-awful franchises to replace the Seattle SuperSonics already?
• MLB — Baltimore Orioles, Arizona Diamondbacks, Los Angeles Angels, New York Mets, Texas Rangers, Cleveland (Indians) Guardians, and one of the Chicago teams. I’m torn on which Chicago team to get rid of so I’m leaving it as TBD for now, but I know the league would be better without the Mets, Angels and Orioles. Also, the Tampa Bay Rays might be moving to Montreal, Canada so I’m leaving them off this list as it seems they’re fixing their own problem.
• NHL — Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning. Arizona Coyotes, Dallas Stars, San Jose Sharks, Los Angeles Kings, Anaheim Ducks, Nashville Predators, Carolina Hurricanes. Seriously, every team that’s not in the northern United States or Canada should be liquidated and either disbanded or moved. The future of the league depends on it.

Which teams do you think should be liquidated?

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