Does a High Franchise Value Lead to More Titles?

by user DNL

Over at a news article titled Billion Dollar Bombers, one contributor digested the MLB franchise valuations as published by Forbes (see the above link) and concluded that "[m]oney seems to make a difference. The American League East has the highest total value and account for nearly a third of all World Series victories since 1980. The National League East has the second highest total value and accounts for 20% of all World Series Victories."

In a number of comments, I took issue with this conclusion. Let's break down the same data, but instead of focusing on the division in which the team plays, let's instead focus on the valuation of the team. That, it seems, would make more sense.

I'm not going to take issue with some of the other flaws in the methodology (e.g choosing 1980 as a cutoff date, not accounting for changing league size, etc.).

The table below breaks down the list into groups of five -- an arbitrary distinction -- based on their valuation rank. That is, the Yankees through Cubs make up Tier 1; the Nats through Astros Tier 2; etc.


 * I awarded the Nationals (then Expos) the 1994 title.

Yes, the top tier teams have the most. But if you take out the Yankees (four titles), you have four teams and four championships -- or one per team. That's the exact same ratio as the bottom two groups of five.

Date
Fri 04/21/06, 7:30 am EST