Bills, Packers show small markets thriving in NFL
The Packers and the Bills are in National Football League conference championship games Sunday.
A Green Bay-Buffalo Super Bowl isn't likely. Young Patrick Mahomes and Sir Tom Brady stand in the way. The Packers likely will take out Brady and the Buccaneers. But the Bills over Mahomes and the Chiefs is a tall order.
But a Green Bay-Buffalo
Super Bowl is no fantasy or fairy tale. Is no longshot. It's well within the bounds
of believability.
And it would be the story of the year in professional sports. Green Bay and Buffalo are the NFL's two smallest markets.
Greater Green Bay, Wisconsin, has about 320,000 residents, making it the 158th-largest market in America.
Buffalo has about 1.127 million in its metro area, making it the 49th-largest
market in America.
Green Bay and Buffalo combined have about 1.44 million people. Oklahoma City, not exactly a Metropolis, has about 1.41 million people.
The NFL has mastered geographic parity. Market size is irrelevant. Glamorous locales rarely matter. Rank the NFL's 30 markets by most desirable place to visit or live, and Green Bay and Buffalo might rank nextto-last and dead last.
But their ballteams are thriving. And frankly, most of the NFL's small markets are quite competitive.
Of pro football's seven smallest markets, six made the 2020 playoffs. Green Bay, Buffalo, New Orleans, Nashville, Indianapolis and Kansas City. Only Jacksonville, the 27th-largest NFL metro, missed the playoffs.
The NFL's formula is no secret. The hard payroll cap doesn't allow the Gothams to outspend less-endowed competitors. Quality management and football smarts and good business sense means much more than how many eyeballs watch your games or how many companies stand in line to buy luxury suites. And without local television contracts, all teams are created equal when it comes to big media money.
Go down the list of teams in the 10 biggest markets. Giants. Jets. Chargers. Rams. Bears. Cowboys. Texans. 49ers. Patriots. Washingtons. Dolphins. Eagles.
The Patriots, you know all about. The Rams have been solid since moving back to Los Angeles, even making Super Bowl 53. The Texans have been competitive in Houston, though they're a mess right now. The Eagles historically are winners. But also a bunch of buds.
Truth is, it's not terribly different in the NBA, which does not have a hard cap. The smallest of the NBA's 28 markets have done well over the years.
Salt Lake City ranks 28th, Oklahoma City 25th, Milwaukee 24th, Indianapolis 23rd, Portland 21st, San Antonio 20th. The Spurs are the gold standard. The Thunder, Jazz, Pacers and Trail Blazers are consistent winners. The Bucks have their moments.
It's easy to think about recent NBA transactions and shake your head at market disparity. In the last 2½ years, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Anthony Davis, James Harden, Paul George and Kyrie Irving have maneuvered themselves to New York or Los Angeles.
But until the Lakers' 2020 NBA championship, no team from any of the five biggest markets — LA, New York, Chicago, Dallas or Houston — had made the NBA Finals since 2011, and only twice (the Rockets both times) had a team from that list even made the conference finals.
The difference, of course, is that with the soft payroll cap and local television contracts, NBA teams quickly can recover from goofy decisions. That's not something the Thunder and Jazz can afford, and it's not something the Packers and Bills have to worry about, since the Jets and the Rams are powerless to just write bigger checks.
And of course baseball, with no payroll cap, is not even comparable. The Yankees and Dodgers and Cubs are playing a different game than the Brewers and Royals and Reds .
So enjoy the NFL playoffs. Greater Green Bay is Lubbock North. Buffalo is Birmingham Cold. And it's not like Kansas City is becoming the next Chicagoland. Even Tampa Bay is not in the upper half of NFL metro populations.
The NFL is no respecter of cities.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-7608080 or at btramel@ oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.