Vast Imbalances: Why the MLB, NFL, and NBA Are All Dominated by One Superior Conference

Three of the four major professional sports leagues, the NFL, NBA, and Major League Baseball, have all shared a common factor in the 2006-2007 season: a serious imbalance in terms of talent, performance, and quality of play between the two conferences. The American League demonstrated its superiority over the National League in the MLB regular season; the AFC had the edge all the way to the Super Bowl in pro football; and thus far the NBA East has been no match for the NBA West. How severe are the disparities?

During Inter-league play this past season in baseball, although Detroit fell to the Cardinals in the World Series, the American League won 154 and lost only 80, a winning percentage of just under 66 percent. St. Louis, who caught the Tigers in a slump, won the NL Central while winning just 83 games.

In the NFL, the AFC won 40 of 64 games against the NFC in the regular season, or 62.5 percent. In addition, the NFC had only one team with twelve or more wins, compared to four in the AFC. And Super Bowl XLI made it apparent that the best team in the National Conference was overmatched by the AFC representative.

The NBA is only slightly more balanced than the other two sports. The Western Conference has won 58 percent of its games against the Eastern Conference, and the Detroit Pistons, who hold the best record in the East, would not be first in any of the three Western Conference divisions if the season ended today (they would be third in the Southwest Division).

The reason for the imbalance between the conferences in pro football seems in large part to be related to an inequity in the level of individual talent. The AFC Pro Bowl team features starters Peyton Manning, Chad Johnson, and LaDanian Tomlinson. The NFC features Drew Brees, Donald Driver, and Frank Gore. In baseball, the American League's superiority in depth in both pitching and hitting accounts for much of their dominance in Inter-league play (compare the line-ups of the Yankees and Mets, the best regular season teams in their respective leagues this past season).