Yesterday, Mike made an excellent point about what dark clouds the new NBA free agent circus may hold for small-to-mid-market franchises. His conclusion syncs up nicely with something I’ve been thinking about since the end of the Browns season.

The question is this: Is it possible that in a few years, the NFL will be the only sustainable pro sport in non-major markets, i.e. the only one where cities like Cleveland can legitimately hope to compete for a title?

Based on the available evidence, I believe the answer may be ‘yes.’

I’ve considered a few crucial differences between the NBA and NFL in this regard. I’ve ignored Major League Baseball because their system is currently so far out of wack—see: the complete lack of a salary cap—that it hardly seems worth addressing. (Let alone that MLB’s largest problem is that almost no one in contemporary American life wants to watch 162 regular season games that last 3.5+ hours each.)

Unless the parameters change in the new CBA, rookie contracts will be one major determinant of the answer. The current rules dictate that a player drafted in the first half of the first round can be signed to a 6-year contract; players in the second half of the first round to a 5-year contract; and players after the first round to a 4-year contract. (Thanks to Ask the Commish for the details.)

The contrast with the NBA is evident immediately. For first-round picks, the longest contract a team can extend is 4 years, with the latter 2 years both existing as team options. If a contract extension isn’t worked out by the end of the 4th year, the team can put forth a qualifying offer for a 5th year—but that only makes the player a restricted free agent. Further, if the player decides to play out the 5th year, he obtains veto power over any trades, then becomes an unrestricted free agent the following summer. (Thanks to Hoopsworld for the low-down.)

Perhaps counter-intuitively, NBA second round picks gain leverage even faster than their first-round cohorts. The longest contract an NBA team will normally negotiate here is 2-years of nonguaranteed money. However, if a second round pick pans out in a major way, he’s free to test the market as quickly as his sophomore, or at worst, junior season in the league.

The end result of this comparison? Current NFL rules protect their franchises by providing longer guarantees for potential star players than their NBA counterparts.

Consider the following:  In 2010, the St. Louis Rams signed Sam Bradford to a 6-year contract. Meanwhile, LeBron was a Cav for only 7 total seasons: 4 on his rookie contract, another 3 thanks to an extension.

This example is one where simple subtraction simply doesn’t tell the story. Yes, we’re only talking about a net 1 year difference between the Rams’ agreement with Bradford and the Cavs’ two agreements with LeBron. But the difference is continuity. After going 7-9 and barely missing the playoffs in his rookie season, the Rams’ front office knows that Bradford is a franchise player that they have for the next 5 seasons, guaranteed. As we all know too well, the Cavs didn’t have such a long-term safety net. Instead, they allowed themselves to be forced into a series of panic upgrades that were never conducive to a strong, long-term foundation.

The reason was obvious: LeBron’s free agency was always pending, so they had to prove they could win now in order to keep him around. The Rams, meanwhile, have half a decade to build around Bradford.

The contrast carries through the lower branches of each sport’s draft: by the time a second round NFL pick can become a free agent, a second round NBA pick will have had the free agency option two or even three years earlier.

All of this plays into the viability of pro football versus pro basketball in cities like Cleveland. As proven by LeBron and Chris Bosh, young NBA stars are no longer prone to take slightly more money to stay with the franchise that drafted them. Their desire to build “super teams” is hardly surprising, given the (Mesa favorite) fact that only 8 different NBA franchises have won the title in the past 30 years.

But young NFL stars are basically locked into their first franchise for a substantial time period from the starting gun. With a skillful personnel department, NFL teams have the time they need to convince budding stars to stick around via complementary moves. Given the numbers, those players also have less incentive to migrate to specific alternatives than their NBA counterparts anyway; in the same 30 year period, 14 different NFL teams have won the Super Bowl.

These rookie contract considerations aren’t the only elements that empower small-to-mid-market NFL teams. Their ability to “franchise” a player otherwise ready to hit the open market is another powerful tool in the quest for competitive balance.

For the uninitiated, the franchise tag essentially blocks a player at the end of his contract from entering free agency. If he’s hit with an exclusive franchise tag, the player cannot negotiate with other teams, but is compensated by receiving one year’s salary equal to either the average of the top 5 salaries at his position in the current NFL season, or 120% of his previous contract year, whichever is greater. If he’s hit with a non-exclusive franchise tag, the player is compensated by receiving either the average of the top 5 salaries at his position in the previous NFL season, or 120% of his previous contract year, whichever is greater.

However, non-exclusive franchise players also maintain the right to negotiate with other teams. If they sign an offer sheet elsewhere, the original franchise has the right to match the offer, or else refuse it and receive two first-round draft picks from the franchise player’s chosen destination. In comparison to the NBA equivalent, this system is vastly preferable to any franchise unable to maintain a star player. Two first rounders in the NFL draft is a HUGE bounty. By contrast, the best an NBA team can do when a star chooses to go elsewhere is normally a few infinitely less valuable future draft picks and a trade exception. (We can all see how much that trade exception has helped the Cavs this season.)

If all of the above weren’t enough, also consider the prevalence of undrafted NFL free agents or late round picks not only making an NFL roster, but becoming impact players. (Peter King examines this phenomenon briefly in his most recent Monday Morning Quarterback - just scroll down to “The [Super Bowl] match-up is a reward to two organizations that built teams.”) The probability of a second round pick or undrafted NBA free agent having the same kind of effect on a team’s fortune seems to be much rarer—and again, even when it does happen, the team that took a chance on the player in question almost immediately has to work to try to retain his services.

Admittedly, I have no idea what the new NBA and NFL collective bargaining agreements will look like. However, if current rules and current trends largely remain, then I sincerely believe that we are rapidly approaching a time when the NFL is the only legitimate game in town for cities like Cleveland. Here’s hoping I’m dead wrong.

-T