The draft has come a long way since beginning in 1936, when teams selected players based on rumors and gut feelings. Now the business of drafting is big business, and the business of scouting and projecting what teams will pick which players is equally big.

In 1979, the brand new ESPN petitioned the league to televise the draft live. The network was initially turned down by a unanimous vote of the league owners. But ESPN persisted, and in April 1980, the cameras rolled as Oklahoma running back Billy Sims was selected first by the Detroit Lions on an early Tuesday morning.

 writes,

could tell you anything about football, anything about players — even from 10 years ago. Heights. Forty-yard dash times. Injuries. If a guy sprained an ankle, he knew which ankle.

When a Police Athletic League coach told Buchsbaum he was too small to play sports he began a lifelong obsession with player analysis.

Buchsbaum wrote for Pro Football Weekly and each year produced an analysis of each of the 600 to 800 players available for the draft that NFL insiders considered the definitive draft guide. With his nasal Brooklyn monotone, he also became a cult figure on weekly radio programs in Houston and St. Louis.

Buchsbaum wrote his first draft report at age 20 and sent it out to 120 newspapers and magazines hoping to get published. The next year he was hired by the Football News.

In 1978 Pro Football Weekly hired him to generate a 50-page draft analysis. Over the years these reports grew to over 200 pages.

Man, Economy, and State, “the further an exchange economy develops, the further advanced will be the specialization process.”

Rothbard points out that the marketability of products and services determines how extensive the division of labor is in a society. If the exchange economy is allowed to thrive, the potential for specialization is endless. New technologies and services beget more advances and further opportunities for specialization.

Writes Rothbard,

It is clear that conditions for exchange, and therefore increased productivity for the participants, will occur where each party has a superiority in productivity in regard to one of the goods exchanged — a superiority that may be due either to better nature-given factors or to the ability of the producer. If individuals abandon attempts to satisfy their wants in isolation, and if each devotes his working time to that specialty in which he excels, it is clear that total productivity for each of the products is increased.

explains why there is a difference of opinion concerning the pro potential of college players.

The first step in understanding the Austrian concept is to realize that value is entirely subjective, rather than something objective. Value, therefore, is something that each individual person weighs on a purely private, not a public, set of scales.

Harper continues:

Hence, any two persons will not and need not agree on the value of the same item at the same instant of time. If they should agree, it is a coincidence of no significance whatever so far as discovering value objectively is concerned. For any item at any given instant of time, each person sets his own value in a way that is a mystery to others. He takes into account a vast range of considerations, many of which are peculiar to him alone and which may be so deeply subjective that he cannot even describe them to another person.

Winning in the NFL attracts fans, sells merchandise, and increases franchise value. For example, the difference between drafting Peyton Manning #1 and Ryan Leaf #2 in 1998 boggles the imagination. Manning went on to lead Indianapolis to seven AFC South Championships, two AFC Championships, and a Super Bowl win, while earning four league MVP awards. And after sitting out last year due to injury, Manning will play next year for Denver at age 36.

Ryan Leaf, drafted a few minutes after Manning by the San Diego Chargers, is considered the biggest flop in NFL draft history. The Chargers signed the college star to a four-year contract of $31.25 million, which included a $11.25 million signing bonus. Leaf was benched after 9 games in his rookie year due to poor performance. He missed his second season due to an injury, and in 2001 San Diego let him go. Leaf was given tryouts by a few teams, but at age 26 he retired from the game.

Mock drafts are everywhere, and a cottage industry — currently led by Mel Kiper Jr. — has developed beyond anyone’s expectation.

calls “a sprawling draft empire, replete with radio spots, television shows, books, newsletters and Web sites.” Kiper spends hours on the phone with college coaches and NFL general managers, and more hours watching games learning everything he can about pro prospects. “They have no team of scouts, no ghostwriters, no secretary, no accountant, no technology department,” just Mel and his wife, who handles the business side.

says Kiper, who has been part of ESPN’s draft coverage team since 1984. “The interest is unbelievable right now. Prime time draft? If you would have said that 32 years ago…”

told the New York Times the day after Buchsbaum died in 2002 at age 48. “Joel had a lot to do with what became the glorification of draft day. ESPN started putting it on the air live, but Joel helped them get interested in it.”

 division of labor creates organized society. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates says that specialization is advantageous, because “we are not all alike; there are many diversities of natures among us which are adapted to different occupations.”

Mel Kiper Jr. and Joel Buchsbaum were able to create niches for themselves and become legends doing what they love — thanks to the market economy and the glorious division of labor.

 

This Mises Institute article was republished with permission. 

 

[Image Credit: John McClain, Houston Chronicle]