Both MLB and NBA have so called luxury taxes where a certain percentage of spending over a set amount for MLB and the salary cap for NBA has to be put into a pot for the smaller teams to share. I think it's hard to know how much it's affected the game in a positive way either in baseball or basketball but for different reasons.
For the NBA the tax was put in to resolve labor strife with the union so that there wasn't a hard salary cap which they were never going to accept. With that said you already have revenue sharing, a (soft)salary cap and a draft but you'll have teams that will sabotage their own roster rather than pay the tax. The most famous example being Oklahoma City trading away James Harden instead of keeping him with Durant and Westbrook, they would have probably won multiple NBA titles as a team otherwise. I can't think of a single example where a team succeeded because of extra money received from the tax, it's more a detriment to keep labor costs down.
For the MLB, the tax was put in to in theory make the league more competitive with the spectre of the Yankees just buying the title every year. MLB is probably the closest thing to the PL in that there are historically dominant teams that make more than the rest, there isn't much revenue sharing as most TV contracts are local and there is no salary cap but a tax for every dollar spent above X amount. There is a draft though that is off-set by the ability to buy the best overseas players directly. Maybe the money from the tax has helped in this regards but I'd say it's had a more negative affect on labor wage growth and which now guaranteed profit for the clubs. 20 years ago most would lose money to compete and now while MLB would never admit it due to continued labor strife with the union they all make money on a yearly basis.
The tax seems good in theory but mainly all it does is guarantee a profit for the owners by artificially keeping labor costs down in my mind. Now maybe because of the pyramid style of the game the tax instead would be used to boost the lower leagues? It would be pretty ironic but you might have something there. Otherwise you're better off with just larger revenue sharing but this gets back to my last post in the 50+1 thread in that I don't think most fans understand what this really means for the top clubs.
It is not just the Luxury tax that is shared in MLB. They also have general revenue sharing.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Revenue_sharingRevenue sharing
Revenue sharing refers to measures taken to pool and redistribute certain revenues among competing teams in a league, in order to lessen economic inequalities among teams.
Among measures that are typically part of revenue sharing are splitting national television rights, pooling of merchandising revenues, and in the case of Major League Baseball, developing and pooling revenues from the internet via mlb.com. Revenue sharing can also include some redistributive measures such as a luxury tax, or even forcing teams to pay a portion of their local television revenues into a common pool (something which has been contemplated but never implemented in MLB). The common thread is that these measures treat richer and poorer teams on an equal footing, or in the case of redistributive measures, take some of the excess revenues of richer teams and provide these to less-favored teams.
Revenue sharing can be quite controversial, as the measures will typically prevent the more successful franchises - which are often in that position because they occupy larger or more lucrative markets - from maximizing the competitive edge they could gain from the revenues they can extract from their position. However, without a form of revenue sharing, a sports league will typically polarize between a few very rich and successful franchises, and all others that struggle year after year. Proponents of revenue sharing argue that while a system where a few franchises are free to maximize their revenues is good for those few owners in the short term, it weakens the fabric of the league in the long term by lessening the level of competition, and that this will eventually erode everyone's revenues. However, there are many counter-examples of sports leagues around the world that endure in spite of domination by a few franchises.
Revenue sharing was a taboo for years in Major League Baseball, apart from the national television contracts that were not particularly lucrative once split among all the existing franchises. The issue of small-market against large-market teams became salient in the 1990s, however, and was at the core of the 1994 strike. That very damaging experience led to the adoption of some of the measures listed above. However, baseball is still well behind the National Football League or Major League Soccer, for example, in terms of revenue sharing.
In Major League Baseball, 48% of local revenues are subject to revenue sharing and are distributed equally among all 30 teams, with each team receiving 3.3% of the total sum generated. As a result, in 2018, each team received $118 million from this pot. Teams also receive a share of national revenues, which were estimated to be $91 million per team, also in 2018. Unsurprisingly JWH isn't a fan.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/liverpool-owner-john-henry-fined-dollar500000-by-major-league-baseball-ng79lsfpvn6 John W Henry has revealed that he was fined $500,000 by Major League Baseball (MLB) after criticising the sport’s revenue-sharing system.
The Liverpool owner spoke publicly about the fine for the first time yesterday, although his original comments were made back in 2009.
At the time, Henry told The Boston Globe that he couldn’t understand why “seven chronically uncompetitive teams” received over $1 billion in revenue. “Who, except these teams, can think this is a good idea?” he asked.
“The large markets aren’t allowed to give their opinions,” Henry said. “I made statements which turned out to be true, or at least there were various documents that were leaked after that. But anyway, the large clubs are not allowed to talk about it.”
