Puh-leeze. “Useless” teams? I don’t like getting into a baseball discussion on a football thread, but why are you going all the way back to the 1890s, where, BTW, the teams you describe as “useless” either folded or relocated, as should be the remedy. There are always going to be good teams and bad teams in every legitimately competitive sports league or leagues. That’s the inevitable result simply of counting wins and losses. And winners and losers, in baseball, football, or other pro sports, aren’t necessarily determined by the population of the city which they represent.
The only other alternative is to that is to have a centalized entity meddle in and predetermine the outcome and have everyone be forced to win exactly half their games and lose half. That may be extreme, but that’s the only way to completely satisfy the socialist instinct prevelant in some sports management circles. Maybe professional wrestling, where all is fixed, is more your speed.
You'd do better to deflate your Adam Smith blow-up doll and zip up. Actually, do us all a favor and do those things in reverse order. Relax and realize the lesson of the NFL draft, and other leagues (which was the discussion) is that we stray away from pure capitalism for what? In an artificial world of entertainment. You wanna make steel efficiently? Use some of that there capitalism. Want to bring a good quality sport to amuse a wide variety of people? Then you make the league the focus, and make damn sure you don't grow monster teams.
But you have the sound of one of those guys smarter than a century of pro sports, so whatever.