Messing With Pro Sports

First off, an admission: I used to be a sports junkie when I was in my teens and twenties. It was all about the NHL, MLB, NBA, NFL, and CFL growing up. And then the digital age happened. The internet. The million channels on TV. Video Games. All diverting my attention, all endlessly entertaining, and even undermining sports by delivering highlight reel packages and recaps in small, digestable morsels - instead of asking for 3-hours of my time to watch a game.

Now I think a lot of sports are downright boring, save for Hockey and Football. Yeah I’m Canadian, so you’d think Hockey would be a biased automatic pass. In reality, I give hockey a passing grade because the NHL decided to evolve after the lockout of 04-05, resulting in an improved product and increasing the quality of every game. Football keeps my attention because they play once a week. One week to analyze the last game, one week to look forward to the next one. Football is not a huge commitment.

Baseball? Wow. Clearly a game buoyed by older generations, purists, and mathematicians. It is a game from the 19th century. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was reduced to a niche enterprise in a few generations. The only way I think the game can improve is to slash their 164-game schedule in half to make each game mean something. Also, maybe put two pitchers on the mound to alternate pitches. The game is slow. When you can air a 30-second commercial between each pitch and not miss a beat, that says something.

Basketball. How the mighty has fallen. Every time I tune in, the game finishes like this: several time-outs, a bunch of fouls, and a whole lot of free throws. Seriously. Coach, do you really need to confer with your $70M starting line-up that often? Basketball is boring. All you have to do is watch a highlight package to get the gist: A slam dunk. A 3-point shot. A no-look pass. Wash, rinse, and repeat. I’d reduce the number of timeouts to 2 per team for the whole game. Instead of foul shots, award an automatic 2 or 3 points, much like a ‘goaltending’ call. Keep the game moving.

I think Pro Sports should continue to evolve. There was a time when Basketball had no shot clock. A few decades ago, there was no video review to help officials. More forward-thinking is needed:

Here are a few ideas to help. First up is Basketball. I think the backboard needs to be a curved surface for a few reasons: 1) The whole reason a backboard is there is to keep the ball in play, not as an aide to help players sink shots. Pure skill is needed to sink a bucket now. 2) A portion of your court is behind the backboard, so why not give players from the corners or deep in the key an open net to shoot at? 3) It would make rebounding more of a guessing game.

Football: I love you, there is nothing wrong with you - well, maybe the kicking game. Yeah it can be dramatic, but not very often. Looking at the CFL’s announcement of a new rule change in OT that forces teams to go for a 2-point conversion after a TD instead of a kick (making things a lot less automatic, and thus unpredictable), I thought of another way to make kicking more entertaining: Make the uprights hydraulically adjustable. You can go a few routes with this: the width would be decided by the distance the kicking team is from the endzone, or you could allow teams to gamble and kick for more points. If I was a coach, down by 4, and I had the option to kick for a potential 5-point score - I’d go for it. The drawback being the uprights are only 7 feet wide.

Nascar: I guess people love cars that drive in an oval, though I think the real reason is the crashes. If I designed a racing circuit, it would look like something out of Spy Hunter. Long distances with mobile pit crews, and maybe a few power-ups.

All Pro Sports: That relegation system that English Premiere League uses, where the bottom 3 teams are relegated to the minor league, and the top 3 minor teams would graduate to the pros…perfect system. I’d like to think the Edmonton Oilers would be a longtime AHL team, haha.