Taunter Media

Football season is just about here, and the Denver Broncos have already outdone themselves in bizarre offseason maneuvers.  As I mentioned here, the team decided to fire a two-time Super Bowl winner with a career 146-95 record who had the #2 team in total yardage last year despite losing seven running backs and starting a guy who was working in a cell phone kiosk, and replaced him with an offensive coordinator.  Then the offensive coordinator managed to get into a fight with the quarterback, a fight solved by trading a guy who threw for 4,500 yards/86 rating for a guy who threw for 2,972 yards/80 rating, and just barely beat Rex Grossman for a job.  The world has gone crazy.

To make matters worse, the sports industry was completely unprepared for the slowdown in the economy.  Here was Bill Simmons in February:

that’s the climate for the No Benjamins Association right now: Murky, unpredictable and not so lucrative…Looking at the big picture, the league won’t struggle even 1/10th as much as the NHL in years to come — of all the wildest predictions I heard in Phoenix, the craziest came from a connected executive who predicted that fifteen NHL teams would go under within the next two years (and was dead serious) — and Major League Baseball is about to get creamed beyond belief.

Who would have guessed a year ago that the Yankees would so overplay their hand in pricing seats to the new stadium that not only would they not sell out, the corporate buyers who did buy seats (accountants, attorneys, title insurers, printers) wouldn’t be able to give their seats away because finance people would be afraid of being photographed sitting in them?

Professional Football

Football is in the best shape of the major sports for two main reasons: a national television contract and a high quality product.  The comparatively short season means that each game is a major event, and the rough parity in payroll among the teams ensures consistently competitive games as long as neither team is Detroit or Cincinnati.

Even here, however, there is weakness.  Parity will diminish with the end of the salary cap, although that is probably for the best from an economic justice perspective - why should a team be able to collude with its competitors to ensure a disciplined market (yes, I know, the union agrees; the union is wrong)?   And the league continues with its insane blackout rules.

For those who are not familiar with the system, the league has a rule in its TV contracts that pull its games from television in the home team’s market if the home team does not sell out the game (or, in the case of Jacksonville, sell 50,000 seats).  Theoretically, this encourages full stadiums, which not only goose stadium revenue but also build atmosphere, etc.  What a self-defeating business plan.

Look at the Jacksonville DMA:

What kind of strange collective punishment idea tells a guy in Lake City that he cannot watch a football game – and, mind you, a blackout means infomercial, not another game – because he didn’t find a way to round up a few thousand friends and drive an hour and a half each way?  For that matter, why deny advertisers the opportunity to tell him about the wonders of beer and ED drugs for three hours?

In addition to ending the blackout rule, one more business practice should be eliminated: the NFL draft.  I know – it seems unfair to do so when Mel Kuiper, Jr seems to make a living on just that day.

Without a draft, players and teams would simply reach agreement independently.  Any player could negotiate with any team or teams, and for that matter, any team could negotiate with any number of players.  As things stand, a player who does not like his offer has to refuse to play for a year, which is an onerous punishment; on the other hand, the portion of pay that is determined by draft slot means that Matthew Stafford will make roughly as much money as Eli Manning.

On the field…stop punting so often.  From Gregg Easterbrook, the best sports analyst every day Malcom Gladwell is not writing about the subject:

A year ago at the Hall of Fame reception in Canton, Ohio I found myself sitting between Bill Walsh and Don Shula. I posed this question: In a day when the Bears line up five-wide and Texas Tech passes 60 times a game, are there any fundamental innovations that have not been tried? Walsh supposed someone might try using trick formations for an entire game. Shula twinkled his eyes and said: “Someday there will be a coach who doesn’t punt.”

The game theory advantages of dramatically reducing punting are clear.  The problem is – and if I had any doubts, they vanished when I found myself repeatedly explaining the Monty Hall problem to people who had the answer in front of them – statistics are tough on most people.  And there is a very high correlation between not understanding statistics and calling talk radio on Monday morning to talk about the jerk coach who went for it on fourth-and-1 and failed.  Would the modest performance improvement outweigh the risk of getting fired?  Unlikely.  Better to fail conventionally than succeed unconventionally.

College Football

Before I had this site fully operational, I made this proposal to revamp the BCS.  I have seen variants of it elsewhere, but none that I like better, so I am reprinting the guts of it:

On January 1, Bowl Across America for the eight best teams in the country (seeded).

10am local (10am Eastern) New York – 4 v. 5
1pm local (2pm Eastern) Chicago – 3 v. 6
4pm local (6pm Eastern) Denver – 2 v. 7
7pm local (10pm Eastern) Seattle – 1 v. 8

On January 8 (adjusting in relevant years for NFL conflicts)

Semifinals (reseeded) at two of: Miami, New Orleans, Phoenix, Los Angeles

On January 15 (adjusted in relevant years for NFL conflicts)

Final game at whichever of Miami, New Orleans, Phoenix, Los Angeles was not used the previous week and was not used at all the previous year.

Note that this system preserves all traditional BCS bowl locations and forces every team trying to win a national championship to win at least one game in inclement weather.

On the structural front, I would stop the NCAA from preventing players from negotiating with pro teams during school.  If you can interview with Google or Morgan Stanley while in college without getting thrown out of computer science class, you should be able to talk to a pro team about your chances at any point.  To take only the most obvious current example, I would allow Sam Bradford to call any NFL team without a decent quarterback – the Broncos are merely one possibility – and offer his services.  If no one makes an offer to his liking, he stays where he is, if he prefers the Show, he drops out.

Furthermore…start paying the kids.  I know there would be questions about pay equity – how much to each person, but here’s a simple way to begin: each professional sports league gives its players roughly 60% of league revenue.  In absence of a better number, I would suggest that each college football team be required to hand over 60% of the gate and TV money to its players, to be split pro rata .  Yes, that means the backup kicker makes the same as the quarterback.  But a system where players risk tremendous injury – beyond the immediate trauma, there is evidence that the repeated shocks cause all sorts of degenerative problems later in life – while everyone else – coaches, schools, TV networks, advertisers – makes money off of their efforts is offensive.  Almost all of these kids will go pro in something other than sports.  For now, though, they are making other people money, and if there is a teachable moment here, it should be that when you make a system money you get to share in it.

Basketball

I am unlikely to do better than Simmons’ post.  Highly unlikely, given that I find is strangely difficult to watch.  The only major ones I can think of are that the NBA should adopt the trapezoidal lane of the international game and start enforcing the rule against travelling (last seen midway through Jordan’s rookie year).

Hockey

Hockey is in dire straits from overexpansion; Phoenix is in bankruptcy proceedings and conceivably could move to Hamilton, Ontario befor the week is out, and you can be sure a place should not host a team if you need to explain where it is.  It is a shame, because hockey is made for HD television; it just so happens that it is also made for places where ice is not just in drinks.  My plan:

The Islanders, Thrashers, Predators, Coyotes, Panthers and Blue Jackets go away.  This leaves four six-team divisions: Northeast (Boston, Buffalo, Montreal, Ottawa, Rangers, Toronto), Atlantic (Capitals, Carolina, Devils, Flyers, Penguins, Tampa), Southwest (Anaheim, Colorado, Dallas, LA, San Jose, Vancouver), Northwest (Calgary, Chicago, Detroit, Edmonton, Minnesota, St. Louis).

Each team plays each other team home and away (46 games), each other team in its division home and away twice more (20 games), and one more game against each non-division opponent with the venue to alternate in successive years (18 games).  Cut the Stanley Cup down to 12 teams, with the top four getting byes for the first series.  In the first series, instead of four home games for the higher seed and three for the lower seed, play the first game on neutral ice, then four home for the higher seed and two for the lower (N-H-H-A-H-A-H).  For the four neutral venues, pick Halifax, Quebec, Winnipeg, and the home ice of whoever wins the NCAA Frozen Four.

As I mentioned in the previous post and here, end the fighting.  It’s stupid, and the people who would abandon the game in its absence are not the people whose support with make a major sport.  Require full face shields, as the NCAA already does, and you eliminate the major reason for fighting – no need for internal discipline of players who raise their sticks – while, for good measure, letting players keep their teeth and facial bones.

It is a minor change, but speed up the Zambonis to get the intermissions down to ten minutes.

Soccer

Any sport that tolerates diving cannot be taken seriously.  That includes diving, by the way.

Few things to get rid of the scourge:

• Dive, as determined by video review, is deemed a red card and suspension rules apply;
• Anyone given a red card for fighting someone who is later determined to have taken a dive has his red card withdrawn;
• Penalty spot is moved from 11 meters to 15 meters to reduce advantage of gaining a penalty.

The biggest change that I would make, however, is that I would go down to ten players (I’m tempted to say nine, but I’ll go with ten to sound slightly more Reasonable).  To compensate for the increased space per person, I would allow five substitutions, and players who are replaced can come back on at a later time (each change counts as a sub)

This change would create more dynamic play by making it slightly more difficult to crowd the penalty area on defense; it would also encourage more energy output, since two attacking midfielders could, for example, play hard for the first forty-five minutes, come off at halftime to be replaced by subs who would run hard, and be fit to come back on for the last fifteen minutes.

Get rid of the offsides rule.  If someone wants to hang out by the other team’s goal, let him; it simply spreads the field even more.

Stop the clock.  There is nothing dumber than the clock that counts upward and does not stop for injuries or out of bounds, only for the referee on the field to stop his wristwatch and then add on time to roughly compensate for the time play was stopped.  Start the clock at 45:00, count down, stop the public clock when you want the clock stopped, and end the half when the clock reaches :00 (or, in some stadiums, 0:00 – seems to be little convention on that one).

Finally, move from three officials to nine officials.  The NFL has seven field officials plus replay, and they do so with the benefit of a fixed line of scrimmage.  There should be an official for every field player pair.

Tennis

I would have forgotten about this one – I am lucky to remember tennis is still played – were it not for the NY Times article on this very subject.  I’d make the changes pretty straightforward – five games to win a set instead of six (tiebreaker at 5-5), and one serve.  And all major tournament matches – men’s and women’s – are best three of five sets.

As with golf, no restriction on in-game noise.  If a baseball player is expected to hit a baseball heading for his head at 95 miles per hour while the guy in the fourth row is screaming about what he did with the player’s mother, four dwarves, and a platypus, Roger Federer and Tiger Woods can play through some chatter.

Baseball

Pitch clock.

From the moment the pitcher receives the ball from the umpire or catcher to begin an at-bat, he has twenty seconds to deliver a pitch to the plate or an occupied base or have a ball assessed.  Every time a pitch is received by the catcher (or a fielder covering an occupied base), the clock restarts; if the batter hits a foul ball, the clock does not start until the umpire or catcher gives the pitcher a new ball.

However, at any point the pitcher has the ball during an at-bat, he may pitch.  The batter cannot call time for any reason; gloves not tight enough, wants to scratch himself some more, just got knocked down on the previous pitch and wants to walk around glaring at people – doesn’t matter.  From the moment he enters the batter’s box to begin the at-bat, the player has to be prepared for a pitch at any time.