There is nothing wrong with pro football. Nothing that I would be able to fix anyway. My specialty lies in geography, logistics and marketing. And in those areas, I find that football has just about the perfect scheme going. They know where their hotspots are, they have found a way to make the season the perfect length, the playoffs the perfect length and build up the appropriate amount of hype for the important events. Maybe they could have one or two fewer preseason games, but you can’t complain about a league that has managed to bring Parity not only in the national sports dialogue, but become a word synonymous with their game. If only they could help their college version. Go Boise.
The first sport that could use a change is Hockey. Is the only way to get interest in the sport to make the playoffs ridiculously long? If there is any sport that ought to change their playoff schedule it’s this one In 2002 the Wild had two of the most exciting seven-game playoff series I’ve been witness to, but they only finished second in their conference. Just wrong. And nobody wants to watch a winter sport in June. And that is what Hockey has to remember, too. It is a winter sport. So cater to the crowds that actually know what winter is. Atlanta, Dallas, Florida and Phoenix don’t get teams. Give teams back to Hartford, Winnipeg, Quebec. Even Wisconsin might want one. Milwaukee, I guess. Anyway, I love the Winter Classic. That game actually makes me want to watch hockey.
Basketball has thrived on its ability to garner most of the attention in a given city. It’s worked pretty well in Portland, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, Orlando and San Antonio. The great thing basketball has going for it is that it has a lot of games and it’s not a weather-specific sport. If anything they need more teams in areas that don’t have enough. St. Louis. That’s all I got.
But they could also take a page out of hockey’s book and have a Summer Classic, played outside somewhere. And have a H-O-R-S-E competition at the All-Star break. For any more ways to fix basketball, ask The Sports Guy, Bill Simmons.
Baseball is my favorite sport to watch, so I have to take a lot of care when trying to fix it. Okay- get rid of the DH- for teams that want to- and that’s what you play in their stadiums. Never mind, that would suck. Okay, but we do need to get rid of interleague play, balance the schedule, shorten the season, add a wild-card team and have the two WCs play in a best of three play-in series. Also, there need to be two more teams. Now is the biggest recent influx of talent and the sport needs to take advantage. New Orleans and Portland need expansion teams. For a full detail of my plan for the slight realignment, I will email you the plans in five pages.
Finally, I think more teams need more nicknames to their nicknames. Those are the coolest. It’s what separates American sports from British ones. The Bolts, Halos, O’s, C’s, B’s. A’s. M’s. Yes, there might be a theme here. But one thing we could take from across the pond is the way they promote/demote teams for doing better or worse in league play. My vote is baseball. I think we have enough teams for that…
No comments:
Post a Comment