How would you improve popular (and not-so-popular) sports?

In My Humble Opinion
1

If you were given the chance to change the rules of any televised sports in order to make them more entertaining, what would you change?

I’ve got a few good ideas:

All sports: Repeal all rules pertaining to drug usage. Not just drugs commonly used to improve athletic performance, ALL drugs. Let players partake of whatever they want, whenever they want, and encourage the use of hallucinogens and amphetamines.

Prohibit substitutions - Require players to play the whole entire game unless they lose consciousness.

Hockey: That’s simple: Legalize fighting. You know you want it.

Allow the offensive players to carry small flamethrowers.
Soccer(we have a LOT of work to do here): Have the players carry and use weapons.

Have some sort of penalty for having a score of 0 at the end of the game.

Place hidden pit traps around the field.

Require the players to get high on crystal meth before each game.
Well, that’s all I can think of right now.

2

On the off chance that the OP actually wanted some serious answers:

Baseball- Two words: Salary Cap

Football- On the whole, the NFL takes itself too seriously, which is why some commentators call it the “No Fun League.” First, get rid of that guy who does the narration for NFL Films. You know the guy I’m talking about. [deep, menacing voice]“FROM THE FROZEN TUNDRA OF LAMBUEAU FIELD…”[/deep, menacing voice] … Allow players to celebrate a little more when they score a touchdown: let them toss balls into the crowd, don’t ban the Bob & Weave, etc. That’s about as specific as I can be; the NFL just needs an across-the-board dose of Lighten Up.

Soccer- Soccer promoters bitch & moan about how The Most Popular Sport in the World has yet to become popular with the American public. Ever seen a soccer game televised? Was it on ESPN2 at 6:00 on Saturday morning? Soccer needs more television exposure if it’s ever going to get big.

3

NFL - ban extra point kicks. Allow runs for 1 point and a passes for 2 points. Bring back Iron Man football. Should limit teams to only 20 players, forcing players to play both sides of the ball.

Does anyone remeber the game Cyberball?? Well if you didn’t score after 5 or 6 plays, the ball would blow up. Introduce the exploding ball to the NFL. That should prove exciting!!!

NBA - Reduce number of games played from the current 500 to only 40 or so. This would shorten the torturous 8 month season and provide games that might mean something. Maybe add a 4-point line.

NASCAR (or auto-racing in general) - Either abolish it completely or allow unlimited modifications to engines and cars (ala Speed Racer). I would like to see a track with long straight aways (4 or 5 miles) enough time to really open up, followed by dangerously tight turns and water traps.

Baseball - Add the shotclock concept from basketball to speed up the game. Pitcher must deliver the pitch in time or the batter takes a free base. Baseball is horrible to watch on TV.

All professional atheletes are overpaid. All salary should be the same, and bonuses awarded for performance (touchdown run $20000 (better share with the linemen or maybe they wont block as well next time) The same would work for other sports as well

4

I’ll second Rastahamie’s recommendations about adding a salary cap to major league baseball and having the NFL lighten up. Let me add:

MLB Baseball: speed up the game. Cut the time between innings (increase the rate you charge advertisers and stop trying to cram more and more commercials in), keep the batters in the batter’s box and not have them all do a Mike “Human Rain Delay” Hargrove routine between each pitch and call the high strike, so that World Series games don’t go on past midnight.

NFL Football: I hate place kicks. I’d make a field goal worth only 2 points, make a touchdown worth 7 points, and require that a PAT be a play from scrimmage instead of a place kick.

NCAA Football: implement a fair playoff system, so that when an unheralded team like Tulane or Marshall goes undefeated they might have a chance at the championship. And I’d get rid of the overtime system. Ties aren’t so bad. I know people who still delight in arguing about the Notre Dame-Michigan State tie game of 1966.

Soccer: Nothing can help soccer.

5

Extreme Bingo: The balls are hurled skyward and the caller “chooses” them by shooting them out of the air with a skeet pistol. Players’ cards are set on fire at the beginning of every turn. The marker contains flame retardant and is used to extinguish any needed spaces as designated by the caller.

(Okay, Bingo’s a game, not a sport. Sue me.)

Extreme Curling: Throw the stones overhand. Duh.

6

Soccer- Go back to having it played with the severed heads of our enemies.

Or was it basketball that was played that way? Well, play basketball that way too.

And while were at it go back to requiring the losing basketball players to forfit all their worldly posessions, including their clothes, to the winners.

In fact, play soccer that way too. In fact, have them forfit their clothes at the beginning of the game. Some of those soccer players are pretty cute.

Of course that would do nothing to help baseball…

7

Pro Celebrity Boxing Then Mike Tyson could fight a worthy opponent again - Regis Filbin for instance.

8

Easy, get rid of the two-minute warning on pro sports. It was created for the sole purpose of injecting more commercials to a captive audience at the end of a game.

9

I think the majority of sports could be improved by combining them with other sports…

Hockey and Baseball. Try going around the bases on ice skates. Makes protecting the bag a little bit dicier when somebody’s sliding into home…

Tennis and Badminton. Different weights of projectiles, two nets with a 2’ gap between them…

Downhill racing and ski jumping.

Any sport could be improved by combining it with boxing. Oh, wait… that’s rugby.

10

NASCAR - add obstacles such as oil slicks and barrels of combustable liquid to the track.

Boxing - put some Battlebot style hazards in the rings. Especially spike strips against the ropes.

Basketball - moving baskets like those little pop-a-shot games at the arcade.

Football - don’t stop the clock at all. No time outs, no out of bounds stoppage, 2 minute warning, just play so 15 minutes of football time takes 15 minutes of real time.

Hockey - put some asphalt patches randomly around the rink. The players can either jump these patches or face the sudden stop when their skates hit them.

11

Womens topless soccer.
Womens topless tennis…mmmm, Anna Kournikova…
Womens topless Ballroom Dancing.
Womens topless golf.

All mens sports, allow a sack-type play at any time (especially useful in golf)

12

Football: Ban punting. You never, ever get to punt. You have to go for it on every fourth down. I hate punting. Also, I agree with the prior suggestions to ban extra points. Also, get rid of the rules allowing quarterbacks to throw the ball away. It’s football for God’s sake, not ballet.

Baseball: I agree with speeding the game up. If the pitcher’s not ready in 10 seconds, call a ball. If the batter steps out of the box for any reason other than a life-threatening injury, automatic strikeout.

On a less serious note, handicap teams by payroll. Every $10M difference in payroll is a one run handicap. So, the Expos start out with a 8-0 lead against the Yankees.

Basketball: I’m tired of all the whining so, no talking to the referees. Open your mouth, automatic technical foul. Open it twice, ejection. Complain about the ejection, sit the next five games. Also, I’m tired of the wrestling. Call the freaking fouls. The rules are already in the rulebook, just enforce them. Allow zone defenses. Make the worst shooter on the team take all of the free throws in the fourth quarter. Even if he’s sitting on the bench. Watching people like Shaq shoot free throws is an abomination.

Hockey and Soccer: I don’t care what you have to do, but increase the scoring. 1-0 is exciting in a kind of tense, dramatic way, but it gets to be grating when it happens all the time. In hockey I would also recommend freeing up the offensive players and preventing the type of holding and grabbing that goes on all the time. I also would allow more fighting. But just in hockey - not other sports.

All pro sports: Mandatory salary caps with maximum salaries of $1M to be adjusted for inflation. You’re playing a sport for a job for God’s sake. You don’t need obscene wealth too.

All ticket prices are capped at $10 per seat. $5 per seat for the sections farther away from the field/court/etc. Television licensing fees are reduced and there are caps on the amount of commercials allowed to be shown. For instance, in football and basketball the only commercial breaks are at the quarters. Baseball gets commercials every three innings. Hockey gets commercials between the periods. Soccer gets halftime commercials. That way the owners and TV networks don’t profit unduly at the owner’s expense. Instead, sports are made more available to the fans.

Actually, the commercial limitations apply to colleges as well.

Companies and corporations are not allowed to buy season tickets for business purposes.

Every sport must come up with a box in the corner of the TV broadcast that provides complete up to the minute information, so that you can flip between games and keep track of what’s going on. Use is mandatory. (I know most have it now, but I want it for everything all the time.)

That’s the stuff I can think of right now.

Oh yeah, more cheerleaders with skimpier outfits, or no outfits at all. I’m a male and I like cheerleaders. So sue me.

13

It should read:

That way the owners and TV networks don’t profit unduly at the players’ expense.

I hate mistakes like that.

14

BASEBALL: Call a proper strike zone. Day games on the weekend during the World Series. Everything else is perfect. Baseball was granted to us by God Himself, and we must be careful how quickly we change His most beautiful creation.

HOCKEY: Bigger ice surfaces. For the love of Christ, I don’t want to pay $100 to see Justin McHack grab and slash every talented player on the ice. I wanna see Jaromir Jagr do them spin moves - open the game up a little. And what’s this bull about getting a point if you lose in overtime? Scrap that. In fact, the hell with ties. Overtime until someone wins. If it means the game isnt over until 2 AM, tough noogies. And stop expanding, for the love of Christ. I mean, “Columbus Blue Jackets”? And I disagree with everyone on fighting - ban fighting, permanently.

FOOTBALL: Widen the field a la CFL for more running room. That’ll add some speed and zip to the game. Eliminate the extra point - conversions from scrimmage only. No two-minute warning. Get rid of artificial turf.

BASKETBALL: Allow teams to decline fouls against them so you don’t HAVE to take foul shots when you know the other team’s fouling you just to try to get the ball back. That’s stupid. Eliminate the illegal defense rule, and simultaneously extend the 3-seconds-in-the-paint rule to 5 seconds. Or maybe 10. Reduce the foulout limit to 4 to open the game up a little.

SOCCER: First of all, threaten the rest of the world with nuclear holocaust unless they start calling it “soccer.” It’s not “Football.” Football is played by large men in pads and helmets who had their college exams written for them by ringers. Soccer is the game played by Europeans who only have one name and fall down if you breathe on them (or, in the case of French soccer players, surrender.)

Secondly, reduce the length of the field, cut both sides to 8 men, and expand the goals. The reason North Americans haven’t embraced soccer yet is because you can only watch so many 1-0 games before you go insane and try to gouge your own eyes out.

AUTO RACING: No pit stops. Ever, for any reason. You carry the fuel you need and you live with the tires you started with. Incorporate Stubble’s idea of having really long tracks with 3-5 mile straightaways for some realm open-er-up runs.

TENNIS: Make the balls a little bigger so they’re slower so rallies are a little longer; men’s tennis, especially, is just an ace-o-rama. Allow for funkier outfits. Replace the net with a solid wall. First service, rather than being randomly selected, should be decided by a jump ball at centre court.

And start scoring properly, for God’s sake. It’s not 30-15, it’s two to one.

GOLF: Play all four rounds on the same day. Make it an endurance event.

ALL TEAM SPORTS: It should be a capital felony, punishable by decapitation, to give a sports team a non-pluralized name. “Minnesota Wild,” “Utah Jazz,” and half the WNBA must immediately adopt proper team names.

15

As for hockey, the surfaces do need to be bigger, and I love the four-on-four overtime format. If people want more scoring then it would be stupid to abolish the one point for a tie no matter what, the team has nothing to lose and everything to gain so the OT is a very exciting period. As for playing untill someone wins, that’s ridiculous. No owner wants a game lasting untill 2 am and then having all their players dead tired and/or hurt. The time for that is the playoffs.

The fighting aspect, RickJ. you are totally wrong. Fighting needs to be legal (and it is) the rule that is causing problems is the instigator rule. If some goon (Claude Lemieux) decides to go after a star, then Lemieux should suffer the consequences, but because of the instigator rule the most that will happen is Lemieux gets pushed a little bit and then the two teams enforcers go at it, what does that teach Lemieux? Dave Semenko was able to create a lot of room for guys like Gretzky and Kurri because the other team knew that if they messed with Gretz or Kurri they’d get their shit kicked by Semenko. So, yes fighting does need to be legal. I would love for there to be more instances where the benches empty and two whole teams are going toe-to-toe with each other, be just like the WHA.

16

Racing (again) - Any crashed vehicles or debris must remain on the track. If racing is a test of driver skill, then they surely would be talented enough to dodge a flaming, crumpled car. ( or flaming driver!!)

17

Hockey - No more tie games…and no more shoot-outs!!! If after regulation the score is tied, they should play 10-minute overtime periods until they have a real winner, however many overtimes it takes.

Also, I have always thought hockey would be more interesting WITHOUT a goalie. Higher scoring games are more fun to watch.

NFL - I agree with those that have said kickers should be taken out of the scoring equation. The only thing the placekicker should do is kickoff after touchdowns. Too many games come down to kickers.

Coaches should be allowed to tackle referees if they disagree with a call.

Pro and College Basketball - Players should be required to wear the short-shorts that they used to wear back in the 70’s and 80’s. Just so we can laugh at them.

18

Dear God, NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

I don’t think that I have ever seen a female golfer that I would want to see topless. In fact, most of them should wear more clothes.

I think to placate the people who say that baseball is boring, we add a bit of excitement. My thought is that 3 times a game and only once in a single inning, the team batting can release yellow baseballs from the ceiling. This would make the catching of pop flies much more difficult. The fielder must catch the white ball or throw the white ball back into play. If they catch a yellow ball, it’s a ground rule double.

Secondly, and much like the extra baseballs, this suggestion will make the game more exciting. Again, 3 times a game and only once in a single inning, the team in the field can release a dog to chase down the runner. This would be helpful if the runner is especially fast. The batter would need to be given an arm guard to fend off the charging canine before they batted, just in case. The dog should be trained that once the runner reaches the base, either the one that they are heading for or going back to the one they came from, the dog has to leave them alone.

19

Sorry, hijack.

I just wanted to point out that this topic brought to mind the Fox Sports commercials for hockey. “__________ would be better…if it were hockey.” I love the bowling one.

Carry on. :slight_smile:

20

Any sport played on a large, open field - Scatter caltrops (painted to match the ground) around the field.

All sports: Encourage the apectators to throw things at the players.