If you could make one rule change to speed up your favorite sport… what would it be?
No TV time outs. Every sport I watch would benefit from this.
Bring back slick tires, active suspension, V-10s, ground effects, no more rev limiters.
(Formula 1)
Automatic cards for diving and embellishing fouls. They’re supposed to be given, but usually aren’t. They should be able to give suspensions after the fact from taped footage for the same stuff.
(soccer)
Inline skates on the dogs.
With baseball, if I had to limit it to one change, it would be to limit the time in between half-innings. I’d require the first pitch of the next half-inning to be thrown no more than one minute and fifteen seconds after the last out of the previous half-inning was recorded. If the batter isn’t in the box by then, the pitcher can pitch anyway, with each pitch being an automatic strike until the batter appears. If the batter’s there but the pitcher hasn’t pitched, one ball is called on the pitcher at the 1:15 mark and every ten seconds thereafter until he throws.
Why 1:15? One minute for commercials, a (very) few seconds for broadcast transitions at either end, and a few seconds’ margin of error. After all, if 1:15 is the limit, the players might be ready to go at 1:05.
If I got a second rule change, I’d put a penalty on bringing a pitcher in to pitch to just one batter, unless the batter made the third out. It would be allowed, but the next pitcher in the half-inning would start off with a 2-0 count on the next batter, with those pitches attributed to the previous pitcher. If a pitcher pitched to only two batters, then the next pitcher in the half-inning would start off with a 1-0 count on his first batter, ditto.
The motivation here is that when a manager brings in a guy to pitch to just one batter, it generally causes two pitching changes in the inning, which slows things down a lot. Hence the third-out exception.
God, yes.
You don’t need any more rule changes if you do this. I’d like to see the umpires get the batters back into the box a little faster, though; their habit of stepping out after every pitch to adjust this and that is tiresome and slows the game.
It’s not my favorite sport, but in basketball, I would like to see a rule where a field goal made from a teams own end line would be equal to a point value sufficient to tie the score.
**Baseball ** - no changes. I actually love the game paced exactly as it is. Three or four minutes between innings? Fine by me. Seven pitching changes in a single inning? Awesome. I’m dead serious about this - I’d be very sad if any of the changes suggested in this thread were implemented. The measured pace is part of the fun, for me.
**Football ** - No television-mandated stoppage of play: (1) after a turnover; (2) after a kickoff. Commercials can happen at natural breaks in the action - during time outs, after a quarter ends, or following a scoring play and prior to the kickoff. Nothing, and I mean nothing, slows down the momentum of watching football than a touchdown, followed by a commercial break, followed by a kickoff, followed by a commercial break, followed by a fumble on the second play from scrimmage, followed by one more commercial break.
Basketball - I’d cut the number of time-out allotted to each team roughly in half, first of all. After that, I don’t know, but there’d be some change to the rules such that the last three minutes of a basketball game don’t occupy approximately the same amount of time as the first 45.
Enforce the rules on the books: players who don’t serve within 25 seconds after the end of the previous point get a warning, then a penalty, and repeated penalties. The rule is fine, and it could even be 20-25 seconds, but umpires don’t make the players follow it.
Enforce the actual rulebook strikezone.
Televised football games after a score will have a commercial, then one play, the kickoff, then usually another commercial time out, so after most scores there’s like five minutes or more with only one play.
An automatic yellow for every (perceived) dive would surely slow things down?
Excluding those with AET/penalty kicks, I’ve never seen a soccer match go over two hours- fans are barely getting their money’s worth as it is.
Shotguns.
(FIE Fencing)
What?
The reason for the delay between half innings is the pitcher taking his 8 warmup pitches. Getting rid of those would lead to crappy pitching and possibly injuries, if a pitcher has to go from a 20 minute rest while his team bats to 97 mph fastballs with no loosening up time. Also gives the fielders a chance to stretch and warmup too. Removing that period would lead to a more error and injury prone game, IMHO.
Not that FOX should get to air 25 commercials in between innings though.
Replace the brooms in curling with vacuum cleaners.
Oh waaaait. Never mind.
Beer Pong - One giant cup. That will get the game going.
Flander - hung over from Thursday night Trivia/beer pong.
Lemme get this straight. Your screen name is also a sport?
And so is beer pong?
I think George Carlin had a funny riff about changing baseball rules to speed up a game. “Hit a batter, he’s out. Hit 27 guys and you got a perfect game.”
But seriously, the between-inning timing is fine, even in the playoffs. It’s the between-pitch timing that gets me, especially in the playoffs. With no runners on base, a 30-second pitch clock would be excellent, and with runners on base, make it 30-seconds for the pitcher to come set, then either begin a windup, throw to a base, or step off in five seconds, no time granted to anyone once the pitcher comes set. If a member of the offense/defense is granted time betweeen pitches, that same side cannot be granted time again until the next pitch is delivered.