No kidding. TV timeouts have become unbearable. I’ve been at some football games where the offense will even come to the line and the umpire blows the whistle to let them know they’re still in a TV time out. So the crowd dies down, players sit around for 3 minutes umps stand their with their finger up their butt until the cameras are ready for the game winning drive…now that all the momentum has been sucked dry from the stadium. :mad:
Agreed, and pretty much what I was trying to say, but you nailed it.
If you have to adjust a batting glove, there’s something wrong with it. So if you have to adjust it either you’re delaying the game on purpose, or your batting gloves are unsuitable for use.
As for TV timeouts, I’d agree they’re nearly unbearable in football. Baseball only has them when there’s a break anyway, but they’re too long. Hockey and basketball aren’t yet quite as bad, but they could save a few timeouts there too.
I realize thy make money from TV ads, but surely to Christ you could charge higher prices if there were fewer of them.
Pro (American) Football
Stop having the head official review the instant replays on the field.
I’m not really against instant replay review (it can overturn plays that would wrongly change an outcome) as they have made it rather limited in the amount of challanges a team can issue.
But, a serious amount of time is spent having the head offical run over to the on-field peep show, put on the head set to talk with the replay official, review the plays, run back on to the field and announce the outcome.
Why not let the replay official do the officiating and just radio in the verdict to the head ref for dissemination to the crowd. College football runs something along these lines and seems more streamlined (despite lower quality officiating, fewer replays to work with etc.).
Volleyball
Here is a sport that did make rule changes that shortened games[ol]
[li]Rally scoring*. In the old days you could only score when you were serving (you win on a serve you either get the serve or you keep serving). Game length was 15 points but actual scoring could take a loooong time. Now with rally scoring a point is scored on every serve (the serve still shifts to the winner of the last serve). To keep the games from being obscenely short the game was lengthened to 25 points (college goes to 30).[/li][li]Serve tosses. There used to be a rule where the server was allowed two tosses (if the server actually hit the ball on the toss it counted). A lot of players used a ‘toss’ (really just a drop) to rest up before serving. Now they have limited a server to a single toss.[/li][li]Hi Opal[/ol] [/li]
- The stated reason for rally scoring was to make the game more TV friendly (predictable game times). As you probably realize, TV hasn’t rushed to sign up volleyball matches and some fans nearly rioted when the match times were waaay too short for their liking.
[QUOTE=Threadkiller]
Volleyball
Here is a sport that did make rule changes that shortened games[list=1]
[li]Rally scoring*[/li][/QUOTE]
A good example, for me, of a change that may have shortened game times but ruined a lot of the fun of volleyball for me.
I’d fix them all in one swoop. Pass a law defining sporting events as being news events and prohibiting athletic teams from charging for broadcast rights. If three networks want to cover the Super Bowl, knock themselves out. Without receiving money from television, the games on the field would be run for the convenience of the only paying customer- those holding tickets. No more TV time outs. No more extended breaks between innings. Back to two hour baseball games. The networks wouldn’t have to pay the teams and wouldn’t have to have as many commercials to cover their costs. The teams wouldn’t have TV revenue so no more multi-zillion dollar contracts. The games would be played by people who love to play them for the benefit of the ticket holder.
Penalize the fans, the teams, and the players in order to have 2 hour baseball games.
Remove the restrictor plates at Daytona and Talladega. 225 mph laps baby.
No more visits to the mound by anyone on the bench. Mound visits permitted by the catcher only, and no more than once per inning per pitcher.
Change a pitcher? The Manager sticks his head out of the dugout, and signals to the ump to bring in the right or left hander by raising the appropriate arm
The reliever must run to the mound, take 6 pitches without farting around, the batter immediately steps in the box and the pitcher throws the damn ball.
We’ll save so much time with these measures that we can now institute Instant Replay, as in football.
Growing up, a Mariners game of the 70’s and 80’s was almost exactly 2 hours. Now the same amount of action with the added time between half-innings, batters constantly out of the box, 8-10 pitcher changes, etc. makes a game an unbearable 3-4 hours long. Plus I have to listen to sports radio bitch about when games start (really about when it ends) when a two-hour game could have a late start and early finish. Going to a game is a chore since my son loses interest in the games about the 7th inning when at the stadium.
If I could make one RADICAL change? Intentional walks (actually any walks on a 4-0 count) should give the batter TWO bases. I know intentional walks are strategic but there are way too many of them. I want to see the pitcher v batter duel when a hit would be a little dangerous instead of a pitcher or manager pussing out.
Especially in college basketball. 20 minute halfs with 3 timeouts - use them wisely. Now there are TV timeouts that destroy the flow of the game and let palyers rest. It’s that last part that pisses me off. If the timeouts were done by the NCAA so that young players could get a blow and not run for 20 straight minutes, great. But NOOOOOOO!!! The admit that they changed the entire game to prostitute themselves to the networks.
To hit on a sport that hasn’t been discussed much yet, I love college football but lately a game lasts an entire day, which is too much. I’d change rule about clock stoppage, so that the clock doesn’t stop every time there is a first down. I’d reduce tv timeouts and increase the advertising rate to make up the difference.
It doesn’t really work that way. Advertising rates are determined by ratings.
I disagree with most people here regarding pro football. Every tv timeout is 90 seconds long, which is not an unbearably long amount of time. Someone made an offhand comment about a 3-minute stoppage, which is flat-out wrong. I transfer every Giants game to tape; trust me when I tell you the tv timeouts are 90 seconds or less. (End-of-quarter and 2:00 warnings are obviously longer.)
And those commercialls WILL be shown. At least, all the non-network promos will be, since they were paid for. Once you get toward the end of a quarter and all the paid spots have been run, if you get an extended injury or a replay they’ll more often than not run a series of network promos as a mercy to the viewer.
Frankly, I cannot stand transitions without commercials. When they’ve used up all the paid spots and there is, say, a FG, it takes seemingly forever to go from the FG to the kickoff to lining up for 1st down. And god forbid there’s a penalty / rekick; you’ll grow old and die before they get around to that.
Much better to go to commercial, where psychologically it doesn’t feel like things are going so slowly. It’s similar to how incredibly painful instant replay was the first year it got reinstituted, when they didn’t cut to commercial. That was friggin’ brutal. Going to commercial makes it seem downright peppy.
Also about replays, I agree they should go with the college system. But the ref running over to the booth isn’t usually a delay. Hell, the few times they aren’t already in commercial you’ll see the ref standing there waiting for the replay guy to finish queueing up every single replay before he goes under the hood.
I’m not sure if I agree with this about hockey. Teams often use the TV timeouts for a chance to catch their breath. I’m not sure if the game would actually end up being improved without those short breaks in the middle.
I wish pitchers didn’t have to go through the motions on an intentional walk. It’s a waste of everyone’s time; just flag the batter on and get on with it.
Ah, but it isn’t. Every year there is a passed ball while doing the pitchouts, which can score a vital run. Always leave a chance for a defensive error.
So would you not have lost by even more, I am guessing this is a joke or do you think if the scoring were adjusted then the Vegas lines would be adjusted?
I am thinking that the consensus is that golf is not a sport?
If it is though, how about a rule that requires each player to putt within20 seconds of stepping on the green after it’s determined whose turn it is?
I know you’re probably not being totally serious, but that would really be asking for a disaster. When Rusty Wallace ran some unofficial plateless laps at Talladega a few years ago, he was doing laps of over 216 mph and was getting up to nearly 230 on the straights, and that’s with no draft. Granted, with the new Car of Tomorrow, it would probably be somewhat slower, but any trouble at those speeds would likely send a car into orbit.
I’m sure it would be a hell of a spectacle though.
I do with that NASCAR would open the plates up though, the cars just seem so starved for power in restrictor plate races. I think they could do laps at those tracks between 200 and 205 mph and still be safe.
In the one-day format of cricket, I would make it two innings each side, split as 30 overs & 20 overs and the teams being able to decide the order i.e. Team A decides to bat 20 overs first, Team B then decides to take, say, 30 overs. So, then Team A’s 2nd innings is 30 overs, and Team B’s is 20 overs.