The National Hockey League is reviewing the trapezoid rule–a rule designed to increase scoring that seems to be resulting in more injuries. This got us thinking–what other rule changes were made that ended up being bad ideas due to unintended consequences?
(And no, this isn’t an invitation to discuss the designated hitter rule…unless you must.)
I don’t think you can fully blame the rulesmakers, because certainly other factors/parties were responsible, but the 3-point shot in basketball, while initially a pretty cool idea, worked to make the game more predictable and boring.
I believe the “Halo Rule” in football for punt returns was both added and removed in the past 10 years or so. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong here. Also “illegal defense” in basketball.
Also the ill-fated ‘new basketball’ in basketball. See-NBA, 2006. See also-Stern, David, epic tool.
A lot of things were tried in the NASL and MLS to make soccer more appealing to Americans. They had a 30(?) yard line, shootouts, the clock going the other way, etc. The vast majority of people who watch want to watch soccer, not faux-soccer that’s marketed towards some abstract concept of an American sports fan.
Back in the 1930’s the powers-that-be in cricket came up with “the net rule”. Essentially a low net was slung around the whole of the boundary, and a batsman who hit a ball into the net had to run out the hit, instead of being automatically awarded four or six runs.
Even for cricket, it was a silly idea. Watching the batsman run almost endlessly between the wickets while the fielders tried frantically to extricate the ball from the net made for high comedy, but it also made for exhausted fielders. Under the old rule, the fielders could just watch a shot roll over the boundary, and walk over to retrieve it from a spectator, conserving energy. Now they had to run after everything. The rule also didn’t reward batsmen properly. A hit over the net was still six runs, but now a hit into the net could be worth nine or ten.
The net rule didn’t last long. There’s a reason why the Laws of Cricket have been mainly untouched for 150 years.
The MLB that the winning League of the All-Star game gets home field advantage in the World Series was a stupid fix to a extremely minor problem. Who cares if players don’t give 100% during the all-star game?
Oh god, did I hate that. I was so excited when MLS launched, and when I saw the clock counting down and then a dribbling shootout, I wondered what sport I was watching. I’m very glad they shitcanned those ideas.
By the way, could someone explain a few of these? Trapezoid rule? Halo rule?
The “in the crease” rule in hockey stipulated that goals would be disallowed if an offensive player was in the goal crease. This was to stop goal tender interference that lead to disputed goals. The literal interpretation of this meant that goals were being called back if even a skate blade was touching the crease. This really sucked on a lot of calls where the goalie was on one side of the crease, an offensive player was barely touching the other side of the crease, and the goal went in and was waived off.
Thankfully they’re back to common sense regarding what constitutes goalie interference again. Mainly due to a highly controversial goal that Brett Hull scored in 1999 to win the Stanley Cup for Dallas over Buffalo, when his foot was clearly in the crease.
The shorter three point line in the NBA was supposed to increase scoring, instead it made every player think they were long range specialists all of the sudden leading to a lot more missed shots. I think it lasted all of one season.
Trapezoid rule: Hockey. There’s a painted trapezoid behind the goal in which the goalie may handle the puck. He cannot handle the puck behind the goal line OUTSIDE of this area. Goalies were getting very proficient at skating into corners on “dump ins” and then firing the puck back up ice thereby eliminating the possibility of the offensive team setting up a play. The thought was that by limiting the area in which the goalie can handle the puck the offensive player might reach the puck first and get something going. But, it seems that races to the puck on the end boards have resulted in some injurious outcomes.
The :30 (?) NFL play clock. Whatever it was, it was too short and they increased to it what it is now (:40, I think).
I believe the halo rule was in the short-lived XFL.
Which changed rules pretty constantly through its season.
It was also in effect in the college game. It’s a rule meant to encourage punts being run back. Instead of taking a ‘fair catch’ when the opposing team’s gunners (the guys who chase down a punt returner) are upon him, a punt returner gets a five yard ‘halo’ that the opposing players can’t enter.
Restricter Plate Racing. It was bad when you had one car going 200+ mph and crashed, now you have 43 cars going 199mph inches apart from each other and needing to bump draft to pass. The Cars of Tomorrow are safer, the tracks are safer, let them race like in the old days.
Smaller fuel cells cause almost the same problem. More cars pitting, more cars bunched up, more crashes, less racing.
SSG Schwartz
(underlining mine)
Now I’ve only ever been to one Nascar event, and I don’t have any experience with it outside of that… but aren’t the crashes the reason people watch it?
I may be a minority here, but I like the green flag pit stop. There is way more strategy, and the leaders keep the lead they have built up. I know there will be caution laps in every race, but to see a lot of them bores the crap out of me. Also, if crashes were the reason that the fans watched the race, NASCAR would allow the bump draft in the turns.
SSG Schwartz
There was some penalty rule in college football for one season about three years ago. On a kickoff, if there was a certain penalty (kicked out of bounds?), the penalty had to be called. I remember Joe Paterno getting mad because the opposing team was repeatedly doing this near the end of the half, with time running off each time, to avoid letting Penn State get the ball back.
Someone will remember what I’m talking about.
I’m not so sure the NASL’s rule changes failed. The league was pretty successful in terms of ticket sales, and brought a lot of people to soccer games who hadn’t even heard of soccer before. It was probably also responsible in large part as a catalyst for the youth soccer boom. I mean, a lot of people look back on the hockey-style shootout fondly. The reasons for the NASL’s ultimate demise were complex and I don’t think they had much of anything to do with rules changes.
I’ll assume you know little or nothing about hockey or football, just because that’s the most inclusive way to explain these. Apologies if you do; in that case, take what you will from these explanations and we’ll hope someone who doesn’t know the sports will gain something from them.
Trapezoid rule:
Have this picture open while you read the following.
See that horizontal red line at the top of the rink, behind the goal? Throughout the course of a game, the puck tends to shoot down the boards (walls around the rink), fly past the skaters and lazily float through that area, at least a handful of times. Before the 2005-06 season (really, before the 2004 lockout), a goalie could saunter out to the puck in that situation and fire it away (letting his defenders off the hook), or, if his defense is getting overwhelmed, just pick up the puck and stop the game clock.
Now, once the thing gets past that red line, the goalie can’t touch it unless and until it reaches that trapezoidal area directly behind the goal. The idea was to make the defense work for the puck behind the goal line, opening up opportunities for the offense to reclaim the puck and pass it into scoring position. Apparently, instead of creating scoring opportunities, it’s just getting people hurt in that area. (It is kind of an injury hotspot, I think; you seem to see more people getting blindsided and slammed into the walls behind the goal line. I haven’t been following the game much since the lockout, though, so I’m taking the other poster’s word on this.)
Halo rule:
(American) Football offenses punt away the ball when their forward progress looks hopeless. During these situations, according to the halo rule, there was a two-yard “halo” around the punt returner–the guy from the defending team who took the dropkicked ball and tried to run as far forward with it as possible–from the time the ball was kicked until the guy actually got a secure hold of the ball, during which time players from the kicking team couldn’t get within his personal space. The idea was to give kick returners more room to set up epic runs.
The halo rule was in effect in college football from 1983 until 2002, and also applied to kickoffs. Larry Borgia, it was also used in the XFL.
I thought this only changed in the last three years. How is goalie interference called now? I was away from the game for a while and it’s confusing to me.
