Did I mention abolishing those silly rules on cheerleader uniforms in the NBA and NFL?
FYI, there is revenue sharing in the NHL under the current CBA, and teams must meet a minimum attendence standard to receive it.
Soccer:
-If you’re taken off the field on a stretcher you have to be substituted.
-Diving and faking injuries can be punished by video review with fines and suspensions.
-Instruct referees to be harsher when handing out cards for cynical fouls.
I think that’s pretty much it. I hate the flow of the game being disrupted by stupid bullshit.
Tennis:
Wood rackets only. Maybe metal, if I’m feeling generous. No composites.
Eliminate all prize disparity between men and women.
Have women play 5 set matches in all tournaments.
Eliminate tie-breakers as way to win a match.
Eliminate tie-breakers altogether after round of 16 in Grand Slam events.
Reduce season length to 8 months, +/-.
See to it that Mary Carillo is fired immediately.
I’d like to see doubles get more respect, but I’m not sure how to go about it.
I agree with everything you’ve said. I’d change the points system to either:
a) If we keep the shootout, make it a 3-2-1-0 system. 3 points for winning in regulation/OT, 2 for winning in a shootout, 1 for losing in a shooutout, 0 for losing in regulation/OT.
b) Get rid of the shootout, make it the old style 2-1-0 system. You lose in overtime? Too bad.
And I’d either remove icing on penalties or force teams to serve all 2 minutes of a minor penalty. I haven’t decided which I like better but both is too much.
Add no-touch icing. For the five times of the year where it’s an exciting chase, there’s too much risk for a meaningless play.
The illegal defense rule was eliminated in 2001. I’m not sure what you mean.
Major League Baseball
Pitchers MUST pitch the baseball or throw to a base within 20 seconds of receiving the ball back from the catcher. A violation equals an automatic ball. The batter must also be ready within the same time frame unless he is granted time out for an acceptable reason (equipment issue, recovery from a stinging foul ball, etc.). A violation means the pitcher gets to throw the ball after 20 seconds, whether you’re ready or not, and it counts.
Games used to average around 2:15, not 3:15, for Christ’s sake!
NASCAR for me.
Yank ESPN’s contract. Give the whole year to FOX and/or SPEED (Same parent anyway)
Drop the top 35 rule. If you can’t qualify in the top 43, for whatever reason, you can’t race.
Remove drivers who start more than 10 Sprint (formerly Nextel) Cup races from receiving points in the Nationwide (formerly Busch) series.
Reduce engine size in the Sprint cup cars by 25-30% (to decrease HP & speeds, which would improve handling of the COT).
Mandate no more than 20% of green flag time is in commercial.
Mandate coverage of drivers outside the top 10 / Chase during the race.
Publish a rule book that mere fans can get their hands on.
Increase the incentive to win, with more points for the winner. Make the points payout for spots 35-43 the same, so that we don’t have beaten up cars on the racetrack.
If we ever get back to having cars that start the race, and pull off after 2 laps, inspect the cars, and do not award prize money if they are capable of running. No more field fillers! I’d rather have a ‘short field.’
Dump California speedway from the schedule. Give Labor Day back to the Southern 500.
Institute another road course (other than Watkins, or Sonoma) into the Chase. Find a replacement for the Sonoma road course.
I’m sure there are a whole bunch more that I could add.
Add ramps.
If I had power over the NHL:
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The TV deal. First and foremost, is to get back on ESPN. The tour de France channel just isn’t getting it done.
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The league is currently toying with the idea of expansion. Kill that notion right away. In fact, I’d look at paring the league down from 30 teams to 28. It should probably be fewer, but lets try 1 minor contraction first. The teams that go (at first) - Nashville and Florida.
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The scoring drain. Scoring is down from the 1980’s and probably will never get back to that level since goalies are much better in general. However, I think that cather gloves and blockers have become too big and need to be reduced in size even more. Another option would be to make goalies go back to the old style leather pads, which are much heavier than modern ones.
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The schedule. The league is currently looking at changing the scheduling format and that needs to be done ASAP. That fans in the western conference are currently able to see teams like Ottawa and Pittsburgh and players like Ovechkin and Kovalchuk every 2 or 3 years is stupid beyond belief. I’d also seriously consider shortening the season by about 4 games per team.
Baseball
Add a second wild card spot to each league. The two wild card teams will play a 1 game playoff hosted by the team with the better record. The winner will play the team with the league’s best record. First round series (well now 2nd round) will be moved to seven games.
Move the Marlins to Jersey
Take Me Out to the Ball Game will be the only acceptable song played during the 7th inning stretch. God Bless America will not be sung during baseball games at any point.
Opening Day will be declared a national holiday.
DH will be abandoned.
All players who took performance enhancing drugs prior to the new steriod rules will be handed immunity and be encouraged to talk about consequences they caused. Baseball will focus on prevention and education of steroids rather then punishments. Ken Caminiti will be the player talked most about, not Barry Bonds.
Interleague play will limited to 12 games per year, rotating divisions each year.
Revenue sharing will be continue, but will no longer be based on revenue. Rather a formula based on demographic information will be developed.
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Genius.
Tennis:
*Shorten the season, as the players tend to break down and there is much too long a gap between the last major and the year-end championship.
*Cut down on these Masters Series/1000 tournaments (also, stop changing the name every year). There should be fewer of these events, sometimes it seems like they are just trying to keep the players busy to please the sponsors.
*No coaching means NO FUCKING COACHING. Tennis is a beautiful one-on-one struggle, and coaches telling the players where to serve or when to eat a banana is bad for the sport. No coaching, period - first-time it’s a warning, then you lose a game. And no exceptions for the stars.
*Schedule the Davis Cup more sensibly to encourage more players to try it.
*Have a real grass court season. Right now, there is one warm up tournament and then Wimbledon. (Warmups for the French seem to last forever.) It’s only the most historic event in the sport, so unlike whoever is making these calls, I don’t think that it’s a good thing if top players are tanking because they don’t want to learn how to play on the surface.
*Do more to encourage the press to pay attention to the good female players instead of just the cute ones.
*Find out how much money and time is being spent on building and improving courts in low income areas and countries without much funding for tennis, and double it. Keep the game growing and do whatever is possible to erode the idea that tennis is just a country club sport for the rich.
I like it!
I’d make an attempt to make every NFL game more accessible to every fan:
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The blackout policy is lifted for games played in publicly financed stadiums. If you didn’t pay for the building, you don’t get to determine the terms of its use. Games played in privately funded stadiums (ha!) are subject to a blackout policy defined by the group that built the park.
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Reno is officially no longer a part of the San Francisco Bay Area TV market. I know the Raiders and 49ers are both storied franchises (drastically different stories, but still), but I’m sick of watching dreck every Sunday (ok, this one’s aimed at making it more accessible to me).
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The NFL network is hereby disbanded. Late-season Thursday and Saturday games will be offered to the highest bidding network. A letter of apology is to be sent to all NFL fans for a) trying to squeeze still more cash out of you for the most profitable league in history, and b) trying to strongarm you guys into fighting our battle with cable companies.
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NFL Sunday Ticket is hereby offered to cable companies for the same price ($/subscriber) paid by DirecTV.
And a few general changes…
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The rules governing runners (including QBs) sliding are hereby eliminated. If you don’t want to get hit, find another job. Pansy.
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I don’t much care if the officials are part-time or full-time, but they have to be held more accountable than they currently are. Questionable calls referred to the NFL by teams will be reviewed by a three-person committee made up of the league’s representative and one official from each of the two teams. Mike Pereira is hereby muzzled.
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The NFL will now take concussions and head injuries seriously. The position of “team doctor” will be eliminated and the league will hire and supervise full medical staffs for each team. The decisions of league doctors are final and cannot be appealed. Any inappropriate contact between teams and league doctors is punishable by forfeiture of games and draft choices.
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The age/education restrictions on NFL players are lifted. If you can run with the big dogs, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t.
[QUOTE=An Arky]
[ul]
[li]No “dead cap” money. If a player isn’t on the active roster, the money doesn’t count against the cap.[/li][li]Rookie salary cap. No rookie should make more money than existing all pros, etc.[/li][li]Announcer-less broadcasts.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
Love the rest of your changes, but these three merit comment. Abolishing “dead cap” money is a terrible idea. It would give teams huge incentive to cut players. Do NFL players really deserve less job security?
I’m pretty sure there already is a rookie salary cap.
Announcer-less broadcasts suck, but if you fired all the tv talent and instead just piped in the local radio broadcast as the audio feed in every televised game (tailored for each market), that would be so awesome I’d dance a jig.
It already does.
I sorta get what you’re saying, but the Jets and Giants are currently building a privately-funded $1.2 billion joint stadium. Who pays for your ideas?
Also, I believe there already is a salary cap minimum in the NFL, though I could be mistaken. In any event, I don’t think any team spends less than 75% of the salary cap anyway.
Love your other ideas about relocation, Cowgirls, and the Aikman ban.
My changes in the NFL as dictator supreme:[ul][li]Declare that the overtime format will permanently and irrevoocably stay as it currently. Any pussies who whine about it need to learn what defense is and get their team one so they don’t automatically lose if they lose the coin toss. (Defensively-challenged teams don’t deserve to win. Period.)[/li][li]Roll back Pass Interference to the way it was called before Peyton Manning whined like a bitch and got the rule re-emphasized.[/li][li]Icing the kicker will be an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.[/li][li]Replay will be changed to the way the NCAA does it.[/li][li]As mentioned above, all tv announcers will be summarily fired, and instead the local market’s radio broadcast will be piped in for each market as the audio feed.[/li][li]Roofs of any kind are banned. No domes, no “hole in the roof”, no nothing. Play in your weather.[/li][li]Panthers move to the NFC East, Cowboys move to the NFC South, Dolphins moved to the AFC South, Colts move to the AFC North, and Ravens move to the AFC East. Finally, geographical correctness![/li]League will permanently be capped at 32 teams: 8 divisions of 4 teams. No further expansion allowed. Corollary to this rule: LA is never allowed another franchise. Ever.[/ul]
Soccer:
1)If you injure a player and he can’t come back, you’re either:
a) Substituted if the injured player is
b) Taken out of the game in there are no more substitution possible.
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Post-game video analysis of game. If a player fakes an injury he is severly penalised (4 or 5 games) and any card is taken away from the “injurer”.
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Either get 2 more linesmen or use electronics/video for offsides or goal-line situations.
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Use spray paint to show the line where the wall (in free-kicks) has to be. You can yellow-card their asses off if they cross it.
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Open mics of referees (as in rugby) so we hear what he tells the players and viceversa
US sports in general:
1)RELEGATION!!!
2) Better songs for the teams. Everywhere is “Here we go , here we go", "Go-__”
3) Fines based on your salary.
MLB
1)1 starter and 1 reliever. 1 more if extra innings. (Barring injury)
2) Time limits for pitches
NFL
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Winning team always kills the clock in the last two minutes. You don’t get to kneel-down a victory
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4 points for FGs snapped beyond the 35 yard-line.
Chess is now a full-contact sport.
Boxing…Have Don King chained to a post and allow every boxer he screwed get one punch
Baseball…DH in both leagues. It adds so much and costs so little.
Golf-have purses spread out more. Ist place gets too big a cut. They should allow carts and beer.
Ford should have his franchise taken away from him publicly and he should be forced to listen to how they made the rules to help the worst teams get better and he still couldn’t do it. Sort of like his car company.
Matt Millen should color commentate high school football
NBA -get some integrity. They want Jordan back and bend the rules to allow someone to fill his shoes. Get over it and call the game the same for everyone.
The refs are dirty and it shows. They have a poster boy but any fan can see whats going on.
Owners pay for their own stadiums. They take the profit, they take the risks. Abolish public financing of in all sports.
Police should not do traffic for sports events. Owners should pay Blackwater for it.
Pay for view must be eliminated. We are good enough to become fans and support a player on the way up. When they get big we have to fork over a ton of money to watch a fiasco.
OK, fine if you insist then change that to “eliminating the defensive three second rule”