New Year's Resolutions

It’s that time of year again where we all resolve to make changes in our lives beginning THIS YEAR, cause “this time I really mean it.” I don’t personally get into this, not cause I’m perfect or anything (despite my wife’s insistence that I am), but just because I always thought this was really an arbitrary excuse to do something. I mean, if you really wanted to lose weight, quit smoking, start giving back to your community, or whatever, why not start today? What’s stopping you? I guess New Year’s Day gives you a good excuse to start and a chance to get in that last minute Whopper, and whatever gets people to make positive changes is a good thing… but still, isn’t it pretty arbitrary? It’s like a day made for lazy people to do something. I apologize to those who do resolutions and/or know someone who has used them effectively, but I really just don’t get it. “You lack discipline!” Anyone from the D get that reference? If so, I’m wildly impressed. Here’s a hint: “Good morning. How are you? My name is Detective John Kimball.”

I digress. Anyways, while I am a huge (read: obsessed) fan of nearly all sports that are actually sports (I don’t care what anyone emailed me after that last post, NASCAR will never be a sport in my eyes until someone pays me to say it is), and have few real complaints about them, we can all do things a little bit better if we put in some extra effort. In some cases, we and sports can do WAY better (lots of caps out of me today, what gives? Maybe I need a cool, refreshing Guinness), but since we don’t really have the space to tackle that whole” for the love of mankind thing”, I present to you my suggestions for New Year’s Resolutions for the four major professional and two major college sports.

1. The NFL – it’s hard to nit pick a league that is pretty much America’s pastime at this point. They make tons of money, are fan friendly, constantly looking to improve its marketing and accessibility, does amazing charity work within its communities, and is now even cracking down on the stupidity of some of its players. (Side note – the Chris Henry death was such a tragedy, and an instance where these new policies were highly effective. This guy was turning his life around, and it sucks that he’s gone. And on that topic, why not let Ochocinco wear 15? C’mon, Goddell, live a little). My only real gripe with the league, shared by many of its players, is the length of the exhibition season. Who the hell needs to watch a bunch of guys who are gonna get cut play four quarters, while the announcers try and figure out a way to kill four hours of air time? One of the biggest wastes of time in all of sports.

My proposal, siphoned from the occasional sports talk show: cut exhibition season by 2 games down to 2, and add one more regular season game during Labor Day weekend. How awesome would Labor Day BBQs be when the NFL is now kicking off that weekend? Hell, freaking, yes. No one is watching the exhibition except a few random fantasy geeks who then write about it online for people like me to find out the two important things that came out of the entire exhibition year. Then people like me go miss the playoffs in both fantasy leagues I’m in, as well as going out in Round 1 of my own suicide pool. See, even more reasons the exhibition season sucks.

2. College Football – God, do I even need to state the obvious? GET RID OF THE BCS!!! (Caps again… maybe I should resolve to calm down. Nahhh). But since that isn’t happening any time soon (hate to burst your bubble, but our only chance is to make it look stupid til the contract is up, then have a mass protest at the NCAA headquarters ala the Million Man March. I still don’t think that gets it done), I have a better idea: scrap preseason polls and begin polling the first weekend in October. Little known and VERY under-reported fact: Cincinnati was ranked 2nd in the computer polling this year, ahead of Texas. (Subject for another day: would Kelly be the Notre Dame coach today if Cincy was in the title game?) This year, many teams got jobbed by the fact that preseason pollsters are highly unlikely to change their top teams if they never lose. It’s completely and unfairly biases the top conferences and the stereotypical good teams that aren’t actually good, ala Notre Dame and USC this year, and my beloved Wolverines of the pre-Rodriguez years. If you moved polling until later in the year, the BCS might actually be fair. Wow, the ground under my feet is getting cold…. I think hell is freezing over. Did I just say the BCS might be fair? The wife is going to take me to the hospital when she reads that one.

3. Major League Baseball – I would propose they ditch Bud Selig, whose only good idea was to add the Wild Card, but has otherwise looked lost and goofy while making the owners a ton of money and nearly alienating the fan base. I still talk to people who have not come back to the sport since the 1994 strike, which, random note, could have been the year the Expos won the World Series. Anyways, he’s already said he’s retiring when his contract is up in 2012, so we have that to look forward to. Baseball is experiencing a bit of a resurgence, and has even managed to realize it can maintain its link to its history, one of the coolest things about it, while still embracing modern technology.

Warning! Digression! Yes, I love technology, (reference, anyone?), other than Fox Trax and whatever the hell TBS was using, that is. Not only did it suck, not only was it inaccurate (not taking into account what the ump was calling that day), the idiots who do color had no idea how to use it! I’m looking at you, Tim McCarver. The ONLY thing it was good for (caps again… baby, get me a beer, please?) was to show where the pitcher was trying to pitch the opposing player and/or what pitch they may be setting them up for, neither of which the announcers used it for. Ugh, this was more frustrating than actually listening to Tim McCarver. While watching a game, I mentioned to a buddy that I wished you could selectively mute an announcer so I could shut up McCarver. He said he had this idea where you could automatically get any announcer, past or present, to call the game. I’m not sure if Vin Scully or Ernie Harwell’s voice could make the stupidity of McCarver sound any less….well….stupid, but I think it would at least take the edge off.

Anyways, that’s not my proposal, that’s my buddy’s. And that’s a damn good one, for the record, person who shall go unnamed and I hope is reading this. My proposal, again siphoned off by a lot of people, is to expand instant replay to fair and foul balls, using a system like the NHL where there is a central location where people are looking at these plays and deciding if they need to be reviewed. No challenges like the NFL, no “booth reviews,” just someone watching. For the life of me, I don’t know why they didn’t start doing this for the playoffs like they did for home runs the year before. MLB claims that it would slow the games down. Ummm, I don’t know what games they’re watching, but they’re pretty damn slow already, and this is coming from a die hard baseball fan. What’s maybe 5 more minutes in a 3 ½ hour game? What’s one more beer after 12? Replay/complete stupid drunkenness is already a part of your world, so you might as well go all the way. Hell, even that very loose analogy is a good example. It barely makes sense, but I stuck it out, for better or worse. Thankfully, replay for foul balls is a much better idea than that beer analogy. Let’s move on before I vomit on the computer.

4. NBA – the NBA has had a remarkable infusion of talent and good basketball the past few years. We’re probably seeing two of the top 5 players of all time in their prime (Kobe and LeBron), and no one seems to notice or care. There is a huge crop of young players in the league (D. Williams, Paul, Rose, Evans, Jennings, Durant, to name a few), a few potentially legendary guys entering their prime (Wade, Bosh, LeBron, Howard), potential dynasty in the making who a lot of us, including me, love to hate (Lakers), and yet… nothing even close to the Magic/Bird/Jordan popularity. How many of you know who those six guys I mentioned in the “young players” part play for? Exactly. I think the NBA suffers a bit from the timing of its season. It really only dominates in that lull between the Super Bowl and the start of the NCAA conference tournaments, a time I like to call “sports fan depression.” Then spring training starts, the NBA playoffs drag along (during which the NFL draft takes place), and BOOM, it’s over.

A good idea would be to change and/or shorten the regular season. But I got a better one: get rid of guaranteed contracts. These things are absolutely killing franchises. The NBA is only popular where teams are good because, big shock here, people are willing to pay to see good teams! What a concept! Here in Philly, they have a strong basketball fan base, but this team is stuck in contract hell (Dalembert, Brand, Igoudala) for the forseeable future, and there is no way out. Even if the Phillies and Eagles sucked, people aren’t going to see a bad Sixers team. I love my Pistons, but I’m not gonna lie, I haven’t followed them nearly as much this year cause they are done for, and for a very long time. The NBA needs to adopt an NFL type salary system, infused with their really cool idea of rewarding players for staying with their teams… actually, that would be a good suggestion for the NFL. Anyways, the NBA should be doing better, so a couple runner up ideas without explanation: shorten the regular season, contract about 2-4 teams, e.g., Memphis, in order to increase overall talent, then market the hell out of the NBDL, which should benefit from the contraction of teams. I miss you, NBA, please come home. If you don’t, I’m going to keep writing more beer analogies, and no one wants that.

5. NCAA basketball – The NCAA tourney is the best sporting event of the year, hands down. Yeah, I said it, Super Bowl, and I’ll say it again if I have to. The last three years, I took Thursday and Friday off work the first weekend of the tourney, ordered the March Madness package from Directv, and watched basketball for four days straight with brackets, beer, and good food in hand. These were some of the best vacations I ever took, right up there with Aruba (head still in the clouds). Sadly, I went to Verizon Fios this year, which I love, but I will miss the tourney package. If you have Directv, for the love of God, do this. You will not regret it. I will pay for it if you let me come to your house for the weekend.

I actually have no problem with NCAA hoops. No, people, I’m not drunk. Well, not that drunk. But I did hear a very disturbing rumor the other day that the NCAA was considering expanding the tournament field from 65 up to 68, 80, or 96 teams. So my proposal is this: DON’T DO IT!!! (wife still hasn’t brought me that beer… man, am I thirsty). As a certain friend of mine would say, don’t paint over the Mona Lisa. The controversy over the last team in will exist regardless of how big the field is. Just leave it alone. We’re happy. Really, we are. If you need more teams in a tournament, join us in our No BCS March and help create a football tournament. We’d be happy to have you and your millions of dollars.

6. The NHL – wow, where do we start. Dead serious, I almost made this a separate post, but so few people care about the NHL that I didn’t think it was worth it, though we may revisit that one, since most of the people who read this live in cities that care about hockey (Detroit and Philly). So let’s start with the obvious: fire Gary Bettman. Now. Yesterday. As soon as you can file the paperwork. I will give him credit for one thing, he mapped out the perfect way to destroy a business. Allow me to demonstrate:

Overexpand your niche business into places where people don’t care about it (read: the South and places like Columbus and Nashville), kind of like trying to sell season tickets to Michigan football to Ohio State fans or Dallas season tickets to Eagles fans, or boats to people who live in the desert; create a work stoppage that entirely removes your product from the public light for over a year, thus alienating your die hard, passionate, niche fan base, all the while and unintentionally exposing the fact that, outside of said fan base, not a lot of people care about the sport; after unintentionally exposing the fact that you have fewer fans than you thought, try and strong arm your best marketing tool, ESPN, who then decides they want nothing to do with you, THEN put yourself one time per week on a random cable channel, Versus, who was just recently removed from the Directv package, and thus alienating even more of your niche fan base; then, and, this is the key here, folks, pay attention… bring the product back at a totally jacked up price that very few of your alienated fans can pay, none of your fringe fans will pay, keeps those who got pissed at you for how you ran the sport away, and offers absolutely no opportunity for anyone to check out the sport and/or have an alternative to higher NFL and MLB ticket prices. Now, if everyone could join me in welcoming Mr. Gary Bettman!!!

The shootout idea and the four on four overtime ideas were okay, but really not necessary. It was meant for those fringe fans who aren’t paying attention anymore anyways. So I give Bettman no credit for anything except putting the NHL on the brink of death. However, I have a blueprint to save this sport for the next commissioner, Mr. J.B., a friend of mine who I seriously think could save the sport. He forgot more about hockey than the rest of us remember combined. Desperate times call for desperate resolutions, so here we go:

Immediately contract Atlanta, Florida, Tampa Bay, Carolina, Columbus, and Nashville, taking the league back down to 24 teams. Realign divisions into 4 divisions of 6 teams, and rename them back to their original names (Norris, Patrick, Adams, Smyth, remaining conferences is optional, though recommended). Move Phoenix back to Winnipeg and bring back the Jets (why did they move again? And to the desert? Really???). Then, the tricky part, move any one of the following teams to Hamilton, Ontario, who is clamoring to get their hands on an NHL team and can make them profitable – Buffalo, Anaheim, NY Islanders, Los Angeles, or San Jose. A couple of these teams have been successful in the past (Anaheim, San Jose), a couple have history tied into some of the real fan base (Buffalo, NY Islanders), and one is a major market (L.A.). I am not privy to the finances of these teams, other than some basic information, so I can tell you that Buffalo, San Jose, and NY Islanders all lost over 5 million dollars last year. Personally, while they have such a history, I would probably move the Islanders since they have a dump of a building, aren’t going to get financing for another one, have a very small fan base, and Hamilton will respect and preserve their history appropriately. Plus, the other two have better earning potential in the long run. Then, moving forward, if any of those other four fail, move them to either Quebec, Hartford, or Toronto, who can probably sustain two teams.

Then, and most importantly, go to ESPN and do whatever it takes to get them to broadcast your games. Tell them they can have the exclusive rights for free (save the New Year’s Day game, which I forgot to give Bettman credit for, though 10 bucks says it was someone else’s idea and he fought it, and the Cup Finals games 3-7, which NBC has), and that they can have all advertising revenue, for up to 3 years. If they want 5 years, give them 5. Whatever it takes. If poker can be on prime time once per week, so can hockey. The idea is to expose the sport big time to its die hard fans in the places where hockey is popular, create excitement again, bring the fringe fans back, then fasten your seat belts, keep all hands and feet inside the car at all times, and hang on to your hats. If they don’t do something drastic, and fast, they are going to fall behind NASCAR as the fourth most popular sport/circuit (read my quick update below for an explanation on that one for NASCAR), if they haven’t already, and may even fall behind poker and UFC if they really aren’t careful.

Wow, that almost became a separate post anyways. Whew! But back to that business failure blueprint, a quick story to send us out of here… a couple years ago, the wife and I wanted to go to the Red Wings/Flyers game here in Philly. It was on a random weeknight, pretty late in the season, the year the Flyers had the worst record in the league. We went to look up tickets online and found a couple decent, upper bowl seats available. Keeping in mind the wife and I love hockey, and hadn’t been to a game in years, we were excited about going and were willing to pay a bit. Price of the tix? $55 each, not including service charges. By the time you pay for parking, food, beers, etc.? We can go to at least two Phillies games for that price. We passed. Luckily, her father got us the tix for Christmas that year, and we had a good time, but afterwards we both agreed that we wouldn’t have paid for the tickets ourselves. That was also the year the Wings won the Cup, but the Flyers managed to hang 5 goals on them in the 3rd period that night, so I had to listen to the wife run her gums the whole way home. However, the cover of the Detroit News and Free Press from the day after the Wings won the Cup are hanging in the house for her to admire.

My New Year’s resolution is to stop posting nothing but lists on the blog. Oh wait, I already have another list in mind. Oh well. Maybe in February… like I said, you don’t need January 1st just to make a change, though any excuse is good for the NHL and the rest of the sports leagues above. Random housekeeping note – No post next weekend, as we will be in D.C. celebrating my sister-in-law’s wedding. I will post earlier the following week with a breakdown of the NFL playoffs, complete with predictions and analysis. Happy New Year to everyone and their families, and thanks for reading.