I'm not talking about "What is going to be the next big sport" or try to invent some sort of Rollerball variant or anything like that.

I feel like my general enjoyment of sports has gone down over the past few years. I still watch plenty, and I still think I enjoy what I do watch, but I feel like there are a few major factors which should be concerning to fans of sports going forward. It's possible that I'm just getting older and I'm just getting jaded, but I feel like there's an interesting confluence of factors across all the major pro and college sports in America.

I'd break the issues down to two major questions:

1. What if the best way to win is also the worst style to watch? This can be both in terms of style on the field, or how a program/franchise is run off the field. The Patriots and Alabama Football have built dynasties with previously unseen success, and done it in an era where the level of competition is also incredibly high. Both organizations seem to preach ruthless efficiency. Alabama's is more off the field with how they make players expendable through taking away scholarships (Medical Greyshirts) and how they simply pile up tons of talent and let them compete among themselves for starting spots.

The Patriots brand was always known for their ability to cut players loose, but it mostly boils down to being a very well coached team on the field. They don't really commit penalties, they don't allow big plays, and they don't turn the ball over. Their brand of football is designed to reduce the amount of variance-creating exciting plays during a game, which is not necessarily great for neutral fans as we just saw in Super Bowl 53.

We've seen this issue crop up in other sports as well. Hockey saw these issues crop up around the late 90s with the Red Wings and the Left Wing lock style jam up the neutral zone, make the play very zone to zone, and try to reduce the available space for skilled players to make offensive plays. Baseball's heavily numbers-influenced approach has now distilled the game down to what outcomes are more effective for producing runs. This has led to an increased number of home runs and strikeouts and fewer outcomes in between. The more polarized each at bat becomes towards a binary outcome, the less exciting the game seems for fans.

Basketball has ebbed and flowed in the watchability of its on court product as well. From the Bulls era of mid range jumpers and big men, to the early 2000s era of ugly defense and Iso-ball, to a more free flowing movement era ushered in by the Spurs and perfected by the Warriors, to now an analytics driven 3s and layups style, no sport has changed its aesthetics more often than the NBA.

2. How severely do the off the field economics do damage to the on field product?

This question has two components, the owners and the players.

For the owners - What incentive do owners have to field competitive teams when they can make money no matter what? This is most seriously seen right now in the MLB Free Agency Market, where there are two prime age free agents, and all but 3 teams seem to have zero interest in signing them. There's tons of issues surrounding this (gaming of the draft system through tanking, needing to do a full rebuild ala the Tigers right now), but the chief issue seems to be that the owners can make money regardless of whether or not they have great players on their teams. Aggressive revenue sharing means that the bad teams get to benefit from the national profile of the good teams. And the money involved in all of the major sports means that they are the primary business for these incredibly wealthy owners. Where sports used to be a family run enterprise or a fun side project for wealthy people, they have grown to be such a large and profitable operation that the finances are quite significant even for the wealthiest owners.

For the players - What incentive do players have to compete every game when they could harm their economic value through risk of injury?

We saw this last year with Kawhi Leonard, we see it this year with the Pelicans potentially sitting Anthony Davis to protect his trade value, we talk about it with college football players all the time. Players have so much money on the line that there are situations where they'd be foolish to risk their bodies when there isn't a championship on the line. But then taking that a step further, what does a championship matter all that much if there is a potential $300M or higher payday waiting in your next contract?


Basically these questions in #2 boil down to: How can we make sure the economic incentives are there for both owners and players to try and compete hard in every game? I feel like sports suffer when there are reasons for either team to not be giving a full effort to win. Whether that's because of intentional tanking, taking plays off for injury protection, or any other myriad of reasons. The basics of American pro team sports boil down to: Two teams play a game, both are trying their best to win. And when that basic tenet is called into question, the on field product suffers.

Do you agree that these are problems, or am I just in a relative malaise after a pretty awful NCAA Football season and terrible Super Bowl?

the NFL is fine, the Rams just sucked. the Pats aren't boring. Brady and BB are responsible for at least 3 of the top 5 SBs ever. their first eight SBs were all very good games. and this particular iteration gave us the Seahawks and Falcons games. good points on the rest of the post

I might as well submit my Super Bowl complaint here, though. some of these dome cities are the lamest venues ever. Dallas and New Orleans are fine exceptions but does anyone have a problem with playing the game outside most years?

Good post.

I agree they are major problems, and you didn't mention a couple of factors which may be the biggest of all.

- The ever-shorter, 280 (max) character attention span world we now live in makes 3-4 hour sporting events a big ask of people who can no longer stay focused for any length of time.

- Ever-increasing costs to attend events should have a growing impact on attendance. Granted, the gate revenue is presumably a smaller and smaller piece of the pie, but getting people to show up both implies and generates interest and fandom.

Those are basically the same two reasons regularly cited for decline in golf participation over the past 15+ years: it's too pricey and it takes too much time.

Not to mention competition from so many other sources, not just esports, but all the things that grab at people's attention all day long.

I imagine there has to be a point at which rising salaries coupled with declining interest results in a bubble, if we're not there already.

You already cited what I consider are major problems in terms of appeal for specific sports. I can't imagine the increasingly binary K / HR world of baseball is a better product than having more varied outcomes and baserunners, and the 3FG-happy NBA cannot be as interesting to most than ball movement and inside-out play. I also think the Twitter trend of individuality over team hurts the NBA in the long run too.

Like you pointed out, sport strategies ebbs and flows. The best way to win isn't that way for long. In MMA, guys like Jon Fitch and GSP used 'lay and pray' control their opponent in the ground game but rarely did any actual damage. They merely controlled the athlete until the end of the fight and won on points. But then takedown defense improved and ground game was more focused on getting up rather than defending from one's back. Takedowns are now much harder to score due to using the fence to prop a fighter up. Now, fighters are more apt to stand-up and trade punches and kicks with each other. It has dramatically increased variance and decreased predictability.

Heavyweight boxing used to be far more aggressive. Way more trading shots and a whole lot more brawls. Now, heavyweights are so large than any punch from them can turn a fight on a dime regardless of who the fighter is. So, fighters have less incentive to take risks thus making heavyweight fights a series of jabs and tiny offensive spurts followed by clinching. Basically, the Klitschko style reigns supreme. It's just not being implemented as effectively as the Klitschko brothers did.

But not all changes are bad. For example, I can't sit through 5 minutes of any tennis match in the 1980s. Those guy wouldn't be in the top 100 in tennis today. Advances in tennis equipment have encouraged a much more aggressive game that focuses on baseline play and smashing forehands with crazy topspin. Some players might play a bit of serve-and-volley to mix things up but it is hardly the dominant playing style it used to be.

Sports will always have their ups and downs in terms of entertainment. Rarely does any sport have a long-term lock on the most entertaining way to play it.

This has been the case in team sports for decades. It's nothing new and spans multiple generations of players.

Very few owners actually give a **** about winning. Some don't even care about maximizing profits even if they know how to do so. Sports teams are to billionaires what Hot Wheels are to children: toys to play with when you're bored and alone.

Your questions are very specific to team sports. The best way to do it would be to tie more salary into performance-based incentives for players and tie revenue shares to the number of wins a team has. Win fewer games? Less money for your team. Refuse to play when healthy? Well, you'll make considerably less money both short-term and long-term because who wants a player who sits out even when it hurts the team?

Of course, this has obvious downsides but it would incentivize a winning mentality for owners and a willingness to play in players.

Just from a purely theoretical perspective I'd say the answer is to make more of the compensation conditional on winning. Maybe this is testable to a degree given that some sports already work this way, e.g., tennis and golf, although I'm not sure how well compensation structures for individual sports map onto team games.

*ponied

There are things other than structural changes to compensation and incentives that will almost certainly affect your enjoyment as a fan though, namely technology. Have you tried NBA VR yet, for instance?

The hypocrisy, scumbaggery and blatant exploitation rampant in college sports definitely reduces my interest level.

The sport and level of play that has seen the biggest fall in my eyes is Mens College Basketball. I attribute it to 2 things:

1) The One and Done Rule

2) Too much instant replay and referee influence in the game.

The one and done rule has made it so 90% of the best college players one year are gone the next. This makes it way to hard to keep up with who the best players are on the rosters year in and year out. I find it amusing that the NBA gets hit hard for having some type of age requirement for entrance into their league. But you never hear it mention when the NFL has even a longer wait period to enter their draft. Id like to see some type of 2 years of college experience required before able to turn pro. If not that, allow them to declare for the draft out of high school, but if they elect to go to college, they have to go at least 2 years.

The other problem is that there is too much instant replay in college basketball. Too many video reviews for boarder line flagrant fouls. All of the stoppages due to replay and video reviews cause the game, especially in the last few minutes, to have little to now flow to it. Also, the game has become to tightly reffed, especially in cases of what they will call a flagrant foul. There are way too many "flagrant" fouls that should be called common fouls.

An NFL developmental league would be an interesting project. Have teams that operate on a tryout basis give high school players not interested in college an opportunity to play football under NFL rules. Then they can declare for the draft from there, being familiar with the playing style of the NFL. It'd reduce the NFL learning curve and maybe incentivize colleges to pay their players so they don't lose them to the developmental league.

Durant ruined the NBA and 31 NFL owners ruined the NFL by refusing to find any other coaches who can sniff belicheck's jock.

And the golden era of men's tennis is on the back 9. We're all gonna become soccer fans at this rate.

olds olding itt imo, though i do think baseball is kinda done as a "major" national sport (is that controversial)

Baseball is the same as the NBA and NHL to me...a handful of regular season games you want to watch and enjoy the playoffs immensely.

also the future of sports is esports ldo

Arguments for making compensation conditional on winning are idiotic for team sports in which the goal is parity (not knowing with certainty who will win, and giving fans of bad franchises hope of reaching the pinnacle) rather than the goal of individual sports (allowing the most talented to assert dominance).

The NFL and NBA have failed to develop parity in recent years and, although the leagues have remained popular (even grown in popularity perhaps), they still seem to be missing what baseball has managed to do: give hope to all fanbases that anything is possible.

In 2015 (KC), 2016 (CHC), and 2017 (HOU) three franchises that had spent years (decades even) mired in mediocrity or worse, were able to win championships. Revenue sharing made this possible. Revenue sharing, taking from the rich and giving to the poor, will make the NBA and NFL more thrilling; not giving more to the rich. Bad teams lose because they are bad, not because they’re actively trying to lose (ftmp). In the past, posters have suggested appointing some Czar [perhaps with a super majority of owners] to punish the purposefully bad (it’s tough to assess, but might be the best approach).

Not sure if controversial but it’s lol

Baseball is still fun to watch. I've always felt it's better to watch on TV than go to a game though. Basketball is awesome but the Warriors ruined the idea of a championship. You gotta be like "well our team is great so we'll maybe get to finals and lose to GS".

Current MMA has actually been pretty good. And it's good for the people with low attention spans.

The biggest wildcard is football. When our current group of superstars get into their 40s and develop CTE there is going to be some really bad press. Not to mention all the other issues football has.

One thng I've noticed, at least for me, is when you gamble a lot on sports the storylines and regular drama of teams fighting for championships becomes less exciting than it used to be.

why do you think the goal of team sports is parity? maybe that's the leagues goal but each individual teams goal is to maximize profits which normally coincides with winning. the league as a whole has rules to improve parity but on an individual team basis that clearly isn't the case.

Players getting revenue incentives tied to winning seems like a great way to improve league quality and for players to avoid losing. Obviously in most cases there is going to be some sort of base salary but incentives for wins seem ideal. Players are already rewarded for winning playoff games/series/titles, just align the teams and players even more.

Zim,

you got old

happens to most everyone

I think in some way, having more incentive laden contracts tied to team performance could help the leagues.

The NFL salary system is already so convoluted with signing bonus/cap hit/deferrals etc that you could have some sort of salary cap system where like Steph Curry signs a 5 year deal with $150M Guaranteed and up to $150M in incentives or something like that, but end up where winning franchises get a higher share of the league revenue sharing, and part of that increased payout goes to the players in the form of their contracts.

Honestly, it really is this simple.

Also, there's no reason to take this **** that seriously and worry about it. Another way to look at it, From the view of the owning class, I.E. the "unelected dictatorship of money", or if you like, the top .1% that controls our political system, sports exists for two primary reasons:

1) To keep people dumb, passive, and distracted so they are less likely to care about real issues that actually matter to their own lives, and those in their surrounding communities. IOW sports help keep the have-nots from disrupting business as usual for the haves. People having more time to figure out how they are getting ****ed and then possibly doing something about it is never a good thing for those in power.

2) Sports brings eyes to the advertisers to be brainwashed to want more things they don't really need.

Cliffs: Worrying about what's wrong with sports is like worrying about what's wrong with soap operas. They're both the same thing. It's best to worry about something else.

the nba has like 10 players who actually matter and they would all play on two teams if possible. cowards

mlb has 15 teams actively trying to lose before the season even starts. which is smart if you are trying to maximize world series equity over the next decade but pretty miserable year to year

nfl seems at a fine spot despite the lolness of rules. people watch football. its boring to see the patriots win so much but they arent noticeably better than everyone else in a given season, they just get to play at home in the playoffs every year and run hot more often than not.

there are only 3 pure sports on planet earth:

1. ba
2. golf
3. esports

Honorable mention goes to grand slam tennis and rugby union.

The SB just sucked. The conference games were awesome, though. Seems like recency bias with this one. The Patriots, if anything, are one of the most entertaining teams to watch in the NFL. Why? They are coached well, play at a high level, and execute their gameplan. Matched with a competent opponent, it's almost surely going to be a good game. Many teams are poorly coached and suck at execution bringing the level of the NFL down. We need more Patriots teams and less teams like the Raiders. I mean, I probably wouldn't even watch football if the highest level of play was a TNF game like Jags Titans.