America needs a Sports Czar. And that Sports Czar should be me.
I can’t undo the mess at Penn State, but here are a few things that would get done in my first one hundred days.
Make it legal in football to hit any player who is celebrating. No rule against celebration, just that after the whistle you can still be hit if you are doing some kind of dance or other attention-craving activity.
If a sports venue is less than 60% full, it’s automatically festival seating for all ticket holders.
At all professional sporting events, a domestic draft beer in any size, shall not exceed five dollars. We are watching sports, not strippers. A cold beer at a reasonable price should be an inalienable right.
Mixed martial arts would be barred from all sports media. If Mike Vick can’t fight dogs, why do we let pay-per-view TV fight humans?
Institute European soccer style relegation to Major League Baseball. Baseball was at its best when there were sixteen teams in the league. We should revert to that model and force teams to compete to play at the highest level.
The NBA should have an end of season tournament for the last playoff spot. Teams 8-15 in each conference play a single elimination draw for the final spot. The sixteenth teams play each other with the winner getting the #1 draft pick.
Decrease the number of timeouts in every sport. Starting with football.
Relief pitchers shouldn’t be allowed to warm up. Only baseball makes us wait for a substitute to get ready to play. That’s what the bullpen’s for. You don’t see field goal kickers walk on the field and take 4 kicks before letting everybody know they are ready to play. If you enter the game while it is going on, you have to be ready to play.
College football playoff. Do away with conference schedules and organize in eight 8-team divisions. Selection committee determines the 64 teams, March Madness style. There will be seven regular season games against everybody in the division. The eight winners make the playoffs. Teams and divisions change every year.
No more third jerseys. Each team gets a home and an away jersey for the season. You want it to be retro, fine. You want it to be futuristic, fine. But whatever it is, you have to stick with it for the whole season. Quit scheming to sell more apparel.
Speaking of jerseys, no man over the age of 16 would be allowed to wear a jersey to the game. Jerseys are for the players and the kids who mistakenly idolize them. They are not for grown men.
There will be a similar rule on bringing gloves to a baseball game. Don’t do it. Don’t let your kid do it. The way to get a foul ball is to pick it up off the ground after it has hit some guy in his nachos.
Mr. Obama, I’m not sure that I could withstand the vetting process, but I am your guy. Let me put American sports back on the right track.
Follow David on Twitter @sportczar.
Your 16-team MLB idea is brilliant.
Along those lines: we might also just pile a bunch of teams into the American League, where they play that baseball-like game that has a designated hitter, and just keep eight in the National League, where they play baseball. How about Mets, Cubs, Reds, Phillies, Cards, Pirates, Dodgers, and Giants? Everyone else is out.
I like it. And, we make them travel by train. With webcasting of the bar car on the west coast trips.
I have always been anti-DH, but I have to admit that I am softening. Maybe it’s watching Soriano play left field w 3 yrs to go on his contract.
How about abolishing the Hall of Fame for every sport? Make it challenging for Dan Patrick to do his job – he might have to try to provide insights about current sporting events instead of blathering on about the arbitrary and irrelevant. Or maybe that is his job.
I have to amend my beer rule. Upon further review, I think the first beer should be $4 and then with every subsequent beer the price increases by two dollars. So it’s only expensive for the dumbass that wants to be loud and obnoxious.
I also think it would be helpful if our sports didn’t overlap. I propose:
Baseball: April – August.
Football: September – November. Maybe play the college football championship and the Super Bowl on New Year’s day.
Basketball: December – March.
Hockey: Maybe Feb. 29?
At the very least, we need some deadlines. Baseball has to end in the first week of October. Hockey in March. Basketball by May 1st.
Football is king and can do whatever it wants, BUT, there should be a media ban on football in the off season. No combine coverage, no Mel Kiper.
Make college basketball coaches sit 15 rows from the bench. No communication allowed except at halftime. Coach them Monday through Friday and when game day arrives, let the players determine the game’s outcome. An exam for the players of what they have learned. True leadership training.
Tennis coaching rules for basketball, interesting. Sacrilege in Indiana, though. Only if we can institute basketball fan decorum for tennis matches. Surgeons and librarians can demand quiet, athletes have to perform while paying customers make as much noise as they want.
Quit making conference champions who have earned automatic bids participate in “play-in” games to win a 16 seed. Instead, have the last 8 at large bids play on Tuesday night for the 11 or 12 seeds. I’d watch those games.
I pledged not to mess with the NCAA Tournament for five years if they dumped Billy Packer. Even Czars have to compromise.
The NHL preemptively realigns before I get the chance to tell them how it should be done.
http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/7321214/nhl-approves-radical-four-conference-alignment-plan
I like it. I just hope they call the Blackhawks division the Norris.
Dear Sports Czar,
I love your suggestion about being able to hit players who are celebrating after the whistle. Two questions:
1. Would this rule apply only to touchdown celebrations, or to sack dances, pass completion denials, and other forms of on-field celebration?
2. Are there any circumstances in which it would be legal to hit Mel Kiper?
I mostly envision being able to wipe out guys with complicated TD celebrations as they are oblivious to everything but their dance routine. I worry about delay of game issues if every celebration is thwarted. I do think that defenders who celebrate tackles after the carrier has gotten a first down should be karate chopped in the throat.
Mel Kiper should be part of the combine – instead of a blocking dummy.
I think that there should be a designated “Plaxico” on each team and that player is allowed to “Plaxico” anyone who is excessively celebrating. A fake bullet in the thigh will surely slow down the celebration, no?
I love the idea of a plaxico. Similar to the libero, the defensive specialist in volleyball, he’d get to wear a distinctive jersey (throwback??). I think it would be a special teams guy, like the 3rd string safety who’s mostly nuts anyway.
Great as a verb too: “Somebody needs to plax that dude.”
The idea of being a “Sports Czar” and your NBA end-of-season tournament are directly ripped off from “The Sports Guy” Bill Simmons (espn.com, grantland.com). If you are going to outright steal, at least give credit.
Drew, I just googled it and you are correct that Simmons has done the sports czar. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/081113
I am a fan of Simmons and Grantland but was not familiar with this material. There are only two possible solutions: I will battle him for the position – which I would no doubt lose – or I will aspire to a different goal. Perhaps City Council Advisor on Recreational Activities.
On a side note, Chuck Klosterman, Grantland contributor and author, is coming to the Butler Writer’s Series this spring and should be an enjoyable evening. If you are in the Indianapolis area, check it out.