College football: when you win the coin toss, you have 2 choices: kick or receive. No more deferrals.
I’d completely remove the icing rule from hockey. I don’t really understand the point of stopping the game just because the puck went back to the other side of the rink. It’s not like it stops the defending team from dumping the puck out and purposely starting a face off.
MMMMMMMULTIBALLLLLLL
Any sport, doesn’t really matter. Periodically during the game more balls start getting added into the playing field to spice things up, a la pinball tables.
Tennis, Football, Volleyball, Baseball, Basketball etc etc
imagining the absolute chaos that would result if an announcer shouted out “MULTIPUCK!” and extra pucks rained down on an NHL game
I’m for this.
I’m all in for crazy hockey. Boosters, bumpers, multipuck, moving goals, tilting ice, pucks made of different materials, sticks made of different materials, boxing gloves appear at centre ice giving the player who grabs them 30 second free pass for roughing.
Can I interest you in twelve ball?
American football:
Universal:
- No TV timeouts. The game is already insanely stop-start. Get your shit together, TV broadcasters, and make it work as-is.
- No “wounded duck” pass interference penalties on poorly thrown balls. Defenders in pass coverage should be entitled to their existing vector of motion.
- Players leaving for injury must be out for 4 plays or more, maybe the length of the existing drive. Something though. One play is not sufficient to dissuade simulation for tactical advantage.
Stuff to try in college or the spring league:
- No radio communication. American football can be too regimented sometimes, and old men treating young men like chess pieces is part of that.
- Limited substitutions per play if there is no is no change in phase. You come out, fine, but you’re not going back in until the next time your team is on offense/defense/special teams. This will also enhance numbers 1 and 3.
- Even shorter play clock. Keep it moving. Adjust when the clock runs if you want to keep the number of snaps consistent.
- Remove kicking entirely. They’re vestigial minigames at this point that could be replaced with throwing the ball. Workshop it in the offseason to see how small the goalposts need to be to replicate current play balance.
- College only: Admit they’re professionals, make them employees with enforceable (and purchasable) contracts, and route enough money into the non-revenue sports to keep them viable. It is what it is; don’t let the creeping in of sensible labor practices destroy the sport. Use the inevitable anti-trust exemption you’ll get to mandate some sort of nexus between the players and the schools (lifetime tuition waiver? part-time enrollment?), but stop acting like the already snobbish and laughable “amateurism” of the NCAA is even a viable concept.
Stuff to bring in that would make the game weird to modern eyes but might help reduce head injuries:
- Mandate wide splits on the lines, two-point stances, and a wider neutral zone so that players are not exploding into each other head-to-head. A snap should look like a sumo match, not two horny rams on a hillside.
- To allow for number 1, make “1 yard to go” the minimum for a given offensive snap.
- Remove most/all of kicking again, though with the idea of reducing high combined-velocity impacts rather than just because it’s anachronistic. Treat an incomplete pass on fourth down like it was a punt. Give up on the idea of kickoff returns. Field goals could stay, but subject to the same scrimmage rules as other plays.
- Consider whether every play from scrimmage should require the Offensive Line’s first step should be backwards or lateral. They already are on many passing plays, but making it mandatory would further encourage upright play that’s often ineffective technique today. The running game will be severely affected, but it is what it is and “every run play looks like a draw play” is a small price if we want to save American football over the long term.
- Revamp tackling rules. Make it rugby style and penalize hits above the shoulder harshly. Consider whether big hits resulting in heads thumping against turf are common enough to be banned altogether.
- Consider removing helmets so players have a sense of preservation over their own heads, but if not that, then go with something much lighter and more ice-hockey style so the helmet is not as tempting as a weapon and doesn’t encourage a false sense of invulnerability. It was for all the wrong reasons, but the “Extreme Football League” (nee “Lingerie Football League”) uses this type of headgear.
I would implement two salary rules for baseball:
- A hard salary floor and cap. Super cheap teams like the current Rockies that are all but guaranteed to lose is a detriment to the competitiveness of the entire league, as are pay-to-win juggernauts
- No deferred money contracts. They’re bad for competitiveness (see the current Dodgers) and a bummer for fan bases when the time comes to pay out the deferred money and the team can’t afford a viable roster.
Fencing: Allow shields.
HEMA: I’m right here!
True, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a HEMA tournament that allowed non-buckler shields.
We study rodella as one of the offhands at my school, but if you’re competitively-minded you’re not going to get much chance to actually use it.
playoff hockey: have referees on the ice that call penalties for rule infractions. playoffs are violent garbage.
Baseball: There is now a gun under second base.
All sports: ban gambling sponsorships. Ban teams from wearing gambling company logos or otherwise promoting gambling companies. Ban leagues and networks from incorporating gambling sponsorships into the programming.
I would also say ban gambling advertising entirely, but that’s a government law, not a sports one. With the sports rule change, gambling companies could still buy ad spots during as breaks. Just no commentators going “and now over to Lad Brokes so the punters can know the odds in this game”.
Baseball: make steroids mandatory
Baseball. No sponsorships on uniforms.
I guess we could extend that to most sports. I know soccer is much more lax in that regard.
All professional teams that are televised must be broadcast free of charge to their local area. No local blackout restrictions. (Fuck you, Marquee Sports. Put the Cubs back on WGN.)
Beer must be under $10, in stadiums. It’s $16 for even shitty domestic beer at Wrigley. It’s damn robbery.
The social contract with soccer has always been that in exchange for shirt sponsors, you get zero commercial breaks except halftime. While American football gets a bad rap for its native flow (which is indeed quite slow and staccato, admittedly), the fact that they literally have “TV timeouts” is what’s most egregious.
And I say that as an American who, while also a soccer fan, just can’t quit gridiron.
The beer is priced high to keep from having to deal with a critical mass of drunken idiots. No one gets wasted on $16 beer.
As someone who is forced to watch baseball by their fanatical wife: the MLB should adopt most of the rules that the Savannah Bananas use, including a fan catching a foul ball counts as an out, trick plays, inning timer, etc.
American Football: Every time a player suffers a traumatic brain injury the owner takes a punch to the head from a professional heavyweight boxer.
Sports in general need to make it illegal to dive to draw an undeserved penalty (or actually enforce the existing rules)
Or
They need to decrease the penalty for fighting so it doesn’t result in an ejection.One or the other.
Sports in general need to make it illegal to dive to draw an undeserved penalty (or actually enforce the existing rules)
This is the nub of it - lack of enforcement of existing rules. People are always clamouring for this new rule or that new rule, when in fact there’s already one in place.
Eg football ⚽
At present, if a goalie has the ball in hand then they have 6 seconds to release it, or it’s meant to be an indirect free kick to the opposition inside the goalie’s team’s 18 yard box. Very dangerous situation to defend, so you’d think it’d be a deterrent. However I can count on 2 fingers the number of times I’ve actually seen it enforced.
So now there’s a change to the rules coming - if they have it in hand for 8 seconds, it’s a corner to the other team.
So, it’s a less punishing punishment, and they have 2 extra seconds’ leeway. It makes absolutely no sense.
It makes absolutely no sense.
You think the referee’s job is to have the game be fair and follow the rules. This is wrong. The referee’s job is to make the game entertaining and as dramatic as possible for the fans.
Once you accept that, a lot of these situations make a lot more sense.
It makes absolutely no sense.
It does seem strange, but there’s some possible rationale behind it. If the rule is not currently being enforced, it could be because refs feel the level of the rule breaking is not proportionate with the level of the punishment. Decreasing the punishment, as well as increasing the severity of the rule breaking required to incur it might induce refs to be more inclined to enforce the punishment.
We’ve seen something similar recently in another type of football. A few years ago, the NRL changed the punishment for minor ruck infringements and defensive offsides in their defensive half from a penalty—which requires the ref to stop the game entirely* and gives an immediate opportunity for a goal kick worth 2 points—to a reset of the tackle count. If that would have been the fifth tackle of their possession (and thus the next one is their last), a ruck infringement resets it to the first. It used to be the case that teams would get away unpunished with all but the most egregious of offences. Now it gets used quite a lot, because the minor offences are met with a comparatively minor punishment.
* as a side note, this should be a goal of all rules and enforcement in all football sports apart from maybe gridiron. And in other similar field sports. Keep the game flowing where possible. It’s a huge problem with rugby union at the top level IMO. That sport is supposed to flow quite freely, but the level of refereeing results in extremely frequent stoppages, which makes for very poor viewing. My experience has been that the game works much better at a lower level where refs let things flow more.
It does seem strange, but there’s some possible rationale behind it. If the rule is not currently being enforced, it could be because refs feel the level of the rule breaking is not proportionate with the level of the punishment. Decreasing the punishment, as well as increasing the severity of the rule breaking required to incur it might induce refs to be more inclined to enforce the punishment.
This is the only plausible explanation. The refs don’t want to turn the game on a keeper wasting a couple of seconds. That said, various timekeeping tasks especially, but Association football in general has always had a sort of impressionistic philosophy for officials, tasking them with keeping the game moving and more or less fair, but I don’t think that system has held up super well in the era of high tech and higher stakes, though I do fear they risk losing something magical about it. American football is the absolute inverse, with a dense and legalistic rulebook and false precision that comes of pretending that (among other impossible tasks) the officials really see where the point of a ball lands under a literal ton of human flesh. That said, there is not the same level of resistance to objective standards and enforcement and rule evolution that you can see on the soccer side.
Soccer: yellow card for faking injuries (you can easily see players close to death that jumps us and run if no whistle is blown) and for protesting with the referee. Also, microphoned referee so that the whole audience can hear what they say (it will result in LOTS of red cards until respect is shown)
Basketball: intentional foul is two free throws and ball, three in the last 2 minutes
Football: proper helmets
Yellow card for faking injuries
Make it red, and add a multi-match ban for repeat offenders. This is a culture problem in the sport that should have been dealt with years ago. I can only imagine how effective it would be to just send off a player for simulating. No questions asked. I would love to see the look on their face when they flop down and are immediately escorted off the pitch.
Is a yellow for simulation just a Premier League & UEFA thing then? I assumed most top flight leagues did this now
Miked up refs should have been a thing for years, it very obviously will reduce corruption. In rugby, anytime the ref is making a decision it’s all over the PA, plus you can get a little earpiece in the stadium to hear every single word they say
I’d go even further and say red card for taking a dive. Pretending to be struck/hit by another player in an attempt to get an advantage = cheating. Cheaters shouldn’t be allowed to play.
It got a little better after they started with video ref’ing, but 90’s Italian football still left its disgusting mark on the sport.
Soccer: yellow card for faking injuries
Yellow card for simulation is already a rule. It’s just not applied all that consistently, possibly because it’s very hard to be sure that someone definitely wasn’t fouled and also was deliberately feigning anything, as opposed to genuinely being hurt or at least being knocked over by a nonetheless fair challenge.
Microphoned ref is becoming a thing now, but I absolutely hate it. Just like VAR it slows the game down horrendously and is not needed. Refs have the tools they need to run the game (including hand gestures and red cards, as you said). They don’t need to explain every last thing verbally.
yellow card for faking injuries…and for protesting with the referee.
Huge yes. I support the others saying it could even be a red card. The astonishingly bad sportsmanship from soccer players compared to other sports is a big reason it will never be taken seriously in countries like Australia. Diving is nothing short of cheating, and it’s developed to such an extent that even children are frequently imitating the stars they see on TV and doing it in local club games.
In Australian football, which is played on cricket ovals ranging in size, but ~150 m long is a good ballpark figure, it takes very little talkback to the umpires (tbh, I’ve seen the rule overused in cases where it really didn’t seem appropriate) before they’ll march you 50 m. The opposing team gets not just a free kick, but a free kick from 50 metres closer to their offensive goal than where the original infringement took place.
Football: proper helmets
Assuming you mean gridiron football, I don’t know exactly what you mean (how are the current helmets not “proper”?), but I would say exactly the opposite. The illusion of safety the helmet gives is part of what leads to concussions and CTE.
I’d do away with the helmet entirely. Go bald, or with a simple scrum cap, like in rugby union and rugby league. Techniques will have to adapt somewhat, but that’s how all sports have to adapt to technological changes.
