If I Were The King Of Sports
November 8, 2017 at 5:25 p.m.
By Roger Grossman-
It’s a dream where you can grant any wish, make any dream come true, and right any and all perceived wrongs.
Yep, me too.
Because sports accounts for about 60 percent of my waking hours, my dreams (that aren’t about my smokin’-hot wife, of course) are proportioned about the same.
So let’s play a fun game called If Roger was the King of Sports.
If I were king, I would:
• Shorten all of the major sports’ seasons by 25 percent except football. If we have learned anything about the American approach to living, it could be summarized by the simple phrase “less is more.”
Fewer games in a season put more value on each game. It means more teams stay in the chase for playoffs closer to the end of the season. More teams in the playoff hunt means more excitement in more markets of all sizes. For example, 120 games is plenty of time to determine who the best baseball team in each division, and who deserves a spot in the playoffs even though they didn’t win their division.
The one thing that would be affected, of course, is revenue. Owners and players would never walk away from that kind of money for any reason, even if it makes their sport and product better.
• Start prime time games earlier. If you read my blabbering last week, you remember The Grossman Prime Time Plan. To review, my plan would start national game broadcasts at 7 p.m. local time. A World Series game, for example, would start live at 7 p.m. Eastern time and then start tape delayed at 7 p.m. in the Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones. It wouldn’t completely eliminate finishes after midnight, but those games would be over five hours long and would be well worth remembering.
• Fix the transition from fall to winter for high school girls teams and athletes. We are seeing more and more schools struggling to fill out their junior varsity and varsity basketball rosters. Bremen has nine girls playing basketball. NINE! Warsaw has 29 total girls in their program.
I have no factual evidence to back this up, but I believe the fact that the end of volleyball overlaps with the beginning of basketball has forced girls and their parents to choose between one or the other. Let volleyball teams either play one extra all-day tournament or start their season a week earlier, and then make basketball season (boys and girls) return to 20-game regular season schedules. That means volleyball ends earlier and basketball ends later, and maybe we can get girls playing both again.
• Put in real, enforceable rules to make baseball games go faster. There are a couple of basic rules that could easily be implemented to keep baseball games for getting stale and boring.
1) Limit a catcher to one visit to the mound per inning. It would force catchers and pitchers to figure out other ways to communicate without meeting every other pitch. 2) limit a pitcher to two throws to base per batter with a runner stationed there. More than half of all throws to first have no intention of picking off the runner. They are exercising in futility. 3) eliminate fake throws to any base. Again, what’s the point?
• Completely revamp kickoffs and punts in football. First, I would completely do away with kickoffs. An unusual number of players get hurt on kickoffs, which normally end with the ball carrier being tackled shy of the 30 yard line anyway. If a team scores a touchdown, the opponent gets the ball at the 20-yard line immediately. If it’s a field goal, the opponent starts at the 35.
For punts, the punter would kick the ball and a returner could field it or let it roll until it stops. There would be no return, which normally ends up with a penalty that nullifies any return yardage. The receiving team gets the ball where the return team catches it, or where the covering team touches it. Fewer injuries and more offensive plays should be welcome to everyone.
• End the rule that stops the clock for every first down in college football. Those games are pushing four hours. The rules should be the same at the NFL.
Oh, I have one other dream I want to share. It’s not sports-related, but I think you will appreciate it.
It’s the dream that U.S. 30 through Warsaw has no stoplights.
They did it in Carmel and Westfield … dare to dream.
So let it be written … so let it be done.
It’s a dream where you can grant any wish, make any dream come true, and right any and all perceived wrongs.
Yep, me too.
Because sports accounts for about 60 percent of my waking hours, my dreams (that aren’t about my smokin’-hot wife, of course) are proportioned about the same.
So let’s play a fun game called If Roger was the King of Sports.
If I were king, I would:
• Shorten all of the major sports’ seasons by 25 percent except football. If we have learned anything about the American approach to living, it could be summarized by the simple phrase “less is more.”
Fewer games in a season put more value on each game. It means more teams stay in the chase for playoffs closer to the end of the season. More teams in the playoff hunt means more excitement in more markets of all sizes. For example, 120 games is plenty of time to determine who the best baseball team in each division, and who deserves a spot in the playoffs even though they didn’t win their division.
The one thing that would be affected, of course, is revenue. Owners and players would never walk away from that kind of money for any reason, even if it makes their sport and product better.
• Start prime time games earlier. If you read my blabbering last week, you remember The Grossman Prime Time Plan. To review, my plan would start national game broadcasts at 7 p.m. local time. A World Series game, for example, would start live at 7 p.m. Eastern time and then start tape delayed at 7 p.m. in the Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones. It wouldn’t completely eliminate finishes after midnight, but those games would be over five hours long and would be well worth remembering.
• Fix the transition from fall to winter for high school girls teams and athletes. We are seeing more and more schools struggling to fill out their junior varsity and varsity basketball rosters. Bremen has nine girls playing basketball. NINE! Warsaw has 29 total girls in their program.
I have no factual evidence to back this up, but I believe the fact that the end of volleyball overlaps with the beginning of basketball has forced girls and their parents to choose between one or the other. Let volleyball teams either play one extra all-day tournament or start their season a week earlier, and then make basketball season (boys and girls) return to 20-game regular season schedules. That means volleyball ends earlier and basketball ends later, and maybe we can get girls playing both again.
• Put in real, enforceable rules to make baseball games go faster. There are a couple of basic rules that could easily be implemented to keep baseball games for getting stale and boring.
1) Limit a catcher to one visit to the mound per inning. It would force catchers and pitchers to figure out other ways to communicate without meeting every other pitch. 2) limit a pitcher to two throws to base per batter with a runner stationed there. More than half of all throws to first have no intention of picking off the runner. They are exercising in futility. 3) eliminate fake throws to any base. Again, what’s the point?
• Completely revamp kickoffs and punts in football. First, I would completely do away with kickoffs. An unusual number of players get hurt on kickoffs, which normally end with the ball carrier being tackled shy of the 30 yard line anyway. If a team scores a touchdown, the opponent gets the ball at the 20-yard line immediately. If it’s a field goal, the opponent starts at the 35.
For punts, the punter would kick the ball and a returner could field it or let it roll until it stops. There would be no return, which normally ends up with a penalty that nullifies any return yardage. The receiving team gets the ball where the return team catches it, or where the covering team touches it. Fewer injuries and more offensive plays should be welcome to everyone.
• End the rule that stops the clock for every first down in college football. Those games are pushing four hours. The rules should be the same at the NFL.
Oh, I have one other dream I want to share. It’s not sports-related, but I think you will appreciate it.
It’s the dream that U.S. 30 through Warsaw has no stoplights.
They did it in Carmel and Westfield … dare to dream.
So let it be written … so let it be done.
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