If you could add any new rule to a sport or game you enjoy, what rule and why?
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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.
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I think Warhammer could be improved with the addition of a cat. You either get a large piece of on unnavigable terrain, or a natural disaster that wreaks havoc... Possibly both in various degrees.
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Baseball: There is now a gun under second base.
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"scoring more goals" is not a skill. It's an outcome.
That's fair. But the game is not decided on skills, it's decided on goals.
Unless you want a label of judges along the touchline holding up 9.8 9.7 9.9, etc for a keepie uppie competition, I think penalties is the best way so far devised.
Your first argument against stopped clocks is utter nonsense.
Is it? Maybe in your opinion.
Yes, it's an argument from tradition, and that's a fundamental part of football culture. Tradition is at the heart of everything that has made, and still makes, the sport great.
I don't feel any need to defend it beyond that, particularly not to someone who is talking like a belligerent prick for no apparent reason. I'd have been happy to have a discussion, but apparently you just came to abuse anyone with a different point of view. So bite me.
But the game is not decided on skills, it's decided on goals.
Yes, but the rule set should be set up so you're more likely to win if you play better fundamentals. Penalties don't do that very well.
As I said, I don't know for certain what the best answer could be, but I proposed one solution I think would work really well. I'd love to hear alternatives.
I'd have been happy to have a discussion, but apparently you just came to abuse anyone with a different point of view
Incredibly ironic considering how directly rude you're being to me, as a person. I criticised a bad argument by attacking the argument. I would appreciate a response in kind.
I'm happy to have a discussion. Genuinely, that's why I'm here. Why I've spent as much time writing about this.
But I care about having quality discussions. With people engaging in good faith rhetoric. I don't have any interest in dealing politely with obvious poor rhetoric. An argument from tradition is one of the worst examples of lazy, bad rhetoric.
Soccer's popularity is in spite of, not because of, its glaring flaws. It's because of a history colonialism and clever marketing. And because it's easy to play informally with a few mates. All you need is something vaguely ball-like, a bit of open space, and some basic way to mark goals. The same reasons for the world's second most-popular sport, which just needs a ball, a strong stick, and a few weaker sticks or other object that can stand vertically on the ground. This is neither an insult nor a complement to the sports, it just is.
The whole point of this thread is to discuss rule changes to improve sports. If you think "because it's always been done that way" is a reason not to improve a sport, I don't even know why you're here. But I don't want to make this about you, I want to be talking about the substance of the arguments. If you're willing to do that, I'd be happy to continue.
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Baseball: make steroids mandatory
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A salary cap can't work in sports
Uhh, wrong? Like, provably, obviously wrong, from all the sports that do successfully implement it. There isn't a single Australian league of note without a salary cap, including the soccer A League and T20 cricket Big Bash. American sports also largely have salary caps.
You're not wrong that there are problems and loopholes that need to be carefully addressed, but that is not a reason not to do it at all. It's a reason to look to examples elsewhere and learn from their successes and mistakes, and improve upon them.
It's a matter of fairness and good competition. A team with huge pockets being able to win half the time is grossly unfair and against the spirit of sport. And it's not fun as a fan or spectator when the same few teams win over and over again.
People dislike oil money but is it worse than other sources? Worse than old money?
I don't think this is necessarily relevant to a salary cap discussion. Maybe a team gets its funding from Old Money. Maybe it gets them from oil. But with a salary cap, the impact of either of those is much less, since a much higher percentage of funding will be directly from revenue generated by the team itself, and the league more generally.
Fwiw though my answer is yes. Old Money did crimes decades and centuries ago. And that's obviously less bad than ongoing crimes today. By analogy: if you had to pick, which is better: to put someone in gaol for a murder they committed 40 years ago, or prevent someone else from being able to commit murder later this year? For me the answer is obvious.
It works in american sports bc there is no promotion or relegation. Can't work in a sport with it. I know the big bash has no more teams than the few that participate and cricket economic model is even worse.
American sports play under one federation. Who do you want enforcing the rules? Uefa? Fifa? The national fa? The national league? Other national sporting authorities? Other European sporting authorities? Other global sporting authorities?
Who's laws do they follow? National? Continental? International? Regional? How do you create an even field when some teams are getting UCL money and dominating local leagues?
Do you make man city give their UCL winnings tk Southampton? How do you account for the Italian tax system?
Again its not possible in football. Not that no financial law is possible, just that the salary cap won't work. Bc the revenue of teams can never be the same.
Barca can spend 40% of their revenue on sporting expenses and so can Cadiz. They just have different revenues.
How do Cadiz get the big revenue? Either outside investment like psg etc or long term European football (nearly impossible and only viable for a couple of clubs in every league).
So the uneven nature will exist so long as:
- Teams play in more than one competition.
- Promotion and relegation exist.
For the old money thing. All profit and the money of capitalists is exploited and the surplus value of labour of the workers. All investors are the same. They can't have money now if they aren't exploiting someone now.
But let's drop this argument, it never goesnto a natural conclusion.
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For example, in the NRL, since 2004, there have been 11 or 12 winners (depending on whether you count the Eels winning after the Storm were found to have broken the salary cap, and had their Premiership taken from them retroactively). In the AFL it's 10. BBL has only existed since 2011, and it already surpasses EPL's 2004 total with 6 unique winners, despite also only having 9 teams compared to EPL's 20.
Now I'm not an expert in these leagues. But i know a lil about the bbl atleast.
I predict the NRL has no relegation? And teams only play in the NRL? I also guess the worst team has first pick in drafts or whatever?
With the BBL, its ridiculous. One year your best players get called up to national teams and you're done for. Its a joke the way cricket leagues are run. Similarly no relegation.
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But when could they run the commercials?
Think about cricket fans
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1 is such a huge problem with tennis, too. Absolutely ban the obnoxious grunts and yells.
Other than maria sharapova, let her do what she's doing
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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.
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.
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Now I'm not an expert in these leagues. But i know a lil about the bbl atleast.
I predict the NRL has no relegation? And teams only play in the NRL? I also guess the worst team has first pick in drafts or whatever?
With the BBL, its ridiculous. One year your best players get called up to national teams and you're done for. Its a joke the way cricket leagues are run. Similarly no relegation.
BBL has some rules regarding players expected to miss a significant amount of time due to international tours. I don't know the details of them, and maybe some tweaking of those rules would help. I don't think it's an obstacle so terrible the idea of salary caps should be thrown out.
NRL has a similar problem, on a lesser scale. Three weeks every year is State of Origin, where many teams lose their best players to an inter-state competition. And there's the occasional international test, but that's much less common (and less commonly during the league season).
NRL does not have a draft in the style of American sports. Instead, players usually graduate up from playing in lesser state and regional leagues through the junior system.
AFL does have a draft, with a bunch of carve-outs like the "father-son" rule, and priority access to local players especially for teams in places where AFL is less popular.
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Soccer: don't use penalty shootouts to break ties. Penalities are a weird little minigame that don't really represent the most important skills of soccer, which are things like field position and control of the ball.
I'm open to suggestions on what should be done to break ties, but I like the idea of golden point where, if a goal is not scores after a certain amount of time, the number of players on the field starts gradually decreasing. So after 5 minutes of golden point, you drop to 10 vs 10, after 10 minutes it's 9 vs 9, down to a minimum of like 5 vs 5. Fewer players will tend to benefit the attacking team, making scoring more likely as it goes on.
Also soccer, as well as rugby union: just use the fucking clock. When the clock we see on the TV screen reaches 90 (or 80), that's it. Game over. Adjustments due to stoppage time etc. should be made at that time and transparent for everyone to see, by pausing the clock then and there, and resuming it when play resumes. Not added on at the end.
Edit: actually, it seems like rugby union might have already adopted this? I'm not too sure, because I'm a rugby league fan myself, which has always done it the right way (or at least always in my lifetime).
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Cage match after full time is the only appropriate answer. Lower it right in the middle of the pitch. Indoor soccer with it smaller fields, walls has always been more fast-paced than outdoor, add in ceilings and a first-to-score or first to 3 would be a good sport on its own let alone as a final.
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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.
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playoff hockey: have referees on the ice that call penalties for rule infractions. playoffs are violent garbage.
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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
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It works in american sports bc there is no promotion or relegation. Can't work in a sport with it. I know the big bash has no more teams than the few that participate and cricket economic model is even worse.
American sports play under one federation. Who do you want enforcing the rules? Uefa? Fifa? The national fa? The national league? Other national sporting authorities? Other European sporting authorities? Other global sporting authorities?
Who's laws do they follow? National? Continental? International? Regional? How do you create an even field when some teams are getting UCL money and dominating local leagues?
Do you make man city give their UCL winnings tk Southampton? How do you account for the Italian tax system?
Again its not possible in football. Not that no financial law is possible, just that the salary cap won't work. Bc the revenue of teams can never be the same.
Barca can spend 40% of their revenue on sporting expenses and so can Cadiz. They just have different revenues.
How do Cadiz get the big revenue? Either outside investment like psg etc or long term European football (nearly impossible and only viable for a couple of clubs in every league).
So the uneven nature will exist so long as:
- Teams play in more than one competition.
- Promotion and relegation exist.
For the old money thing. All profit and the money of capitalists is exploited and the surplus value of labour of the workers. All investors are the same. They can't have money now if they aren't exploiting someone now.
But let's drop this argument, it never goesnto a natural conclusion.
Who do you want enforcing the rules?
The EPL would enforce it for the EPL. La Liga would enforce it for La Liga, etc.
The unusual stratification of soccer leagues lends itself some difficulty in obtaining consistency, but that is not a good enough reason not to try. Especially for EPL, which really is professional (non-international) soccer for most of the world. People in Vietnam or Namibia know about and often pick a side in the Liverpool–ManU feud. Far fewer could tell you about Bundesliga teams.
Relegation also causes difficulty, but again, shouldn't be insurmountable. A sort of "grandfather" clause to allow players in teams that get relegated to not have to immediately take a big pay cut (assuming lower leagues would have a lower salary cap), similar to how BBL allows international players exemptions and A-league already allows each team one player who can simply ignore the salary cap entirely.
I'm not pretending it's simple. Just that the problems a salary cap is designed to fix are huge problems with the integrity of the sport, and the difficulty of implementing it is far outweighed by the benefit that would be obtained.
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Thunderdome rules for MMA. Keep going until there is a sub or knock out. No rounds and no time limit.
Let them fight to the death.
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Fencing: Allow shields.
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BBL has some rules regarding players expected to miss a significant amount of time due to international tours. I don't know the details of them, and maybe some tweaking of those rules would help. I don't think it's an obstacle so terrible the idea of salary caps should be thrown out.
NRL has a similar problem, on a lesser scale. Three weeks every year is State of Origin, where many teams lose their best players to an inter-state competition. And there's the occasional international test, but that's much less common (and less commonly during the league season).
NRL does not have a draft in the style of American sports. Instead, players usually graduate up from playing in lesser state and regional leagues through the junior system.
AFL does have a draft, with a bunch of carve-outs like the "father-son" rule, and priority access to local players especially for teams in places where AFL is less popular.
Say youre a bbl team that loses Hazelwood plus head for example. (Dont remember who plays where, just an example)
Who the hell can replace them.
A player from the same category. But your international spots are probably already picked and the other decent local players are gone too. The drop off from your ream would be insane.
Also depends on who becomes available.
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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.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]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.
