Why Can't We Have Nice Things?

Why do we always have to tinker with everything? We always have to try and make everything in sports bigger and better and more profitable. Why can't we ever just have a nice thing and keep it that way?

Two weeks ago the baseball season started. Opening day for baseball is easily one of the best 10 sports days of the year, hands down. But we don't really have opening day anymore, do we? Nope. We have opening Sunday night. This year, we got the Yankees and the Red Sox (because the country hasn't already seen enough of them) on Sunday night in Boston. There's already something crappy about night baseball (as compared to day baseball), starting the season with it is double crappy.

Next Thursday is the first round of the NFL draft. I'll watch, because I'm a man and thus legally required to watch anything NFL-related. Up until this year, the NFL draft was on a weekend, and it was kind of cool. I could never really explain why it was so fascinating, but it was. It was two days of non-stop football, except without any football. It sounds unwatchable, but it was great.

Now? Thursday night is round one, and then Friday is rounds two and three, then Saturday is the rest. What? Why not just have one pick a night every night for the rest of the year? Why not add a few rounds so we have 365 picks and just make it non-stop? Every night, all the time, one NFL pick. How about not televising it at all? Keep all the picks secret until opening week and it's a big surprise for everyone. Sure, you'd have to cancel the pre-season to do that, but no one gives a crap about the pre-season anyway.

And speaking of opening week, don't even get me started on the first week of the NFL. Most people, if they had a time machine, they'd go back and stop John Wilkes Boothe from killing Lincoln, or they'd go kill Hitler before he took power in Germany. Those things would be nice and all, but I might just use my time machine to go back and stop the guy who convinced the NFL that Thursday games are a good idea.

The NHL playoffs used to be on my TV every spring, I loved them. This post-season all I get are Devils' games until they get eliminated. Devils' games! I'd almost rather have no playoff hockey at all. The real playoff games are on some network I don't get and no one had ever heard of before the NHL moved there. The NHL playoffs would be more accessible to me if they played the games on the moon and made me watch through a telescope.

I already wrote something about changing the NCAA tournament. I actually wrote that I agree with adding more teams, and I do, but I still don't understand why we need to screw with something that was already working. "Everyone loves this tournament, other networks don't even bother trying on Thursday and Friday nights in March, people call in sick to work to watch schools they've never heard of play each other, it's perfect. Let's see if we can ruin it".

It's not just sports either. Green Day used to be a pretty cool band. They weren't the best thing out there, but they were certainly listenable. Perfectly adequate corporate punk rock. Like Blink 182, only slightly better because Billie Joe's brother Tim was in Operation Ivy and Rancid. I was a fan. Now there's a Green Day Broadway musical. What an abomination. Every time I see the commercial I want to break a guitar over someone's head.

The answer to this riddle, of course, is money. And I'm fine with that. I like money. Who doesn't like money? I only have one idea for change. I'd like to go to a Yankee game sometime soon in the new stadium. I'd like good seats, because, as much as I love baseball, nothing is worse than sitting in the upper deck trying to watch a game you could have a better look at on TV. Unfortunately, I don't have 5,000 extra dollars laying around. Bummer.

So, my proposal is simple. I think sports should have to pick one or the other. Either keep charging us eleventy billion dollars for tickets, or keep making us put up with this constant tinkering designed to bring in more corporate money, but not both. If I have to watch the NFL draft one round at a time, then I should be able to go to a Jets game for free. If I have to take out a mortgage to go to Yankee Stadium, then I should be able to watch the Yankee game on YES without commercials. I think that's a fair compromise.

And, if sports refuses to give in to my demands, I will keep watching them, because sports are awesome, and I shouldn't complain so much.

Not So Stupid

Sometime last week, the radio told me that college basketball may very well be expanding the NCAA tournament to 96 teams. My first reaction, like most people, was "that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!". Part of me still thinks I may be right about that. First, here's my understanding of how it would work.

Teams would be seeded 1-24 in each region. On the Tuesday and Wednesday before the games usually start, teams 9 and 24 would play each other, 10 and 23, etc etc. Then, the winners of those games would play the top eight seeds and the schedule would continue as it always has.

First of all, why mess with the best sports event in the world. The first Thursday/Friday round of the NCAA tournament is absolutely the best sports we get all year, and it's not even close. If anyone wants to argue the NHL playoffs are better, I'm listening, but you need to get them back on my TV. If anyone wants to argue the world cup is better, go live in South America with the rest of the soccer fans.

This new schedule would definitely take out some of the first week excitement. For example, everyone watched 15 seed Robert Morris almost shock 2 seed Villanova. Under the new system, Robert Morris probably still has that scrappy almost-win, but it happens on Tuesday against the 6th best team in the Big Ten and no one really cares. So that's kind of a bad thing.

More importantly for me, the people who run college basketball are basically the same morons who run college football. The idea of tinkering with the best thing they have (the NCAA tournament) while doing nothing about America's greatest sports abomination (the unforgivable bowl system) makes me want to put all 120 division one college presidents in a room, lock the door and release the hounds, or the bees, or the hounds with bees in their mouths so when they bark they shoot bees at you.

Clearly, I have my concerns. The more I thought about it though, this expansion idea actually started to make more sense. I'm a numbers guy, here's my argument:

The NFL: 32 teams, 12 make the playoffs. That's 37.5%
The NBA: 30 teams, 16 make the playoffs. That's 53.3%
Baseball: 30 teams, 8 make the playoffs. That's 26.7%
The NHL: still at a ridiculous 30 teams, 16 make the playoffs. Also 53.3%
Big Time College Football: 120 teams, 34 bowls for 68 teams. That's 56.7%

Wait, forget about that last one. The college football post-season doesn't count for anything, ever. But I think the rest of it makes a compelling argument.

There are 347 division one basketball teams, and that number will probably keep growing. Currently 65 of those teams make the real tournament, that's only 18.7%. Even 96 teams would only bump it up to 27.7%, barely more than baseball and way less than the other three major sports.

I know, there's also the NIT and CBI tournaments, which would bring the total post-season count for college basketball to 113, or 32.6%. That's still less than everything but baseball. Also, the NIT and CBI don't count and definitely shouldn't keep happening. Congratulations Dayton, you're approximately the 50th best team in your sport this year! Go crazy!

Why not give college basketball more teams in the real post-season? Especially since most college basketball players aren't going to the NBA or any other pro league. This is their only shot at playing in a meaningful playoff game. And for the fans, we get two more days of pretty competitive games. Would you trade a few of the exciting moments from this year's tournament for two whole extra days of games? I feel like I would. You'd have to at least consider it, right?