By Daniel Lopez
Last night, the XXX Olympics came to a close after a majestic 17 days in which records were smashed and more viewers than ever tuned in to see Americans collect 104 medals in 21 events. But it could be more in four years with new sports global citizens are aching to see. Part of what make the Olympics so unique is the spectacle of watching often obscure sports, (curling, fencing or synchronized diving come to mind) while not watching a second of such games during the regular season of sports viewing. Why, then, does the International Olympic Committee eschew one of the world's most popular sports, auto racing, for ones that few people normally care about?
Every so often, the IOC does, to its credit, adjust what sports should be added to the Olympic slate as international interest levels change. In four years, for example, golf and rugby will be added to the competition for the Rio summer games. Others rumored for inclusion are surfing, various roller sports and auto racing, the latter of which should be made a priority for 2016.
Why auto racing? The sport currently boasts a massive international fan base and is a global ratings magnet. Much like USA Basketball, a team whose bench players are world renown, USA Auto Racing would attract high wattage stars and drive ratings through the roof. What's more, auto racers have gone on record saying they would do whatever it takes to represent their countries.
Of course, there are obstacles. There's no denying that the world of auto racing can be expensive, which is why I would suggest a format similar to the hybridzation gymnastics and cycling employ during the Games. In gymnastics, teams compete, as well as individuals in all-around events and certain discipline events, such as the uneven bars, the vault and the pommel horse.
In Olympic auto racing, I would include:
1. The Team Endurance Challenge in which racers compete as a nation as a team over a 12-hour period to race the furthest, and;
2. All Around Individual Event in which the best racers compete on an individual level in a combination of disciplines on an oval course, a road circuit and a rally track, otherwise known as a time trial.
Imagine watching racers speed around the English (or Brazilian) countryside in events no one else has ever seen before. Now add stars like Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Marco Andretti to the mix, competing against a British Team of Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button and Dario Frachitti, or an Australian Team of Mark Weber, Marcos Ambrose and Will Power.
Imagine now Audi R8s or Porsches careening around the city in events both thrilling and unique. Not only would adding racing to the Olympic slate be unique, but it would be historic. Last weekend, Andy Murray won gold for the United Kingdom at the iconic All-England Club at Wimbeldon. Imagine in 1984 during the Los Angeles Olympics, if Dale Eanrhardt or Mario Andretti won the gold at Long Beach in front of hundreds of thousand adoring American fans. Or one of the all time greats, like Ayrton Senna, winning a gold for Brazil at the one of the iconic tracks like Monaco or Le Mans. These moments would be fascinating and the story lines compelling.
Another obstacle is the Olympic charter, which states, "sports, disciplines or events in which performance depends essentially on mechanical propulsion are not acceptable." That seems concrete, but the charter has been amended multiple times to allow for events now featured, such as shooting, sailing, bobsled and equestrian. Plus, in 1900, auto racing was an unofficial event at the Paris Olympics, during which 14 medals were awarded in 14 different discipline. By adding auto racing, the IOC would transform a sport that already overwhelms the senses that much better while allowing home fans to root for a driver not based on what team they drive for, but from what nation they hail.
Yesterday, we watched a thrilling gold medal men's basketball game. During the final minutes and after the outcome was set, grizzled NBA players were overcome with emotion; normally staid Coach K lept in the air and Kobe shed a tear. This, of course, is what sets the Olympics apart and solidifies its quadrennial importance. Auto racing would only add to that in a way the world would surely appreciate. [link] ----
5 Ways to Save Baseball
By Daniel Lopez
 |
| About 100,000 saw the Dodgers win on opening day at the Coliseum on April 12, 1961. Average Dodger attendance today, near the top of Major League Baseball, is 41, 212 | Photo/LAPL |
Baseball was once this nation’s pastime. Unfortunately, that reality is no more as our beloved sport has been supplanted by games flashier, faster and more physical. Yet, baseball still retains its soft spot in the American psyche and can be saved by systematically changing the way the season is played and how teams approach the sport in these five ways:
Change the Schedule, Shorten the Season
The concern people have about baseball is the length of the game and season, an average baseball game runs about 2.5 hours while the season drags on for 162 games. With a schedule that covers nearly half the year (and more with playoffs), baseball is about twice the length of an NBA and NHL season (82 games each) and 110 games longer than the combined seasons of the NFL (16) and NASCAR (36).
Yes, there is something to be said about a long season allowing teams to rise and fall along the natural progression of talent, as is often the case in baseball. That said, 162 regular season games are just too much. I am sympathetic to the tradition argument, namely that that changing the length of the season would fly in the face of a sport that prides itself on its storied history. But it is not impossible and here is where I would start:
The baseball season starts in April and chugs along through May, June and July. Most fans don’t even start paying attention until the dog days of summer wind down and playoff hunts start to crystallize in late August and September.
To avoid baseball’s twin ratings killers (the NHL/NBA Playoffs and the start of NFL/College football seasons), the MLB should shrink the season from June 1 to Sept., 15, cutting down nearly 3 months out of an already long season while still ensuring the season includes about 100 games.
Widen the playoffs
The second facet of this season adjustment - which would raise the level of national interest - is expanding the playoffs. Since 1994, baseball has featured four teams from each league in its playoffs, equaling a tiny percentage (27%, or eight out of 30) ball clubs vying for a championship.
This year, MLB expanded one wild card team to each league allowing for two more teams (33% of the league) eligible for a World Series ring. That still pales in comparison to other sports. The NBA and NHL allows 16 of its 30 teams (53%) in the playoffs while the NFL features 12 out of 32 (38%.)
But it’s not enough to simply expand the number of teams. The league also needs to improve the quality of its playoffs. The top three teams in each division should still make the postseason but should have home field advantage for only the first round, not all rounds. The next five playoff slots should be determined by the highest winning percentage, not merely the best wild card team.
For too long, mediocre to good teams (the Dodgers, Toronto Blue Jays, Rays, for example) have missed the playoffs although they have a robust 80 to 90 win season due to an archaic playoff system now in place. A new, modern playoff system would reward teams that finish strong while opening the door for multiple avenues to the playoffs and allowing baseball to reclaim its fan base.
Expand baseball to the world
There is no reason why major league team (especially one as successful) such as the Tampa Bay Rays should draw 20,000 people a game. There’s especially no reason this should happen when the MLB could easily draw more than twice that amount in a place like Mexico City. (When baseball opened up its season in Tokyo this year, the two games drew more than 87,000 people.) Baseball scouts trot across the globe looking for talent for teams that play in North America. There’s no reason the league should not also play major league games in such fertile baseball areas like Latin America, where MLB could house teams without severely impacting travel schedules of teams.
In the case of my favorite baseball club Tampa Bay, a perennial playoff contender, the city unfortunately does not have the infrastructure/inherent fan base to host a baseball team. Move them to Mexico City and they will flourish. Doing so would also send a very important message to Latin American fans and ballplayers that the league is invested in their community, a vital step in the growth of all professional sports. (For this scenario to truly work, I would also move the Rays to the American League West division, move the Seattle Mariners to the National League West, the Colorado Rockies to the American League Central, the Cleveland Indians to the National League Central and the Pittsburgh Pirates to American League East, all of which would lead to more concentrated divisions and less travel time.)
Cap Salaries
For decades and really since free agency took hold in 1975, Major League Baseball has desperately needed to institute a salary cap.
The disparity in the league is astounding, exemplified here by the New York Yankees’s 2011 payroll of more than $200 million while the lowly Rays and Kansas City Royals are each buoyed by a payroll of less than $41 million. Money may not correspond to wins, but there is a causal relationship in which a salary cap would help create a much needed level of parity the league now lacks.The collective salaries of each team should be capped at $100 million. For teams exceeding that amount, MLB should then follow the NBA’s luxury tax method of forcing teams to pay one dollar to the league for each dollar their payroll exceeds the tax level. It is unacceptable that six major league teams have a payroll of more than $125 million while six teams do not exceed $50 million. The commissioner’s office has the responsibility of enforcing fairness across the league as opposed to the current system of letting the rich teams stay richer.
Instituting a salary cap would force teams to deal creatively as they would no longer be concentrated with a plethora of overpaid players. Compelling all teams to play on the same level would allow mid-market teams traditionally out of the perennial playoff mix to compete on relatively the same terms as major franchises. If sports reflects the best in America, then it should mirror our belief in democratization.
Standardize the Designated Hitter
Having a one foot in, one foot out approach in which the National League employs a system of allowing pitchers to hit for themselves while the American League subs in a hitter for their pitcher makes no sense.
Consider interleague matchups in which an NL team meets a team from the opposite league, either during the regular season or in the World Series. All of a sudden, an NL team is forced to compete with an AL team laden with one extra player who specializes in hitting. Instituting the DH across the league would increase its disparity, generate more runs and increase viewership.
Again, I understand the traditionalists who believe you may lose a strategic component by shucking the pitcher aside each at bat for someone who actually knows how to hit. That’s all wel and good, but look deep inside yourself and ask: Do you want to see pitchers hit? Sure there are a few capable hitting pitchers, but their at bats are usually embarrassing at best and tragic, injury-prone at worst.
Instead, the DH allows teams to rest pitchers, reducing injuries and ensuring players can do what they do best.
Baseball is a game perilously close to being forgotten. Two weeks ago, 10.9 million people watched the MLB All Star Game, erasing the previous low of 10.97 million viewers set for last year's game. It was the 10th time in the past 18 years that the All-Star Game has established a record low.
If traditionalists truly care about the sport, they would heed these suggestions instead of tilting against the windmills of baseball past while pining for the days of Cobb, Mantle and Koufax. Making these substantive and systemic changes can help lift the anemic sport and help it recapture its spot as America’s past time.
---
The WNBA is Shooting Itself in the Foot. Here’s How to Save It.
By Jeremy Oberstein
 |
Lindsay Whalen (left) and Candace Parker (right) huddle up with young players at the
'Hoops for Troops' Girls Basketball Clinic | Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE/Getty Images |
Title IX also unwrapped a stream of intangible benefits by offering hope to girls whose hoop dreams did not include pom poms. Women’s basketball, now on nearly every college campus, has been a top destination for collegiate female athletes and one that churns out a rare opportunity: turning pro - something that was not offered before 1996.
The Women’s National Basketball Association has been a boon for those fortunate enough to play professional ball and the millions of girls who can now dream as high as their brothers do of Kobe and Lebron.
Why, then, does the WNBA do nothing to help itself, killing the league in the process?
One reason why the league is a non starter for most sports fans is because it lacks the electricity of the NBA. There’s rarely dunking, nearly no hot dogging and no outsize personalities to carry the league. The first issue can be easily fixed, which will help the second issue and then the third.
Here’s how to save the WNBA from itself and reinvigorate professional women’s basketball:
1) Shorten the rim/move the free throw line in. All WNBA dimensions are in line with NBA regulations, except the three-point arc. Breaking that down, the rim in both the WNBA measures 10 feet from its base; each court is 94-feet and and the free throw lines are each 15 feet from the backboard. Such measurements are in place despite the average NBA player having a seven inch height advantage over the average WNBAer.
It’s all well and good to entrench equality, but it should be done only when and where it offers a steady advantage to everyone at play. Having an WNBA court measure the same distance as an NBA hardwood ignores reality and only hurts the cause of professional women’s basketball.
To see how, consider the popularity of the NBA, which shot to stardom on the back of Magic’s Showtime Lakers and Jordan’s high flying jaunts toward the rim. Lebron is an international star not because he’s an excellent passer (which he is), but because he’s made a living above the rim - feats that are not by and large equaled in the WNBA (or on the Spurs, the world’s most boring and fundamentally sound team).
That hurts the WNBA, where players are so fundamentally sound as to be excruciatingly uninteresting.
Each year, the league loses money while the NBA continues to subsidize its sister organization to the tune of $12 million annually. There is some evidence that attendance, sales, sponsorships and ratings are up, which is welcome news. But if the WNBA wants to continue its momentum, it should shorten the rims by exactly one foot and move the free throw line closer by exactly 1.5 feet. Here’s why: The average height of an NBA player is around 6’7’’ (80 inches), while a WNBA player is, on average, 6’ (72 inches). Take their heights and multiply for X (the desired height of the WNBA rim) over 120 inches (the 10 foot rim).
Do the same for the free throw line and you get 13.5 feet, a foot and a half closer than the NBA.You could also shorten the court, but running is running.
< Changing these regulations, I realize, is not as easy as simply lowering the rim nor painting a new charity stripe. These changes would be systemic and would require a re education of young girl basketball players through high school, college and the WNBA. But that should not be an obstacle. Have you ever dunked a basketball? Neither have I. Do I want to? More than most things, yes. Dunking, in my head, offers a universal sense of joy just as watching dunking does. Give women more of a chance to do that and the fans will come. Give women a chance to dunk and the possibility of fostering the next Lebron in the women’s league grows exponentially, as does its potential bottom line.
2) The NBA must go all in on the WNBA, or it must leave them alone. Women’s professional basketball is intrinsically connected to Stern Inc., with most professional teams in cities where NBAers hoop it up. The NBA financially supports the NBA and sponsors frequently cross over.
I applaud the NBA for encouraging the growth of women’s basketball. It’s a worthy venture and a feather in Commissioner David Stern’s hat. But the NBA is stifling its little sister by expecting it to be just like its cooler, more successful kin without actually encouraging it to grow.
It’s adorable how protective the NBA is over the WNBA. Really, it’s adorable. But let the kid grow and offer it a chance to succeed. They can do so by encouraging the league to change their measurements and, more importantly, by letting it chart its own course. If Stern wants the WNBA to be NBAish (dunk contests galore), he must address the reality that men and women are of different stature. If he does not, let the WNBA go and allow it change its rules accordingly.
3) Stop ignoring reality. Some may cry sexism in these arguments. To them, I would ask why they don’t say the same about softball, women’s golf, women’s marathon runners, etc. In softball, the base paths are 60 feet, not 90 feet, as it is in Major League Baseball and pitchers are about 15 feet closer to batters in softball than in baseball. Women golfers tee up closer than their male counterparts while female marathoners get a head start on their 26.2 mile journey when competing in races men also run. It’s not sexism to realize men and women’s bodies are capable of different feats. Many sports have already acknowledged as such. The WNBA must do so as well.
4) Pay players fairly. The average salary of a WNBA player who’s played at least three seasons is $54,000 [http://www.altiusdirectory.com/Sports/wnba-salaries.php]. There are bonuses for exemplary play and championships, but while the WNBA average is about $20,000 more than the median income for full time women workers in this country, it equals out to about a 200 to 1 disparity vs. NBA salaries.
The earnings potential of, say, Diana Taurasi - one of the top female pro basketball players - is not as high as, say, Kobe Bryant, especially when you consider sponsorship potential, international influence, etc. But when the average WNBA player makes 200 times less than her male counterpart - and may have to take a second job in the off season - what kind of message does that send?
If one point of the WNBA is to weave dreams for young girls (indeed, fantasy is a key target of the NBA and all professional sports), then why treat their players like second class athletes? Executives would say it’s economics, not sexism and I’d agree. But implementing needed reforms like one’s I’ve addressed here can unlock the earnings potential of a sport that deserves just as much space at the table as others.
The WNBA is at a crossroads and has been for some time. Since its inception 16 years ago, 18 teams have been established; five have since folded while three packed their bags for other cities.
Title IX may have opened the door for leagues like the WNBA and given wings to thousands of girls who dream of getting paid to play a sport they’d play for free. But the league must now help itself - and its legions of fans - to survive and continue the cause charted forty years ago.
