Next time you’re watching an NFL game in which a team is out of timeouts and trying to score in the last few seconds, watch the officials.

Tell me you haven’t seen this a hundred times:

An offensive player is tackled inbounds.The quarterback waves frantically for everyone to line up.

Tick-tick-tick….

Hurry, hurry!

The offensive players race to the line. And so do…the officials!

Look at them, middle-age men in zebra suits running around as fast as they can to spot the ball ready for play in the shortest possible time.

Why?

I mean, what is compelling them to spot the ball any faster than they have during the rest of the game?

There can be only one answer:They want to give the trailing team every opportunity they can to catch up.

Think of it this way:

At any other point in the game, or when the clock is stopped, it takes the officials, say, 25 seconds to retrieve the ball from the last play, toss it to a crewmate to spot on the closest hash mark, and finally signal to the timekeeper to start the play clock.

During end-of-game scrambles, they may do this in as little as five seconds.

This should raise two questions:

If they can do it in five, why don’t they do it in five during the rest the game?

On the other hand, if the reasonable time is 25 seconds, why are they going out of their way to do it 20 seconds faster when one team is trying to rally?

It only helps the rallying team and hurts the team trying to stay ahead.

In all fairness, the team that’s ahead should be able to count on 20 to 25 seconds elapsing between plays — all game long. A guy on the other team gets tacked inbounds with 15 seconds left and the clock is running? Game over, no worries.

Instead it’s Super Zebras to the rescue.

I’m waiting for the day a coach complains about this help-the-offense, end-of-game scramble on the part of the officials.

It’s fun to watch, but it’s not fair.

And it makes no sense.

An almost never commented-upon reality of the sports world is how Old World it is

Football, basketball, baseball, tennis, ice hockey, modern soccer – they all originated in the 19th century.

Basketball is the youngest of the sports popular in the United States. The original peach-basket version was created by Professor James Naismith in 1891, although here’s a little-known fact: The rules for Naismith’s basketball didn’t even include dribbling. A pretty distinctive element of the game, wouldn’t you say? Golf is the old man of the major sports. There is a literary reference to a hole on a green dating back to 1505.

Given how much fun and money there is to be had in sports it’s amazing that no new popular sport has emerged in more than 100 years. Think of it, it’s as if we are driving super-advanced versions of the horse-and-buggies our great-great-grandparents used.

That’s why I’m issuing this challenge to my fellow Sporting Iconoclasts:

Invent a new sport.

I’m not talking about a variation on an existing sport, like indoor soccer or disc (Frisbee) golf. Nor am I talking about performance art like figure skating or free-style snowboarding, which is all about putting on a show and trying to convince a panel of judges that your show was the best.

I’m talking about a completely original game that involves physical exertion and yields a clear winner. It also has to be more complicated than a contest of who can run/jump/throw/swim/skate/drive, etc. the highest/fastest/longest.

Close your eyes sometime and try to dream up a new sport. Unless you’re a genius, you’ll inevitably find yourself drifting back to elements of existing sports and potential variations on them. Shake those thoughts out of your head and try again.

Here are some ideas that may help with the thought process:

• Purposeful goals: You could intentionally design your sport to improve aerobic fitness or strength. It could require teamwork or self-sacrifice, perhaps even a certain amount of cooperation between competitors. You could shape the action to produce more of the exciting movements of existing sports, like diving catches.

• Sell shovels to the prospectors: Just because you dream up the concept of a sport and write the rules doesn’t mean you’ll get rich. The real money, at least to start, may be in sales of sporting equipment.

• Capitalize on modernity: Technologies exist today that no one, except maybe Jules Verne or H.G. Wells, could have dreamed of in the infancy of today’s sports. Could your sport incorporate GPS or some other modern invention? All the Wii does, unfortunately, is create hologram versions of existing sports.
  

• Think retrofit: The world is full of football/soccer stadiums and basketball arenas. It would be more practical if your sport could fit into existing venues.

• Gender inclusiveness: Invent a sport where women and men can compete as equals. I think such a sport already exists – golf. Just let the women hit from the women’s tees.

• Be spectator-friendly: Football and baseball are obviously more popular and more practical as spectator sports than is cross country running or skiing. Then again, golf would seem to be an unlikely spectator sport because of the huge playing area, but it works great on TV.

• Be age-friendly: Thanks to the demographic aging-tsunami that’s carrying the baby boomer generation into its retirement years, older people are going to make up an increasing share of the population. You might want to tailor your sport to the capacities of this huge market.

Join the Sports Invention Workshop

Most of what we do in our lifetimes is going to be forgotten, but as we’ve seen, a good sport can bring enjoyment to the world for centuries.

If you’re inventive and the thought of being a founding mother or father of a sport appeals to you, leave a comment here. I’ll get back to you about the Sports Invention Workshop concept.

I wouldn’t say the NCAA tournament is getting boring, just predictable.

I’m sorry, Cinderellas, but fairy godmothers apparently no longer exist. Or if they do, they must have lost most of their powers. The fairies might get you into the dance, Robert Morris, but only your wicked stepsisters, the high seeds, are going to be occupying the dance floor after the first song or two.

This year is a prime example. If the results went exactly as predicted by the seedings, the four remaining teams from each region — collectively known as the Sweet 16 — would consist entirely of 1, 2, 3, and 4 seeds. That’s exactly what’s happened in two of the four regions (East and South). Only two teams have “crashed” the Sweet 16 this year: Arizona, a No. 12 seed, and Purdue, a 5.

But this is just a continuation of a sad trend. Here are the seeds of the teams that made it to last year’s Final Four:

1, 1, 1 and 1.

In 2007 it was 1, 2, 2 and 1.

In 2006, things were a little more interesting: 4, 2, 3 and 11 (bless you, George Mason).

The NCAA tournament can still be fun even if there are no Cinderellas in the Final Four. Unfortunately, it’s become increasingly rare for low seeds to make any noise past the first round.

Let’s look at just one region, the East, over time.

This year’s East finalists are Pittsburgh (1), Duke (2), Villanova (3) and Xavier (4). Last year they were North Carolina (1), Tennessee (2), Louisville (3) and Washington State (4).

But let’s travel back in time to the better old days. Ten years ago, 1999, the East finalists were Duke (1), Southwest Missouri State (12), Temple (6) and Purdue (10).

Twenty years ago, 1989, they were Georgetown (1), North Carolina State (5), Minnesota (11) and Duke (2).

Thirty years ago, 1979, they were St. John’s (10), Rutgers (6), Penn (9) and Syracuse (4).

Lots of people like to see the top-ranked teams go deep in the tournament — unimaginative NCAA-tourney-pool players, for instance – but not me. And I would argue that predictability has hurt the tournament.

Two of the best-remembered NCAA championships were those won by relatively low seeds that went all the way. I’m talking about Villanova, an eight seed, beating Georgetown, a one, in 1985, and two years earlier, 1983, when sixth-seeded North Carolina State upset No. 1 Houston on a last second-shot. The world will little note nor long remember North Carolina or UConn winning the title this year.

How can we reverse the predictability trend? If top high school prospects didn’t continually flock to teams in the Big East, ACC and other power conferences we might see more parity. But there’s no way to force the talent to disperse.

There is one way to break up the current monotony: dump the seeding system.

Theoretically, the best team should be able to beat any other team in the field. So why set it up so the top-ranked teams face only teams that are, on paper, inferior to them?

In the Kentucky Derby, the shortest path around the track, the pole position, doesn’t automatically go to the highest ranked horse or the betting favorite. The starting positions are pulled from a hat. Why not do the same thing with the 64 teams in the NCAA tourney field? It would not only be more interesting, it would be more fair.

Right now the first-round match-ups are like the sacrificial-lamb games we see early in the NCAA football season, a Nebraska bludgeoning an Akron. Seeding teams forces the lowest-ranked teams, the 16 seeds, to pull an almost unimaginable upset against the strongest, the No. 1s. Conversely, the top-ranked teams are given what amounts to a near free pass to Round 2. No 1-seed has ever fallen to a 16.

Seeding is a form of pre-programming, an attempt to create a title-game match-up of the theoretically strongest teams. The selection committee is getting better at this every year — to the detriment of the tournament. If you want to restore some of the fun and unpredictability of the tournament, cease trying to shape the outcome.

Imagine if a baseball game were tied after nine innings and instead of playing extra innings the contest was decided by … a home run derby.

Each team would send its five strongest sluggers up to the plate. Each hitter would get three swings at balls lobbed in by his own team’s pitching coach. Whichever team hit the most balls over the fence would win.

Silly? Of course. But this is essentially how soccer and hockey break ties, and college football is not much better. All three decide tied games by holding radically different kinds of competitions in overtime.

It’s as if in a spelling bee the two contestants who remained after a hundred rounds were ordered over to a table for a pie-eating contest.

In regular-season NHL games the teams play an actual five-minute overtime, and everything is the same as during regulation, except it’s sudden death. One team scores, and the game is over.

But if neither team scores, each team then has three shooters go one-on-one against the opposing team’s goalie, as with a penalty shot. If the score remains tied after those three shooters, the teams alternate taking shots on goal until one team scores and the other doesn’t.The winning team gets two points in the standings, but the team that loses in overtime or a shootout goes home with the consolation prize of one point. I don’t know why.

In soccer, there are still plenty of regular-season ties. Soccer fans don’t seem to have the blood-lust for a clear winner that fans of sports more popular in the United States have.But in a tournament, you need a clear winner; one team has to advance. Soccer’s poor solution is the shootout, which is similar to hockey’s shootout.

Each team sends five players to kick a stationary ball from the penalty mark in front of the goal. The goalie has to stand on the goal line until the ball is kicked. He, or she, has little hope of stopping these shots because there’s so much ground to to defend. (A soccer goal is 24 feet wide.)

If the score is still tied after the five kicks, sudden-death kicking commences, with teams alternating shots until one scores and one doesn’t.

Instead of shootouts, hockey and soccer should continue playing until someone scores — with one difference. Every five minutes of elapsed time, each team must take a player off the field. After 10 or 15 minutes in hockey, a little longer in soccer, there would be so few players that someone would get behind the defense and score. This scenario would not only be exciting but it would preserve the integrity of the contest.

Thankfully, college football doesn’t settle ties with a field-goal kicking contest, but its present tie-breaking solution is almost as bad.

Teams alternate offensive possessions, as in regulation, except that the starting point of each drive is arbitrary. The ball is placed on the opponent’s 25-yard-line, already in field-goal range. If the offensive team scores a touchdown and extra point, the opponent must at least match that total or lose. If the second team exceeds that total — by scoring a two-point conversion on top of the touchdown — that team wins. There are various other rules that make it increasingly difficult for teams to remain tied after successive possessions.

This is not how football was meant to be played.

For one thing, many of the players on a roster have no role in overtime games. I speak of the punter, the punt- and kickoff-returners, and all the other special-teams players who don’t start on offense or defense or participate in field-goal or extra-point tries.

Punts and kickoff returns are some of the most exciting plays in football, but they are eliminated in college overtime. The same goes for fumble and interception returns. They count merely as defensive stops.

The college football overtime system was adopted as an alternative tie-breaker to the NFL’s sudden-death system, which some idiots believe to be unfair.  They think it’s not right that the team that goes on offense first can win without the other team ever touching the ball.

This argument falls flat because, according to one study, the team that gets the ball first scores and wins only 29 percent of the time! A team with a dominating defense often benefits by kicking off because it can pin the receiving team deep in its own territory, force a punt, and start with better field position than the team that won the coin toss and got first possession.

The beauty of the NFL sudden-death system is that the winner is determined by the team that played the best football, the same football that was played in the first 60 minutes. It’s the same with baseball’s extra innings. The game continues.

It makes no sense to determine which team won a game by having them play a different game.

]]> http://domwis.wordpress.com/2009/03/08/way-better-ways-to-break-ties-in-soccer-hockey-and-college-football/feed/ 2 edoflyndhurst http://domwis.wordpress.com/2009/03/01/newspapers-should-wise-up-and-stop-giving-free-advertising-to-companies-that-buy-sport-venue-naming-rights/ http://domwis.wordpress.com/2009/03/01/newspapers-should-wise-up-and-stop-giving-free-advertising-to-companies-that-buy-sport-venue-naming-rights/#comments Sun, 01 Mar 2009 04:28:13 +0000 Ed Cohen http://domwis.wordpress.com/?p=43 ]]>

We’ve all grown accustomed the intrusion of corporate sponsor names into sporting events: the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, the Toyota Halftime Report, the Chevrolet Players of the game.

Companies pay good money to have their brands mentioned during broadcasts that reach millions of people.The typical NFL telecast starts like this: “Welcome to Qualcomm Stadium for today’s game between the San Diego Chargers and the Oakland Raiders.”

I don’t work in TV or radio, but I’m guessing that the NFL’s contract with the networks requires announcers to refer to game venues by their full commercialized names.

Fair enough. Someone is paying and someone is pocketing the cash in this arrangement.

What I don’t understand is why almost all sports writers and columnists, whose publications don’t get anything out of those deals, go out of their way to refer to the venues by their corporate names.

Example:

I was reading a newspaper story the other day about an upcoming road trip of the Cleveland Cavaliers. The story explained that the trip will take the team to, among other places, Houston, Miami and Atlanta. The writer then noted that the Houston Rockets are 23-6 at the Toyota Center (their home arena); the Atlanta Hawks are 19-6 at Philips Arena (their home arena, named for the electronics company); and the Miami Heat is 9-1 in Miami’s American Airlines Arena during the years LeBron James has played for the Cavs.

The writer could have just as easily – more easily – said that the Rockets are 23-6 and the Hawks are 19-6 at home this season, and the Heat has beaten the Cavs 9 out of the 10 times they’ve played in Miami during the LeBron James era.

Not only could the reporter have written it that way, I argue that he should have.

It’s one thing for a team or a city to sell or lease naming rights to stadiums and arenas. It’s another thing for a newspaper to provide free advertising in its news columns.

Most newspapers are facing tough economic times, right? Well, here’s a way for them to make easy money: Contact American Airlines and Toyota and the rest and say, “We’re going to stop referring to these venues by your bought-and-paid-for names and instead use perfectly informative alternate constructions like, “The Lions are home this Sunday to play the Chicago Bears” — unless you pay us ten grand a year or whatever.

If you’re going to be a corporate shill, you ought to be paid for it. And if you aren’t being paid, why shill?

Football and TV – how can you spoil such a good combination? Let me count the ways.
1. The ground-level view
This is where we get to watch the kickoff return as if we were seated in the end zone behind the returner. This used to be a favorite of directors, who considered it the perfect way to “bring the action right into your living room.” Problem: From this perspective we have no idea where the returner has fielded the ball (the goal line, the 10?) or how much progress he’s making in getting it up the field. All we see is a guy jerking and spinning with bodies flying around in a blur. Mercifully, the ground-level view of kickoff returns has all but been abandoned. But it’s still commonly seen on the punt snap. We’re put at field level behind the punter, so we can see rushers advancing, but it’s impossible to tell if they have a chance of blocking the kick, the most important aspect of the play. Guys, there’s a reason people prefer to sit halfway up the stands on the 50-yard-line instead of Row A in the end zone. You get a better view of the game.

2. Quitting on the game
You’re watching a game. Maybe it’s not a close game. Maybe there’s not a lot of time left in the game. It becomes obvious that the announcers have lost interest and want to go home. The director is bored, too, so he does a cut-away to show the announcers in the booth. They launch into a discussion of their holiday plans or tonight’s lineup on their network and which of the shows is their favorite. Oh, wait a minute, hey, let’s welcome into the booth the star of the network’s new “hit” series (two episodes have aired). If we’re lucky, we now get two windows on screen: One (often the smaller) shows that silly game, the outcome of which is no longer in doubt and nobody cares about. The other shows the gab fest in the booth. Here’s the flaw in this director’s logic: The viewers who have grown bored with the game have changed channels. Everyone who remains is, by definition, interested in watching the game. Many fans, myself included, want to see every minute of their team’s games, no matter if they’re behind by 30 or ahead by 30. Especially if they’re ahead by 30.

3. The instant reply that never is
You’ve just watched a spectacular pass reception or punt-return for a touchdown and can’t want to see it again. Not so fast. First we have to watch the extra point kick, the most boring scoring play in football. OK, the kick is up and it’s good. Now let’s see the replay of the touchdown. Forget it. You will not see a repeat of what you witnessed. You’ll see the play from three or four or five other angles. Actually, two of them won’t show the touchdown at all, they’ll show the opposing coaches’ reactions to the play. All of this is often interesting, but the original view, from the sideline, usually shows the play the best. You might see the original view in the highlights at halftime or postgame. Apparently the director thinks, “We’re paying four or five camera operators to record every play. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let that work go to waste.” I know, this is why we have DVRs, but we don’t all have them, and why make the viewer do the work?

4. The “keys to victory”
Before each game the color commentator will put his analytical skills on display by stating what each team needs to do to win. We hear are things like contain LaDainian Tomlinson, win the time-of-possession battle, or stay out of third-and-longs. I can save the commentators some work here: The key to victory in every football game is. . . score more points than you give up. It doesn’t matter if you win 3-2 or 100-99. Score more points than you give up and you will win every game, guaranteed. The “keys to victory” have now been rendered obsolete. Stop doing them.

5. Self-introductions by players
On each team’s first possession we are given the name of the 11 starters on each side of the ball. Originally this was presented as a sort of lineup card, just names and numbers. Then came names and photos. Now, through the miracle of digital video, we have recordings of each player saying (sometimes mumbling) his name and where he went to college. Only the most obsessive of fans cares to learn the names of all 22 people on the field. (Sorry, offensive linemen, but you know this better than anyone.) The only people interested in watching players demonstrate that they know their names and where they sat through sociology and communication classes are the players’ friends and family members. Instead of tediously “setting the lineups,” introduce us to players individually when they make a great play or a boneheaded one.

6. No interviews with the losers
It happens after every Super Bowl broadcast and at the championship games in most other team sports. We get the presentation of the championship trophy and interviews with the winning coaches and players, sometimes in their locker room. As for the losers, there’s a brief, funereal interview with the coach outside his team’s locker room. Why? Are his players bawling their eyes out, unable to speak? I want to hear from them, especially if it was a close game. Did you think that interference penalty called on you was fair? Did you agree with the coach’s decision to punt? Reporters have access to both teams’ players after every other game. Why do Super Bowl losers get to grieve in private?

7. Announcers who don’t know the rules
Pro football is complicated. There are lots of rules, and, unlike baseball, the authorities change a few of them almost every year. Fans can be forgiven for not knowing all the rules. Announcers who make six-figure salaries to work half a year and perform for three hours a week cannot. For example, if a member of the punting team touches but fails to down the ball on a punt, any player on the receiving team can try to pick up the loose ball and run. It’s not a reckless play, it’s a smart one because there’s no-risk. Even if he fumbles, his team can always elect to take the ball at the point where the kicking team’s player first touched it. That’s the rule, but announcers repeatedly demonstrate that they don’t know it. Considering how complicated the rules of pro football are, it’s a mystery why one of the networks doesn’t give a retired official a tryout as a color commentator. He could probably bring a fresh perspective along with knowing the rules.

In case you missed it — and by “it” I mean the Pro Bowl — count yourself lucky. Because it will be harder to miss next year.

The NFL is moving its annual mid-winter sedative to the site of the Super Bowl the week before the big game. For the past 30 years it’s been held in Hawaii the week after. As ideas go, this is one. If nothing else it will guarantee that no players on the Super Bowl teams participate in the Pro Bowl.

If you think that makes little sense, how about this idea: The Yahoo! Sports blogger MJD wants to replace the Pro Bowl with a three-day flag football tournament.

The Pro Bowl has always been the all-star game most in need of a makeover. But it’s not the only one. Take the NBA all-star game. The next one is Feb. 15 in Phoenix. For years Ive been suggesting a simple, free way to improve it: Turn the game into a pickup game.

Here’s how and why:

A half-hour or so before the tip you have all the players elected or named to the game assemble at mid-court. The two players who received the most votes from the fans get to be captains. The captains then take turns selecting players. They can pick any player, regardless of conference.

Under this scenario we would discover the following:

• Which players are most valued by their peers.
• Which players are least valued or liked. (Can you say dissed?)
• Which captains are so stupid they forget to pick a point guard.

Unlike almost every other aspect of all-star weekend, this would produce drama. Humor, too. Just let the captains have microphones during the selection period.

This would also inject a measure of justice. That over-the-hill superstar voted in as a starter would not only not start, he would likely end up being picked late, maybe last.

If we absolutely must have coaches — and I say we don’t — they could still pick the starters, make substitutions, get towels.

The pickup-game approach wouldn’t cure the Pro Bowl’s ills. For one thing, it would take too long to divide up rosters three or four times the size of basketball teams. But going pickup is a natural, even traditional, way to organize a competitive basketball game.

Why not give it a try?

The Steelers’ first touchdown, on a scramble by QB Ben Roethlisberger, was disallowed after the Cardinals challenged. The refs decided the replays showed that Big Ben’s knee was down before the ball pierced the imaginary plane rising up from the front of the goal line. The Steelers had to settle for a a field goal.

You can see the play among the game highlights. The knee-down ruling was probably right.

But during the play and in all the scrutiny of the replays, which employed sophisticated zooming technology worthy of the CIA, an obvious rule violation went uncalled and unnoticed, or at least uncommented upon by the megabucks-earning TV announcers.

Here it is:

On the play, Roethlisberger is hit at the two and would have been stopped well short of the goal line, except that at the 1, Steelers center Justin Hartwig wrapped his arms around the quaterback and tried to throw him into the endzone. He almost succeeded. Unfortunately, this is against the rules.

This is from the NFL’s own online digest of its rules. The very first sentence under the heading “Use of Hands, Arms and Body” reads:

“No player on offense may assist a runner except by blocking for him.”

Hartwig wasn’t blocking for Roethlisberger, he was attempting to throw him.

It’s fairly common for a blocker to push a pile that has a teammate carrying the ball somewhere within it. That makes it tough to call — was the guy pushing a defender or a teammate? But in this case, the foul could not have been more obvious.

The problem was that everyone had their eyes on the ball and the goal line and didn’t pay any attention to what Hartwig was doing.

How about the URL, domWis. It’s Wisdom spelled inside out, and that’s kind of the point of this blog. It’s the place to play iconoclast, puncture the conventional wisdom, span the globe and call out the constant variety of errors involving sports.