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Soccer.
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A lot of British people get upset when Americans talk about soccer, as if this is an American term for a British game. Soccer is English Public School slang, from "association football" to distinguish it from "rugger," Rugby Football. (We must all remember that the average Internet user is a High School educated 27 year old male living in Dayton, Ohio. Well, that's who I picture when I write my site anyway.) What British people rightly get upset about is Americans calling their armoured handball game football. There are more than six billion people who know only one game of football. Americans, get it right, yours is a minority sport. |
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Offside
I have never understood what offside is all about. It seems very complicated. What would be wrong in just saying that no player is offside unless they are in the opponents penalty area when the ball is in the other half of the pitch? Simple, a rule you could learn at the age of five. It might lead to more goals, wouldn't that be terrible? Yes, it would change the game but it will be fair to both teams and more important it will be much easier to understand. The easier a game is to understand the more people want to both watch and play it.
Extra time.
When an important match is level and a winner must be found at that game there needs to be some form of tie breaker. The fans hate penalties, unless their team wins. The cry is always that the game is not about penalties, the fate of the game should be decided by the normal run of play. But on the other hand two virtually equally matched teams could play on for hours without a decisive goal. A drastic solution is required. It is quite simple. Two periods of extra time, fifteen minutes each way, and the teams take turns to play three men down. With an 11 to 8 advantage you should push forward and attack, with fifteen minutes of that advantage you should be able to score. If you don't it is unlikely that the opposing team will miss their similar opportunity. An unusual suggestion but it tackles the problem head-on, being fair to each team and deciding the match (probably) during the normal run of play.
Cricket.
Cricket is just so slow! A good game consists of ninety minutes of play spread over between one and five days. Totally crazy.
Cricketers are constantly messing with their balls. They must go through loads in a season with their trouser rubbing antics. That will have to stop. There is no good reason to have balls made of leather with seams that make the ball fly unpredictably. Tradition. As I said, no good reason. Solid balls made out of some appropriate silicone compound with the right weight and a leathery texture, and no seam, would be ideal. They would fly through the air in a similar way but would be less likely to cause injury, which is a consideration when you consider my other suggestions.
Next the bowlers. They are the bottleneck. Let's have more. Two or three of them could take it in turns to bowl. With two or three bowlers taking it in turns cricket becomes an aerobic game. Batsmen have to be ready for the next delivery as soon as the ball is collected by the previous bowler, the new bowler then starts his run. If the batsman is too exhausted to face the delivery he can step aside and take the chance that the bowler misses his wicket. All the old skills are still being used but the batsmen face a series of bowlers and have to adjust for every ball. No doubt teams would alternate left handed with right handed bowlers and vary the pace as well to catch out the batsmen. With all this extra stress on the batsmen the lack of perverse spin on the ball would be necessary to maintain the balance of power between bat and ball.
This is a much livlier game, much more action. It might even be enough to make the game worth watching!
Horse Racing
Why are jockeys so small? Because we allow it. Most top jockeys have to starve themselves for years to keep their weight down to stay in the racing game. This problem could be cured at a stroke by setting a MINIMUM WEIGHT for the saddle and jockey. A sensible figure for this minimum weight would be the weight of a typical saddle plus the weight of a healthy full grown man who is at the 80th height centile; a man who is taller than 80% of the normal population. I am not suggesting that such a weight is constantly recalculated, just agreed once by an International body. How about turning up at a Grand Prix motor race, a tennis tournament and an international soccer match and weighing the participants and using those statistics? These are strong, fit and healthy men, why should horses be riden by smaller men who have to half kill themselves to stay at a ridiculously low weight?
At a stroke all the current jockeys could throw away their diet books, pop some lead in the saddle and get on training to build up their strength, after all a racehorse is an extremely strong animal. If this suggestion was taken up we could see a new kind of fit strong jockey who wins his right to a ride by his skill, his horse handling ability, not his size. Nobody will ever convince me that a racehorse is intelligent when it lets a little runt of a man bully it around. Another possibility is if all horses are required to carry the same weight slightly smaller jockeys could carry some padding that would protect them from injury in the case of a fall rather than wearing clothes made out of silk to save weight.
The Olympic Games
No flags, no anthems, no National teams. Individual pursuit of excellence. Take it right back to basics. Individual competition to be the best. Take away all the trappings of National competition and all commercial sponsorship, just let the best compete to prove to the world that they are the best.
Nude competition, like in the original Greek games, is probably a non-starter but the principle virtues could be simulated by having a dress code like at Wimbledon in the good old days; pure Olympic white, no logos. The idea of watching athletes of the opposite sex perform in the nude is probably much better than the reality. Imagine the male marathon runners, ugh! Most women athletes would not get a spread in Playboy on the visual appeal of their bodies. Men like a bit of fat to smooth out the curves. And the men's high hurdles... it doesn't bear thinking about!
The number of Olympic events should be radically reduced as well. Take out all "artistic merit" sports such as ice skating and all the sports with more than four people to a team. Also get rid of all sports that rely on technology, such as cycling, rowing, yachting and archery, unless standardized equipment could be developed to allow fair competition for all.
Motor Racing.
What is motor racing for? The only reason I ever thought held water was the argument that it helped develop technology for regular cars. That is true; superchargers, turbochargers, anti lock brakes, active suspension, ground effect designs. A whole series of developments that have been begun on the track, adapted for the road and then BANNED on the track again!
Then there is the danger. The risk of death. Who needs it? Why put the driver IN the car at all? Put in remote control and a crash test dummy in the cockpit. The driver still drives the car solo but does not actually risk his life (yes his, hardly any women are good enough to drive at this level, like it or not, their lighter frames give them an advantage, but they lack the determination).
To keep some degree of caution the competing teams must drive as if the dummy mattered. If the car crashes and the dummy registers a serious injury the team see their points wiped out for the whole season, the driver forfeits half his salary and the team lose a large cash bond as well. This might actually make the teams more safety conscious than at present, or am I being cynical? There would still be an incentive to develop car safety, that dummy could register crushed bones and burns. Also there would be a benefit for the track officials, they would not have to risk their lives, unless the crowd were in danger. It would be up to the teams themselves to recover the car and prove the "driver" was still fit to race later in the season.
With such a change in the rules this would be an excellent opportunity to put lots of cameras in all the cars for the benefit of the crowd. All cars would have a standard dummy and cameras belonging to the race organizers. With driver safety no longer an issue for the organizers, or their lawyers, the rules could be changed to make racing both more fun and more relevant.
Why does the average motorist want a seven second pitstop to change a full set of tyres after a couple of hundred miles? This is pointless. Teams should be allowed two sets of tyres for the SEASON. No exceptions. The average motorist wants good economy from tyres. Tyres could only be changed during a race if they were deflated. How many garages have a team of ten mechanics ready to pounce on your car? Limit pit crews to two. No pitstops except for breakdowns. When does the average motorist get a chance to change four tyres because it is raining? Racing teams would need new miraculous tyres; the average motorist wants that technology too. The money and competition element from racing could help development.
Next comes fuel. The average motorist does not have a bottomless wallet, fuel economy is essential. Calculate the average fuel used in races in the current season, halve it, that is your fuel allowance. Next year take another 5% off, continue that process each season, for ever. If your economy improves more than this you have less weight to carry.
Get rid of all those other rules, every last one. Weight, shape of wing, number of wheels, open top or closed. Engine design, capacity, aspiration, fans to increase down draught, automatic transmission, active suspension, anti lock brakes. When the driver is safe in the team trailer, the crowd is safe behind barriers and the tyres and fuel are strictly rationed what matters? Let the teams design cars that go fast, corner precisely and finish races ahead of the competition. The only exception I can see would be to limit overall width and length, to stop teams racing mobile roadblocks.
The only objections to these proposals I can see are from people who like to watch a sport with the possibility of death to the competitors. Do we need to take the views of people like that into consideration? Do you want to share a planet with them?