Ever since Josh Childress left the Atlanta Hawks for OlympiacosBC I have been thinking about European sports. Not the tax free salary, the owner proved house, or the owner provided driver (which all sound pretty awesome), but about the leagues themselves.
The leagues in soccer, basketball, and who knows what else have divisions that change from year to year. A division system has been set up so that the bottom two teams at the end of the season are relegated to the lower division and the top two from the lower division are brought up.
I think this would be a great way to make the regular season much more interesting in the NBA and MLB. The leagues could be cut in half or a few minor league teams could be moved up. I am not sure what the exact parameters would be, but by having two or even three divisions it would ensure each team would actually try and stay competitive.
Lame owners for clubs like the Pittsburgh Pirates or the Chicago Bears would have to actually come up with some coherent strategy to win. Most major market teams would be safe because the teams have some clue how to maintain a winner. Fans would still be able to buy Yankees tickets, Red Sox Tickets, and Lakers tickets and be able to see a team playing the very best.
The current leagues are built so stagnantly that it seems like the first half of every season in every sport is mostly just going through the motions. Apart from getting out to enjoy the first hints of nice weather and maybe a tradition of going to the opening game, a real playoff atmosphere does not rear its head until after the unofficial pennant race starts after the All Star game.
Basketball has the same problem, although not the nice weather bit. Maybe it’s because of the incredible number of games or we have simply become numb to the act that we are lucky enough to have sports all year round, every year, but the early season always seems to drag. The division system would inspire a competitive atmosphere almost right away.
I do not know if the system would transition well into football. The 16-game schedule may be compact enough to make me care right away. Of course, by the end of the season half the games are not worth watching, so maybe the system could make every Rams game or every Dolphins game really count.
There would be a number of kinks to work out. How would a draft work? What about the salary cap? (The Euroleagues do not have a cap) What happens when a team like the Boston Celtics or the Los Angeles Dodgers, a team that has become synonymous with very sport, drops a division? What it cripple the sport?
