"The sport itself is flawed in design." The health aspects of this are the most urgent, but I'd argue that as coaches and analysts have developed algorithms to

"The sport itself is flawed in design." The health aspects of this are the most urgent, but I'd argue that as coaches and analysts have developed algorithms to optimize very particular strategies, they've also squeezed much of the fun out of the game. I wrote about this elsewhere: ---------------------- Watching professional sports has become less fun over the last 50 years, due to athletes improving while the rules of most games have gone largely unchanged. Basketball players are taller, on average, than 60 years ago, yet the height of the basket has not been raised. Tennis players have learned to optimize techniques for smashing serves, which often leads to boring games where everything is decided by the strength of a player's serve -- obviously tennis is more fun to watch when there is a long and dramatic volley. American football has seen a relative improvement in defense, such that some games are just 3 attempts at 10 yards, then punt, followed by 3 attempts at 10 yards, then punt, followed 3 attempts at 10 yards, then punt. I'm not exaggerating, I actually saw a game in December where there was something like 5 punts in 5 minutes of play action. Who wants to watch that? In the specific case of American football, an obvious change that could be made is to allow 5 or 6 attempts to get 10 yards, instead of 4. That would be fun, I love watching the pass or run plays, much more than the punts. I learned to love football when I was a little kid, because my older brother loved football and I liked to watch the games with him. Back then I remember many long, dramatic passes, of a type that have become rare as defense has gotten relatively better at stopping exactly that strategy. But whenever I explain to people that the rules of sports need to be often updated to keep up with changes in equipment and training regimes, I'm told that any change would render historical comparisons invalid. Obviously that is true, but what is more important, that we are able to compare today's game to a game in 1956, or that the game is fun? http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/am-i-completely-insane http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/am-i-completely-insan...