“An athlete cannot run with money in his pockets. He must run with hope in his heart and dreams in his head.”
It has always been up to us. Over the last two months, we have gathered the greatest minds the southeastern region of the United States has to offer. We have practiced questioning everything and thinking outside the box. We have laughed and we have cried. We have now reminisced on the previous issues. We are a family.
I hope you took last week’s issue to heart. Did you shine the sterilizing light of truth upon yourself? Did you take a long look in the mirror? Did you lift your right hand while looking in that mirror and realize the reflection is raising their left hand? Did that trip you out for a while as you wondered if you know what you actually look like or is your perception of yourself flipped? Is the rest of this issue just going to be questions? No. So quit asking.
On Monday, I asked for your help. Many of you stepped up to the plate. Y’all really knocked it out of the park. There were a lot of slam dunk suggestions. We will discuss below. But first, a word from our sponsors.
Whopper, Whopper, Whopper, Whopper
Junior, Double, Triple Whopper
Just kidding, Burger King doesn’t sponsor us. We are a Wendy’s newsletter (technically also not a sponsor).
Our sponsorship section this week is actually for us! We attempted our first marketing campaign this week. Our marketing intern had the brilliant idea to partner with Alex Thai in Chattanooga, TN. They agreed that all orders of Pad See Ew spice level 2 placed between 11:19 and 11:20 EST on Wednesday 3/8/2023 would have “Brought to you by the Daily Dispatch” written on the box. Genius as this idea seemed, we didn’t account for the steam emanating off the food would cause the writing to smear during transport. The result was a complete disaster.
The marketing intern was promptly fired for the oversight.
Now that the mandatory money making segment is out of the way, we can get to the good stuff.
This week, I asked the subscribers, ”…We will dare to have the hubris to think we can make major sports better. Sure, they rake in billions of dollars and are viewed by millions, but they are imperfect and we must correct them. We are deprived by the fact basketball doesn’t have a 4 point line yet. Soccer, honestly, needs less players.
I want to hear your thoughts on how we should fix major sports. If your suggestions are good enough or crazy enough, you may just find them in this week’s issue!”
You all provided a mixture of brilliance, insanity, and chaos. It was exactly what I expected from you all and a reminder of why you are the greatest group of subscribers this world has ever seen.
Let’s walk through the results together.
First of all, everyone who responded is a self proclaimed sports fan.
Most of you consider yourselves “out of the box” thinkers.
I appreciate the subscriber who answered that question by quoting Vanilla Ice. Very “out of the box”.
When ranking the sports, I realized the chart format I chose wasn’t the most effective. Oh well. See below anyways.
Now, for the moment you’ve all been waiting for: we are redoing sports. At the end of this, I will outline what each league looks like now that we have transformed them.
We start with one of the most popular sports leagues in the world, the NFL.
Hard hitting, highly paid, professional football. Can it get any better? Apparently it can!
Starting with the basics, football has been 11 on 11 for a while. Not anymore. It seems many of you want to remove players. Some only want to remove one player, while others believe football could be a one on one sport. One theme you will see through the NFL is someone was very interested in adding steroids. Can’t say I disagree. I want peak performance here. Speaking of peak performance, we need peak effort. One person suggested the lowest effort player is removed, permanently.
The idea I’m going to apply to the TDDFL (The Daily Dispatch Football League) is adding steroids and executing the lowest effort player. The only addition I’m adding to this rule for our league, is a minimum effort threshold. If every player meets the minimum effort threshold, nobody is eliminated. I don’t want us taking out all of our top athletic talent.
Next we asked about scoring. We were all over the place here.
Some want to make things worth more points, some want to make things worth less points, everyone wants a scorigami.
Here is what we are going to do; we are getting rid of kickers, except for 50+ yard field goals which are worth 4 points. There is no kicking less than 50 yards. Touchdowns are worth 6 points but so are safeties. I love the thought of them being reverse touchdowns. After a touchdown, you can attempt a 2 point conversion from 10 yards out or a 4 point conversion from 25 yards out. If you return a kickoff for a touchdown, that is worth 8 points.
A few of you were unsatisfied with the length of games. I think it’s fine, so we aren’t changing it. Sorry. Deal with it.
As far as roster creation, there was a split decision.
The main thesis was getting rid of the cap. Unlimited money. While that sounds fun, I like the parody we have in the sport. We should keep the cap. One good suggestion was “I believe there should be increased cap space or different ways to earn or unearn cap space. I think there could be interesting ways to force teams and matchups to be more exciting. For instance, maybe creating salary caps per position instead of us as a whole team. Or, perhaps giving cap forgiveness based on injuries or player age.” I like this idea and we are going to implement it. We are also going to make the bottom 2 teams play each other before the Super Bowl. The winner of that game gets the number 1 pick. No more full on tanking.
When asked about penalties, a lot of you wanted to basically remove them all. I love chaos, but we need guidelines. I’m good for steroids and the execution of low effort players, but we need rules. We also need accountability. One thing that always infuriates me is the lack of accountability refs have. They can make game altering calls and drive home never answering for them. They can be egregious and entirely unexplainable causing a team to lose an important game. For example, the 2018 NFC Championship game between the Saints and the Rams where an unpenalized pass interference committed by Rams cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman on Saints wide receiver Tommylee Lewis occurred. It was one of the worst missed calls I have ever seen.
Players and coaches have press conferences after games and have to answer for different decisions. Refs should have to have press conferences after games to answer for calls or no calls. This will be mandatory in our league.
When asking about the playoffs in the NFL, one answer stood out among the rest, “the afc south shouldn’t be allowed in the playoffs for at least the next 5 years. I’m imposing a ban on shitty playoff football and this is coming from a titans fan” We are instituting this ban in our league. It is fair.
As it stands, this is where you rank the current NFL:
For additional rules that didn’t fit into categories, here are the rules you suggested that we are adding:
“No more ties. If we’re tied after overtime, a boxing ring rises from the ground at midfield and the coaches have to box each other to decide a winner. all the coaches. This is a royal rumble situation. really makes you think about who you hire…”
“Deshaun Watson is banned. That’s all.”
“Let receivers start at a dead sprint like the CFL. I want to see these 4.4 second 40’s running 38mph”
“Change NFL all star weekend to include better things, coaching staff flag football, kicker throwing contest, position player kicking contest, team of 22> players vs 30> players, all star baseball/basketball game made of football players (please have every sports all star break utilize this format)”
We will fully recap each league at the end.
We must now address the TDCAA (The Daily DIspatch Collegiate Athletic Association) Football.
College football is my favorite sport. Believe it or not, I have it on good authority that the Tennessee Volunteers are going to win the national championship this year! My dream is for Tennessee to win the last NCAA Championship ever and then win the first TDCAA Football Championship next year. Seems entirely doable.
As far as changing positions, you all seemed relatively content with the way things are. We are not going to change anything here. We will save effort execution for the professional level. We are going to adopt the same new scoring rules as the TDDFL because we are basically just changing football at this point. We expect high school, middle school, and those weirdly intense peewee football leagues in Texas (Please watch the show “Friday Night Tykes”. Go San Antonio Outlaws!) to change their scoring systems to match.
The first noticeable change you will see in the TDCAA is in roster construction.
Here is what we are going to do. There have been a lot of people who don’t love the transfer portal. Players are switching teams left and right. We are not going to get rid of it. Sorry. We are going to discourage it though. Players can still transfer schools as they wish with no penalty to their playing time, however, if you transfer schools, you must wear a backpack while you play the entire next season. The backpack will be worn in game and can be grabbed by opposing teams. It will have a buckle to keep it on. The backpack will be weighted (15 lbs for a standard transfer, 25 lbs if you transfer within your conference). The backpack will read, “My Bags Are Packed Coach!”.
We believe this will slow the transfer portal process.
NIL is out of control. Let’s fight fire with fire. I love the idea, “Top 3 schools stream a live bidding war for X player” Players must announce their top 3 schools and those teams will have a live bidding session for that player. It will be mass chaos. Whoever suggested Brock Bowers must move to the NFL immediately, I love it. Done.
You all had some great suggestions for the postseason/playoffs. I love the idea of promotion and relegation. We are adopting it. We will make the mandatory suggestions you presented, as well as figuring out an official order of conferences (SEC is the top obviously).
You all were nearly unanimous in wanting to expand the playoffs. I have taken your suggestions seriously and then I remembered that I am the sole person behind the keyboard and can make all the decisions. No more playoffs. I never liked them to begin with and I hate the idea of expansion. This is serious. I will make a lot of jokes, but I don’t want an expanded playoff and I will happily argue with you. We are going back to the BCS selection system where 2 teams are chosen to play for the National Championship. I will be the one selecting these teams because, unlike the current Playoff Selection Committee, I actually watch football and understand the nuances of a season and not just a record. I will limit my bias towards Tennessee as best I can.
As it stands, this is where you rank the enjoyability of watching college football:
Moving on to basketball.
There weren’t a lot of suggestions for the size of teams, so we will move on to the way the game is managed. One person suggested throughout this survey that the NBA is rigged. They are correct. They mentioned this in nearly every response and finally suggested we “unrig” it. Sorry. That isn’t happening. I like controlling the narrative. That said, I will happily give subscribers inside knowledge so you can bet on it and make a fortune.
The first major change we are making in the TDDBA is instituting an Elam ending. I love this. For those who don’t know, here is what an Elam ending is: Instead of a game clock, teams play to a target score, with the shot clock still enforced. The first team to meet or exceed the target score wins, so there is no overtime. We will be adding 15 points to the highest scoring team’s score. For example, if the Celtics and Knicks are playing a game and at the end of the 3rd quarter the score is Celtics 97 Knicks 103, we set the target score to 118. First team to 118 wins!
At this point in the survey, we asked the most important question, “You think I’m cool, right?”
The results were unanimously positive. You all love me. I love you too.
I’m not smelly… jerk.
You all liked the idea of adding a 4 point play. Done. It’s in. We will set the line 4 feet within the half court line as suggested. We are also making the suggested change of making 2 free throws count as 1 point. There will not be half points. You either make both and get 1 point or get nothing.
Quite frankly, you all didn’t have many more suggestions with the exception of one person whose ideas will be instituted.
Done. I love them. You all ranked the experience of watching the NBA in the following ways:
This was an interesting suggestion:
Who hurt you?
For college basketball (TDDCAA) we are adding the new scoring rules we made in the NBA.
We really aren’t changing anything else. Sorry. Nobody cares about college basketball until March anyways.
Let’s mess with baseball, what do ya say? It’s past time to change America’s favorite pastime.
I love some of the suggestions you all made right off the bat:
We are absolutely changing the batting order. We are going to start by giving every player in your rotation 4 at bats used whenever the manager chooses. If you have Aaron Judge and you need a big hit but he strikes out, you can send him right back to the plate. However, once he’s used his 4 at bats, he can’t bat again. These will reset in extra innings.
We are also allowing steroids again. You deserve to be in the Hall of Fame Barry Bonds.
There was full agreement on the pitch clock btw.
We are adding the below. I like it.
This is genius and is being added as well.
If there is anything we love at The Daily Dispatch, it’s showmanship. Baseball definitely needs more characters. We need heroes and villains. We need personality. Whoever suggested the below, congratulations, your rule is instituted and you get to throw the first pitch in the new league.
Here is how you all rank watching baseball currently.
Soccer is the sport I was thinking of when I first came up with this idea. Sure it’s popular, but I don’t like the rules. We will start with your ideas, then I have a few of my own.
Despite all this, we are keeping stoppage time the same. Doesn’t feel substantial enough to mess with. Weird, but unique.
A lot of you had a problem with flopping and faking injuries. Agreed.
We are taking this person’s suggestion. “If someone is on the ground for more than 30 seconds following a foul, they are unable to reenter the game.”
The only other suggestion I really liked was “I don’t know I think they’re doing good. Maybe add a tree onto the field, can go stadium by stadium.” We will not be adding this to our leagues, but I thought it was very funny.
My primary issue with soccer has always been the way penalties are handled. They either mean nothing or everything. Tripping someone 6 inches outside the box and you just kinda pause for a second. Trip someone inside the box and you might as well give them a goal. What?? We are going to do it the way basketball does it. If they are in the act of shooting, they get a penalty shot from exactly where they were, but with no defenders. Just the shooter and the keeper.
The other change I’m making is what happens when a game ends in a tie in regulation. We are moving penalty shootouts to before extra time. The team that wins the penalty shootout gets a half point. That way, if extra time ends in a tie, the team that won the penalty shootout wins. If the other team scores more in extra time, they win. I don’t like how a random skill competition decides the winner of a different game entirely that was played for over an hour and a half.
This is how entertaining you all think soccer is as it stands.
We are a primarily southeastern newsletter at present so there was not as much interaction with hockey. The best rule suggestion I saw, and the one we are implementing, was “The loser of the fight gets the penalty box. the winner gets to go free. dont punish a hockey player for fighting. punish them for losing the fight. that’ll show ’em”
Here is how entertaining you all think hockey is as it stands.
These are the two rules we are adding to golf.
“Make trick shots worth extra negative points.”
“Let them drink — factors into handicap based on consumption.”
“Perfect is the enemy of good.” That is often used to describe how people can get caught up in making things perfect and, as a result, never get anything done. Not here at The Daily Dispatch. We looked at sports and said, “good, but not good enough.”
“The unexamined life is not worth living, and unperfected sports are not worth playing.”
-Socrates and Seth
