coolhandluke121 wrote:midranger wrote:Ron Swanson wrote:I do think the key lies somewhere in financial incentives for the low-seed playoff teams. If tanking hurts the bottom line for the rest of the owners as much as they say it does, then institute some sort of stricter cap on revenue sharing for teams that don't bring in enough gate revenue and/or ticket sales. Owners will start to care about letting their GM's all-out tank if it starts hitting them in the pocket book.
Good idea.
Still not fair to the fans of the worst teams though. What if a team is just bad? I don't support anything that makes it even harder for bad teams to turn it around.
This is tied to the parity issue as well. In basketball, you know the better team almost always wins a playoff series. There's no suspense. Mediocre teams don't have the same hope they do in MLB or the NFL. So part of the total lack of interest is inherent in the sport. The other part is the importance of superstars, which are far more likely to come from the very top of the draft than in other sports.
The worst teams get the best picks, and thus a path to the talent needed to make the playoff.