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With a new year ahead of us, many people make New Year’s resolutions and the sports world should be no different. Here are eight resolutions the sports world should follow:
#1: Be mindful of your public relations.
With the recent lockouts of the NFL and the NBA, entire seasons were almost lost because the players and the owners argued about how much money each wanted. While it seems that neither will face any long-term damage in the public eye, all sports leagues should remember the strike that brought the 1994 MLB season to an abrupt end. It took baseball many years to get back their attendance. 1995 experienced a 20% drop in attendance from the previous year. It wasn’t until 2006 (12 years after the strike) when the average attendance was back up to where it was before the strike.
#2: Be mindful of your financials.
It has been said that 20 out of the 29 NBA teams were in the red last season and the owners blamed the “soft” salary cap. Keep in mind that owners are allowing their staff to sign absurd contracts for undeserving players. It doesn’t seem like the recent deal in the NBA solved anything as Kwame Brown who is a career 6.8 PPG, 5.6 RPG will be making $7 million this year.
#3: Set an individual salary cap.
This is primarily geared towards baseball as we just saw Albert Pujols sign a contract that will allow him to make $30 million when he turns 41, which would have 50% of 6 MLB teams entire team salary last year. While I realize that MLB most likely won’t ever set a team salary cap in the near future, most fans will soon only be able to pay for a ticket in Los Angeles if they take out a second and third mortgage.
#4: Be accountable for yours and others around you.
If the Jerry Sandusky and Barney Fine scandals have taught us anything, it should be that people should really cover their own behinds. These scandals have not only affected the lives of these people’s families, but also the lives of Joe Paterno, Jim Boeheim, and the Penn State president.
#5: Don’t lose sight of your fanbase’s financials.
It was reported that the average ticket price at a Bears’ game is $244.64, which does not include what you pay for parking, food, etc. Just ten years ago, the average Bears ticket was $42.70, which is a rise of 472.93% or about 139 times inflation.
#6: Institute a playoff system for college football
The recent BCS Championship Game didn’t solve anything as now LSU and Alabama are tied with one win a piece in the season series. A win-win situation for everyone could be to use the BCS rankings as playoff seed numbers and use the BCS bowl games as the playoff games.
#7: Hire more people to counsel athletes on their behavior.
Former NFL wide receiver Sam Hurd is alleged to attempt to buy tons of drugs from an undercover police officer. This is just another example on the coat tails of Ndamukong Suh, Plaxico Burress, Michael Vick, and Ray Lewis (remember that?). While these are grown men, clearly they need babysitting.
#8: Ban reality shows with the athletes’ wives and girlfriends.
This is more of a personal favor. I don’t really care what rich women are doing with their lives.
*** Stats provided by baseball-reference.com, hoopsworld.com, huffingtonpost.com, Wikipedia, Yahoo!
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