Worst ideas in sports history

[BigBubba]

This man as commissioner of a professional sports league:

[dfwabel]

For your reading,"Glow Pucks and 10 Cent Beer"

[Lights Out]

God, our sports leagues do have some suck-awful commissioners, don't they? Goodell isn't exactly perfect either.

[RedSox44]

God, our sports leagues do have some suck-awful commissioners, don't they? Goodell isn't exactly perfect either.

Goodell is perfect compared to Stern, Selig and Bettman.

[DCDuck]

God, our sports leagues do have some suck-awful commissioners, don't they? Goodell isn't exactly perfect either.

Goodell is perfect compared to Stern, Selig and Bettman.

I'd rate them as such:

Bettman >> Goodell > Stern >>>>>>>> Selig

Under Goodell, the NFL has become the No Fun League, where a defender laying a finger, breathing on, or looking the wrong way at the QB may or may not result in a 15-yard penalty (i.e. London Fletcher on Tom Brady, Week 14). Also Goodell has sucked all of the uniqueness out of the league with the corportate templates for Super Bowls, the Pro Bowl and the Draft.

Revenue sharing and collective bargaining in the NHL is more logical and fair than in any of the other major professional leagues. That's why I give Bettman the nod.

[Fox]

I don't know enough about the NHL to rate Bettman, but the way I see it is:

-David Stern is the worst

-Selig and Goodell are tied for less bad

[BigBubba]

I don't know enough about the NHL to rate Bettman, but the way I see it is:

-David Stern is the worst

-Selig and Goodell are tied for less bad

All you need to know is that he thinks this is a good place for hockey

And yes, that is in the middle of a game.

Hell, I'm surprised no one's mentioned Bettwoman's brilliant ideas to put hockey teams in the desert.

[Lights Out]

Bettman >> Goodell > Selig >>>>>>>> Stern

Fixed. I've never seen ANYTHING like what Stern has pulled in the past week.

[RedSox44]

Bettman is the worst because of his anti-Canada policies, which has cost the league countless fans and an obscene amount of money. Fans boo the out of him whenever he shows up in an arena. You may not consider him the worst, but by no means is he the best.

I give Goodell the nod over the other three because his policies while they take "fun" brutality out of the league, it's for the protection of players, which I can respect.

[Kevin W.]

I think Don Garber is the only one of the five major leagues' commissioners that isn't seen in a really negative light.

[Lights Out]

Bettman is awful but he's the best of the Big Four by default.

[Kevin W.]

Bettman is awful but he's the best of the Big Four by default.

Is there really a "best" of those four, though? If there is, does a guy who gets booed in every arena he goes to deserve it?

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Bettman is awful but he's the best of the Big Four by default.

I'm assuming you're not a hockey fan. Bettman is so clearly terrible in every conceivable way. At the least, he's costing his league tens of millions each year by subsidizing failing franchises. At worst, he's actively sabotaging the long-term health of the league. He's there at the owners' pleasure, of course, but NHL owners are a bunch of putzes too. NHL is a whole different level of mismanagement than the other leagues.

Stern's had a bad year, for sure, but he did have 20 years of greatness. I'll cut him some slack for a bad week given how much he's grown the NBA through a couple of boom-bust periods.

The NFL is good by default, so Goodell mostly has to not screw up.

I don't watch much baseball so I don't have much an opinion on Selig. Other than to say that I appreciate the hardline stance taken on performance-enhancing drugs.

[DCDuck]

The only real knock on Bettman I've heard is "he's keeping the NHL in Arizona. Let the team die already so we can have yet another NHL franchise in Ontario". Geographic diversity is a good thing. Expanding the sport leads to more viewer interest, at least in theory. You can't blame Bettman for trying, even if he has been more than a bit stubborn about it. "Ewww, Rbk?!" is not a valid complaint in my estimation when compared to the myriad of other offenses committed in other leagues.

Roger Goodell took what was almost universally heralded as a perfect product under Paul Tagliabue and blandified it. "Protecting the players" means "protecting the most marketable players in the league" which means coddling QBs, rule changes that inherently favor the offense, and arbitrary rule changes for playoff games. Any fines for O-linemen chop-blocking? Nope. But if you trip and your hand just so happens to hit a QB in the knee, you might be sitting out a couple weeks. The result is a league that feels more like a giant corporation than it should.

David Stern... CP3 to LAL, enough said. Oh, and that dress code. Seriously?

Bud Selig. Where to begin? He's been allowing the rich to get richer while the poor flounder. Ever wonder why the Yankees are always good year after year? Because they are the richest team out there, and Bud Selig allows them to throw their weight around. Same goes for Boston and Philadelphia. Teams in big markets thrive while teams in smaller markets have to work their rear ends off just to keep pace (I'm looking at you, Tampa). He also turned a blind eye to steroid use when it was convenient (hey look at all those home runs, thanks to the developments of 'modern nutritional science'!" then turned around and tried to make himself look like an anti-PED stalwart. Interleague play. The litany of things Selig has done to MLB goes on.

[Funky Bunky]

I think Don Garber is the only one of the five major leagues' commissioners that isn't seen in a really negative light.

Because nobody knows who he is.

[Kevin W.]

I think Don Garber is the only one of the five major leagues' commissioners that isn't seen in a really negative light.

Because nobody knows who he is.

Ok, that's a fair point, but I think most MLS fans do like him.

[HedleyLamarr]

I've long said that if "team location" is your biggest negative, then you've gotta be doing a great job with being commissioner. If your biggest beef about Bettman is that there's a hockey team in Phoenix, you've got to be happy about the NHL's general state of affairs.

In every season since Bettman became commissioner (aside from the year they didn't play), the NHL has seen growth in revenue. More fans are in the buildings than ever before, and the league even tried a slew of rule changes to make the game more exciting. If having a team in Phoenix trumps all this, you clearly have an unhealthy obsession with hating on Bettman. (And you can count out Bettman having an anti-Canada bias if he allowed a team to relocate to Winnipeg.)

Bud Selig's done some great work. Interleague play has been a huge success. He came up with the radical idea of tying in the All-Star Game to having home-field advantage in the World Series, since folks were complaining that the All-Star Game had lost it's luster and appeal. (Not that I agree with that, but I certainly support the reasoning.) He also has managed to get drug-testing and video replay implemented into the game, which the fans wanted.

Goodell pretty much is running the NFL on auto-pilot. He's done his best to clean up the reputation of the league, especially when it comes to off-field issues.

I don't follow the NBA enough to get a good reading on Stern. Despite the recent times, sounds like Stern has done a great job with the business side of the NBA.

[crashcarson15]

Something that occurs to me every year at this time. It's idiotic that the 3rd place team in a Champions League group goes into the Europa League. It diminishes both competitions.

I've always been torn on the idea of letting non-league champions into the Champions League to be honest.

But yeah, that's just plain dumb.

[TFoA]

I think Don Garber is the only one of the five major leagues' commissioners that isn't seen in a really negative light.

Because nobody knows who he is.

Ok, that's a fair point, but I think most MLS fans do like him.

The Don is probably one of the best things to happen to MLS. Almost as soon as he became Commish, the league began to improve, and hasn't stopped improving under his watch since. I won't say that he's done nothing wrong, but he's been an excellent commissioner for the league, and he's done a great job elevating the MLS from "that kitschy American league" to a decent-quality league on the international scene. I've got absolutely no problems with the Don at all.

To get this back on topic...I think I'm going to expound on my hatred of the NFL's "Calvin Johnson Rule..." mainly because NFL officials themselves barely know how to rule on that situation. The rulings differ from official to official. Whenever you have a rule like that in your rulebook, it means that it's time to fix it. At least with other judgement calls, you can at least get together with other officials and make the right decision. A mini-meeting wouldn't help because you'd have 4 or 5 differing opinions on what to call it. Also, IIRC, the NFL is the only place where this rule is in effect. Not in High School, not in college, maybe not even in Canada.

So yeah, NFL, FIX THAT RULE. If a guy has possesion of the ball as he lands, it's a catch. Don't give me that whole "completing the process" BS. Let's use common sense here.

[IceCap]

The only real knock on Bettman I've heard is "he's keeping the NHL in Arizona. Let the team die already so we can have yet another NHL franchise in Ontario".

Save for a few GTA media blowhards no one is calling for the Coyotes to move to an Ontario locale. Almost everyone is of the opinion that Quebec City is the logical destination for the Coyotes.

In case you're one of those Yanks who has a hard time with Canadian geography Quebec City is in Quebec, not Ontario. Yes, that was harsh, but if you're going to make broad generalizing statements at least get your facts in order.

Geographic diversity is a good thing. Expanding the sport leads to more viewer interest, at least in theory. You can't blame Bettman for trying, even if he has been more than a bit stubborn about it.

The "lets grow the game!!!11eleventy" argument is what got the NHL into the mess it's in. The "well it was a good idea in theory" is likewise bogus. The southern expansion was to the NHL what the suburban housing bubble was to middle class yuppies who thought they had more money then they actually did. Teams were put in Miami, Phoenix, Florida, and Dallas based on potential fan growth, ie speculation. Dallas worked for a while because the team came from Minnesota as a ready-made contender and the Rangers, Mavs, and Cowboys all sucked. Now that situation has changed and Dallas seems like as much of a bust as Miami and Phoenix.

Two years ago, just before the whole Phoenix Coyotes fiasco started, Bettman did an interview where he stated that every NHL team was on solid financial footing. A month later the Coyotes filed for bankruptcy. Since then it's come out that the Blue Jackets are having revenue problems, the Stars can't compete in a competitive Dallas sports scene, the Panthers had to tarp off the upper bowl and only sell out when the Canadiens come to town, and the Coyotes are subsidized by the league's few profitable teams and the city of Glendale. Oh, and the Thrashers were moved to a small prairie city in Canada, where they've become much more profitable, because their ownership group decided they were better off without the 41 guaranteed dates a year that NHL hockey gave them for their arena.

Say what you will about Stern following the lockout, but the NBA reached its greatest levels of popularity under his watch. Any league where a team like the Clippers can stay profitable is going something right.

Complain about Goodell taking the fun out of football all you want, he's made the sport safer. You talk about the "glory days" of the NFL as if it was nothing but sunshine, roses, and good old fashion hard hitting football. Never mind that many a player had their lives destroyed as a result of what happened on the field. Under Goodell the NFL has finally started to recognize threats to player safety that have been there for some time. On top of all of that he's kept the NFL at the top of the American sports mountain. And blasting him for the standardized Super Bowl logos? Lame. If Bettman's detractors can't use the initial Reebok EDGE rollout against him then you can't complain about the new Super Bowl logos.

Selig? He's not the best commissioner MLB has had. Not by a long shot. In fact you could, and I would, say that he's presided over a down period for MLB. That being said a downturn for MLB is still infinitely better then anything Bettman's been able to provide for the NHL.

Under Bettman the NHL expanded/relocated into a series of markets with no guarantee of success, cashing the expansion/relocation fees and using them as "proof" that under his leadership the NHL was turning a profit. When these markets failed he's put his own ego/quest for a "national footprint" to pretend he's on par with the NBA, MLB, and NFL above what's good for business. It's not about "hating that there's a team in Phoenix" (sorry Hedley). It's about the fact that the team in Phoenix is only there because of league and tax payer subsidization. Business sense dictates the league move them, but they won't to appease one man's ego.

Under Betman at least four teams are in serious financial trouble, and a fifth's gotten out of trouble by relocating to a city Bettman wanted nothing to do with. Under Bettman the league's ownership ranks have been filled with charlatans, crooks, and at one point, the Japanese mafia.

I'm sorry. Selig, Goodell, and Stern aren't perfect, but they haven't mismanaged their leagues like Bettman has.