Worst commissioner of the three major (American) sports

the existence of mlb.tv and being able to stream it via Boxee/etc. is still miles ahead of the NFL and NBA

I don't think Goodell is getting enough run here. The NFL would be number 1 in America with or without him. The players despise him. I guess he managed to avoid missing games this season but that lockout was ridiculous to begin with given that the league is awash in money.

football is the best tv sport because w/ so much going on at once you pretty much need replays

im cool with goodell after he came down hard on those cheating god damn saints. teach those animals a lesson rodge!!!!

poly otm, Goddell always struck me as a bully who wants the fans to believe that the only way to make the game safer is through a confusing, inconsistant system of fines and penalties that do little outside of increasing the league's revenue and baffling the players to that point where they have no idea what is a legal hit anymore

plus you got that 18-game schedule thing, christ

well his bigger problem is that there isn't really a way to make the game safer

Also the 18 game thing has been tabled for the foreseeable future.

Did the NFL player's union express an opinion about paying bounties for causing injuries? My guess is that there's no way in hell they could endorse that idea or even stay neutral on it.

right, so what the NFL needs is more money put into pensions for retired players and research into player safety and less of this "the game is unsafe because James Harrison is a cheating monster" mentality xp

I'm not a huge Goodell fan by any means, but given that about every aspect of the NFL game today is different than it's ever been with regard to popularity, player behavior, owner behavior, coach behavior, the rushing river of $$$, media spotlight, soap operas, etc he's doing an okay job despite going in blind.

Also the 18 game thing has been tabled for the foreseeable future.

still had to listen Goddell pretend he had no idea what the difference was between a preseason game and a regular season game

well his bigger problem is that there isn't really a way to make the game safer

― iatee, Saturday, April 14, 2012 2:38 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

knee-high grass on every field. boom. safer game.

Oh shit, I'd watch that!

Goddell always struck me as a bully who blah blah blah blah blah blah

Quit misspelling his name please, you're making me irrationally angry.

Nobody watches baseball on tv until the post-season because hardly any game during the regular season ever matters.

This is hooey, JF -- I watch about 5-6 games a week and listen to another 3-5 on Gameday Audio or with the tv on in the background. (Working from home

Yeah, i'll cop to that being hooey. I'm working with a very small sample size (me, my immediate family, and my own perceptions). lol

I'm enjoying the Yankees getting mashed into tomato paste right now!

god i can't choose all of these guys are terrible

stern is prob my fave for sentimental reasons but he should have hung it up a while ago

goodell seems like the worst on a personal level, like one of the few human beings i would be unwilling to have a conversation with

Worst of these 3, I'd say Stern>Goodell>Selig, which is not to praise Selig at all.

sometimes you hear fans of mlb/nba/nhl muttering darkly about conspiracies that give big-market/popular television teams an edge through officiating or whatever.

the nba is the only one i actually believe this about.

isn't there some evidence for this happening w/ stars? vaguely remember reading about it

I don't think it's a conspiracy, I just think Stern is happy to let officiating suck until fans start turning away from the game because of it.

sometimes its subconscious even

favorite part of basketball games is when a star has obviously committed a foul, but one of his lesser teammates immediately raises their hand to take credit

i don't watch much nba, but i saw game six of the kings-lakers series live in 2002.

also didn't stern once decree -- in the middle of the season -- that the first round of that year's playoffs would suddenly be best-of-7 rather than best-of-5?

not much Selig can do about incompetant management

― you can expect punches, kicks and even worse (frogbs), Saturday, April 14, 2012 6:03 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they could enforce a salary floor and a salary cap. But apparently the baseball public likes the competitive imbalance (I don't necessarily disagree with them.)

it's still amazingly balanced compared to euro sports

the NFL's competitive balance seems to have made the game bigger than ever though, so I dunno what would happen

I have a hard time considering the NFL to be facing serious problems. Like 40 of the 50 most valuable sports franchises on earth are NFL teams. Injuries are just something people idly worry about during the 8 hours a day they're thinking about the NFL.

a lot could change very quickly w/ lawsuits and they're 40 of the 50 most valuable spots franchises on earth because it's america's biggest sport and america has a lot of money. but more people on the planet earth know who jeremy lin is than eli manning.

venus otoh

NFL needs a Chinese-American QB

I think the NFL is dancing on the edge of a dropoff in popularity similar to boxing's decline, due to an inherent viciousness in the sport that can't be ignored or rationalized for too many more years. I'm totally guessing, though.

MLB though, from 1994 to now, has been an abandoned sandcastle. The wild card. The strike. The expansion teams.

Just as a matter of survival, I'm not sure wild cards and (further) expansion could have been avoided. I'd also say that last year proves that the wild card doesn't preclude a wild and unforgettable finish to the season (admittedly, it was a perfect storm that won't be duplicated soon).

they could enforce a salary floor and a salary cap. But apparently the baseball public likes the competitive imbalance (I don't necessarily disagree with them.)

― Matt Armstrong, Saturday, April 14, 2012 3:36 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I feel like the big tipping point with boxing's popularity in America is that American kids stopped doing it (and started playing football.) But it seems like high school football is as big as ever. xp

err I guess that's not really a tipping point and more of a trend sry

"they could enforce a salary floor and a salary cap."

How in god's name could they do this? Do you not understand that there is a Players Union?

would you let your kids play football? xp

yeah i don't think football is going anywhere, particularly now that so many people (advertisers, corporations, etc) are dumping huge dollars into high school football.

How in god's name could they do this? Do you not understand that there is a Players Union?

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Saturday, April 14, 2012 7:57 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol, the NFL, NHL and NBA have players unions too.

I've talked about this with friends - I'd rather my kid boxed up through Golden Gloves than played high school football. Football and rugby would be last on the list of things I'd want progeny to play.

now that ownership groups are paying 2b for franchises (in a bad economy!) I think you'll see MLB have a financial crisis and an ensuing salary cap pretty soon even with their PLAYERS UNION

hs and college football are even more problematic than the nfl. espn and nike making money from an unpaid 15 y/o getting concussions is not a long-term biz model really

the NHL and NBA were in dire straits when the got capped, the NFL has all teams coming close to the cap so players agreed (I think it involved the move to free agency as well). MLB teams are rolling in the dough and has the strongest union. Hard to foresee them working out a cap.

Competitive balance has far less to do with the NFL's popularity than it being the perfect TV event sport. People like dynasties - the 49ers in the '80s, Cowboys of the early '90s, Patriots of the '00s

one ownership group paid $2b because they bought a team in the second-largest media market in the country and will make metric fuck-tons of money with a regional sports network

The Rangers hadn't won a playoff game until two years ago and signed a TV deal for $1.6bn. Imagine what successful teams are going to get over the next decade!

I am skeptical of baseball teams all of a sudden discovering billions of dollars each in a revenue stream based on cable TV.

Whoops, almost gave away the secret to that.