The Perfect Sport

For many sports fans, this is the very best time of the year. Fall is pretty good too, with the start of the NFL season and the World Series, but spring is where it's at. March Madness, MLB Opening Day, the Masters, the NFL Draft, and the start of the NHL and NBA Playoffs. It is a good time to be reminded of what we like about sports. In honor of the spring, I wanted to create the perfect sport. Each league and sport has unique qualities that make it entertaining. Each sport also has characteristics that detract from the entertainment as well. So my goal, with this post is to make the perfect sport. To me the perfect sport has:

NHL Fans:
Hockey fans are knowledgeable and passionate. As the least popular of the 4 major team sports, it is the most difficult to follow, therefore it requires commitment. It also seems to me that there is less separating the good teams from the bad teams than in most sports, so it requires a little more nuance to know who is good and who is bad.

College football traditions:
Fight songs, classic uniforms, tailgates, entire stadiums in one color, mascots, bowl games, rivalries, cheerleaders (who actually seem to care about the game), marching bands. Professional sports seem overproduced, telling fans when to cheer, pumping in top 40 hits, filling timeouts with distractions. College football just feels more organic.

NFL Regular Season:
While the schedule now goes anywhere from Thursday to Monday, you essentially need only one day to follow football: Sunday. Add to the fact that there are only 16 games, so each is incredibly important, and you've got a compelling regular season. A schedule that weights division games heavily helps create natural rivalries and familiarity. It is no wonder the NFL is the most popular sport in America.

MLB Postseason:
There is something magical about the baseball playoffs. Part of it is that only 8 teams make it, so it means more to make it than it does in the other sports. While single elimination is fun (March Madness, NFL Playoffs), a series creates much more drama. It requires strategy, match-ups, scratching out runs, putting starters in as relievers, etc. While baseball drags too long during the regular season, I root for long games in the postseason. The pressure is palpable.

NBA Offseason:
In no other sport can one player change a team's fortune so much. Whether through the draft (Spurs, Tim Duncan), trade (KG and Ray Allen, Celtics), or free agency (Shaq, Lakers), offseason moves really shape the season. In baseball, we overpay for pitching, in football we overdraft quarterbacks, and rarely see big free agent moves. The NBA has, by far, the most fun offseason.

MLB Stadiums:
No other sport allows for as much interpretation (golf is fun for this reason too, but I'm sticking with team sports). Funny dimensions, high walls, roofs, domes, waterfalls, bays to hit homeruns into, ivy, pesky poles, stupid little hills in center field (seriously Houston, who though of that?). Also, the most fun for fans, especially the new stadiums that feature city views, or ocean views, or mountain views. You can have a good time at a baseball game whether the game is good or not. Good views, good food, good smells.

MLB Uniforms:
Mostly for the hats.

College Basketball coaches:
Coaching college basketball requires teaching, personality, strategy, and longevity. The best ones are teachers who care about their players, strategists who impact the game, and have become fixtures at their schools: Calhoun, Boeheim, Thompson, Wooden, Izzo, Coach K (yes I did avoid spelling his last name).

NBA Players:
Because there are fewer players playing, no helmets, pads, or hats, we get to know NBA players. This is why I love the NBA so much. You can see the emotion, or the determination, or the exhaustion. You can tell when a team has chemistry or not. Add to that a game that allows for style and improvisation, and you have the best entertainment value of any sport.

NHL Trophy:
Obviously.

NBA MVP:
While there is the occasional mistake (Bill Simmons covers this well in his The Book of Basketball), this is the sport that the MVP tells you the most about the season. Players are, for the most part, graded on a similar scale. In the NFL, a quarterback starts with a significant advantage. All NBA MVPs are Hall of Famers or future Hall of Famers. MLB MVPs include the likes of Juan Gonzalez, Mo Vaughn, and Terry Pendleton.

That's how I see the perfect sport. But really, sports are fun because of the ways they are different. A 16 game baseball season would be meaningless, even if 162 games feels pretty long in the middle of July. The NBA wouldn't work as well if coaches dominated the game. Football wouldn't make sense with quirky stadiums. College basketball would not be nearly as fun if the playoffs were played in series. So I'll just enjoy the spring, when all of these sports come together for a couple of months.