Email to Bill Simmons

I just submitted this email to Bill Simmons' contact page on ESPN.com. I'm posting it here because I wholeheartedly agree with me.





Sports Guy,

Follow my logic.

The playoffs—NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL—are the best because they're elimination tournaments, which create drama, which make everyone try harder (play defense).

Count me among those who would prefer to turn baseball, basketball, and hockey "regular seasons" into a large number of short, seeded, sponsored tournaments.

Each player in the league would get some sort of acceptable minimum wage, and the incentives would be in the accumulation of tournament wins and rankings. (The top-ranked players would have higher-paying incentives.)

You could still have an ultimate playoff at the end of the year, but this way it's not just a marathon of drinking and looking at people play a sport like they're sawing wood.

I don't think you'd need to mess with NFL seasons, though. That whole system is perfect for that sport.

But college football needs the closure of an elimination tournament.

If you think about it, a tournament is an automatic three-act structure, where victory always wins.

It's also a sort of inverted bowel movement, where the pooh is champions.

It's life, man!

Andohbytheway, doesn't the NFL lockout kind of remind you of the WGA strike? In seemingly arbitrarily looking for more money, owners and writers decided to throw a tantrum because they couldn't have it the way they wanted.

Speaking of The Wire, I get anxious sometimes, and I ask myself what Marlo would do.

Danimal
@gonefiction