How to improve your sport

[Gazz]

If you're releasing a player at aged 8, you should have never signed him in the first place.

Most academies don't start until 9 anyway, any younger than that is a development centre.

[MDK]

6 minutes ago, Gazz said:

If you're releasing a player at aged 8, you should have never signed him in the first place.

Most academies don't start until 9 anyway, any younger than that is school.

 

[Gazz]

The way it's done at West Brom, which is the system I have the most contact with is that there is the player development centre, which anyone can attend for £5 a week and is aimed at 6-9 year olds and is basically a two hour skills session. From that, they will then invite 6-8 year old players into the 'Shadow academy', where they will be allocated into a team of 8 players which will train together and play against other development squads 5v5 and certain local tournaments (most grass roots tournaments ban them because they'd dominate). The most promising 9 year olds will then be invited to the academy proper and will sign a contract to play and will be supplied with free kit, boots etc. and taken on international tours. They'll play exclusively against other academies 7v7 till 9 years old, 9v9 till 11 and full teams from 12 onwards.

The problem I have with the system comes later, when you have 15-19 year old lads who have forgone their educations because they think they're going to be the big football star are released, often with little notice and they've got no plan B. It's especially bad because a lot of them will have been kept around and told (lied to) that they're good enough to progress because the academies need bodies to fill teams so the one that actually will make it has a team to play for. On average, 1 in 17,000 9 year olds that sign an academy contract manages to become a professional and is still in the game at 21. That's 16,999 kids that have had their dreams crushed at some point and often, the later it is, the worse it is.

I think it needs to change. I don't think they should sign anyone before 12, maybe later because puberty can absolutely derail the best young player you'll ever see or it can turn little Jimmy whose four inches shorter than everyone else into a 6'3 battering ram. By making clubs make a commitment to a players education, they're going to have something to fall back on if football doesn't work out. Frankly, they're going to sign less players, so less kids get sold a pipe dream that's never going to happen. They might also, instead of using 100 to develop 1, they might start retaining players and try and develop 20-30 out of 100. It's too easy for clubs to throw young kids away, I would imagine in the next two or three months, thousands of young lads are going to be told that they're not big enough or tall enough to make it as a professional, some of them will be 5'6 or taller (or certainly will be when they're fully grown), which would make them taller and bigger than Kante, the best player in the Premier League over the last two seasons.

[MDK]

7 minutes ago, Gazz said:

I would imagine in the next two or three months, thousands of young lads are going to be told that they're not big enough or tall enough to make it as a professional

Two of my mates from uni were YTS at Birmingham, trained by Jeff Kenna no less, and they got booted because they were both short arses. Both had a bit of talent and could have probably been League Two/Conference players.

[9 to 5]

Great post and insight Gazz. The only problem I have with it is imagining R-Truth being sad that little Jimmy didn't make it.

[Gazz]

[MDK]

3 minutes ago, Gazz said:

That is exactly what I want to see implemented at more clubs up and down the country. 

[Pooker]

Along the same lines as y'all are talking about with football, I think the NBA needs to mandate that you have to complete at least 3 years of college before you can go to the NBA. One and done players are taking all of the fun out of college basketball and it's bad for them and the league when they fail in the pros.

[Just Joe]

Football

Only count the games in May so Sunderland win the league every year.

[JasonM]

11 hours ago, Pooker said:

Along the same lines as y'all are talking about with football, I think the NBA needs to mandate that you have to complete at least 3 years of college before you can go to the NBA. One and done players are taking all of the fun out of college basketball and it's bad for them and the league when they fail in the pros.

It's a tough call, It's obvioust that the main reason players are doing one and done's is purely for the financial aspect. Even getting drafted late in the second round nets a player over half a million dollars guaranteed, which isn't anything to scoff at for anyone.

On top of that, the NCAA provides ZERO guarantees to college players, regardless of how talented they are or how far they're into their college careers. They have no rights for financial gain, which will disbar them from competing in the NCAA as it's 'amateur sports'. Kids have been banned from the NCAA for the pettiest of reasons such as getting a free ticket to travel to their mother's funeral.
If they get injured, their sports scholarships also vanish since they're incapable of fulfilling the Scholarship's requirements (rd. playing sports), which means that their 'free education' is completely useless from one day to the next, and most of these kids lack the financial means to pay for tuition fees themselves.

It's very much comparable to Gazz's story, in that lots of kids are sold on a pipedream, and when they find out they're not up to scratch they have nothing to show for it. No future in basketball, no financial means earned, and no education to fall back upon. Just one of thousands of kids every year that get dicked by a system that is making billions off their efforts.

So guys like Telfair, or Andrew Bynum who skipped college entirely... They deliver little in the way of their promise, very much because they never learn the fundamentals in high school and college... But they earned millions by being mediocre, millions they potentially wouldn't have earned (or earned less of) than if they ran through college for 3-4 years. Since every college game they play is effectively gambling their own health and livelihood, and the less they play the better it is for their potential financial gains when they declare after that token season.

So whilst I fully agree that the rules need to be bettered, and players need to have more (life) experience before they can get into the NBA... I feel the NCAA would first need to be changed radically across all sporting disciplines, to ensure that these players have a fall-back option if their sporting careers don't pan out whilst being part of the NCAA. Especially seeing that the NCAA earns a shitload of money from using their likenesses.

EDIT: Additionally, the NBA is already in the process of completely circumventing the NCAA by continually expanding the D/G-League, and having an exclusive affiliate for every franchise, which opens the door for NBA teams to offer players decent living standards, and their own way to teach talented kids the proper fundamentals before they hit the NBA. Silver and the rest of the NBA are doing this because they know the NCAA won't alter their operating strategy.

The bad side of the NBA's way is that it takes away that token education completely, so whilst the kids are making money, the moment they wash out they once more have no other qualifications to fall back upon.

Edited May 7, 2017 by Jasonmufc

[Pooker]

All very good and true points, that I 100% agree with. The NCAA, as a whole, needs to be revamped. Even just giving the student-athletes back some of the money they help earn (at least $40,000 a year), would give the students a reason to stay in school longer, focus on their education, and have a fall back option.

But I think going even farther back, before the player is at the college level, needs to be address. Unfortunately, nothing is ever going to change about it. As long as somebody is making money off these kids, it'll keep happening.

I'm very happy with what the NBA is doing with the d-league. The Jazz moved their d-league team to Salt Lake City this year and have used it to help rehab injuries, get bench players some playing time, and so much more. Rather it becomes that second option instead of college or not is up for debate, but I think it's a step in the right direction.

[Taxation is Theft]

 

[Colly]

On 05/05/2017 at 03:49, Busch Strowman said:

Any team sport:  one team a year wins a Money in the Bank briefcase that they can cash in on the defending champion at any time within a year.  Depending on the sport, one quarter/inning/period/half is played right then and there and if the champion loses, they lose their trophy.

Can they cash in on another sport? I'd fancy Mitrovic for the WBO belt.

[GhostMachine]

Boxing

1. Give promoters incentives to have their boxers go up against the opponents that they should be fighting rather than fighting whoever they want. For example, if a champion goes up against a journeyman or lower tier boxer rather than the #1 contender, make the promoter pay the #1 contender 10% of the champ's purse for that fight for making them wait. 

2. Get rid of judge's decisions: If a fight goes the distance, have the fighters go 1 to 3 rounds bareknuckle, with the fight being declared a draw if there's no clear winner afterward. With a rematch being mandatory if its a championship fight.

Olympics

Fire the entire IOC and re-write the rules so unfair and crooked results caused by mistakes and the fix being in don't stand. Like the female fencer who had to stay on the piste for an hour then lost due to a clock error, the rigged pairs figure skating crap from years ago, The `72 gold medal basketball controversy, Roy Jones Jr being screwed over and given silver rather than gold when he made the South Korean who was given gold his bitch because the judges were bought, etc. There are plenty of motherfuckers out there with medals they don't deserve.

 

[Gorka]

Cornermen in boxing will be replaced by the loudest and shrillest of the boxer's friends and family. The only instruction they are allowed to give is "leave it, [name], he's not worth it".

[MDK]

9 hours ago, Gorka said:

Cornermen in boxing will be replaced by the loudest and shrillest of the boxer's friends and family. The only instruction they are allowed to give is "leave it, [name], he's not worth it".

And instead of boxing gloves they should use handbags

[Colly]

Totally minor (and far too serious for this thread), but I'd like it if players could overrule a ref playing on advantage. It doesn't happen often, but there are occasions where there'll be a foul close to the edge of the area but the ref will rightly play on because the balls ended up with a winger by the touchline, but if you've got a Beckham/Sigurdsson/Shelvey in your side you'd vastly prefer the free kick. NFL style 'fair catch' where you raise your hand?

[Benji]

Football

Replace players with rocket powered cars.

Play inside an enclosure.

[Kaney]

Quote

 How to improve your sport

 

Ban Spurs fans.

[stokeriño]

Develop the technology to transplant human consciousness into computers and appoint the WengerBot 3000 as Arsenal manager until the end of existence.