The meaning of today’s post can be found in the number forty-two, across that is. In today’s crossword puzzle it was the clue that gave me the final bit of trouble. In its honor, I am linking the Wikipedia article on its counterpart answer. The clue was “Boston entree”. I particularly like the joke at the bottom of the page. See, you learn something new every day!
I have a new scoring system that I believe could be applied across sports leagues to improve the “watchability” (I must have seen too many bud light commercials recently). I am calling it the “plus one” system. Essentially, it rewards teams that score first for scoring first. My idea is that by rewarding teams that score first over teams that score second, a more aggressive attitude (which I believe fans in all sports like to see) is rewarded over a more defensive attitude. This is accomplished through the “plus one” mechanic.
To illustrate the mechanic, take your favorite sport, and imagine a situation where the two competing teams are tied, but the score is non-zero. In all sports I can think of, this tie is treated equally. My idea is to add an invisible “plus one” to the score of the team which was the first to reach that number. This rewards them for achieving the score first, and forces the other (losing) team to respond in a more aggressive manner than if the two teams were literally drawn. And the “plus one” system works without altering the scoring, tactics, or play making of any game to which it is applied.
The system would affect the philosophy and attitude of the games, but in my opinion only to the benefit of the spectators, which are really the consumer of and fuel behind the sport anyway. And such a change in philosophies would most certainly affect the tactics and structure in the long run, but professional sports are dynamic anyways, and this would be no different in my opinion. This is dynamism which the sport’s fans can really get behind.
