
Everyone Wants to Go Home During Extra Innings, Maybe Even the Umps - wglb
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everyone-wants-to-go-home-during-extra-innings-maybe-even-the-umps/
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kris-s
One idea I'd like to see spread from competitive gaming is the willingness of
the powers that be to adjust the sport to improve it. I don't know the exact
details of how rules officially get changed in sports, but man does it seem
painfully slow for any changes to be made (overpowered pitchers in baseball,
no video reviews in soccer, etc).

This is something I think MMA does really well, as the rules are mostly in
place to prevent permanent injury and the "meta" seems to evolve nicely on its
own. (I'd still like to see a version of MMA with no gloves - it would
probably be much safer).

I don't always agree with changes that come to my particular game of choice
(Starcraft II) but I think the steady stream of small adjustments is a boon
that other competitive venues should learn from.

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Trundle
I used to enjoy the changing meta, new heroes, balance patches back when I
played dota a lot.

Now that I haven't played in years I don't enjoy watching any more because
it's too far removed from the game it was when I played. I can't tune in to an
important final and follow along at anything other than the most superficial
of levels.

If the meta was static then id be a casual follower, as it is I'm not any sort
of follower.

Professional sports seem to have very large casual fan bases. If you kept
changing the rules then maybe they'd be fine with that, or maybe they'd be
like me and stop watching.

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bigger_cheese
I'm with you on this. I feel exactly the same way. I played Dota casually for
years (i.e once every couple of months I jump into a pub game with my friends
and have some fun) but I used to enjoy watching high level tournaments. In my
opinion they ruined the game by iterating through changes way to quickly. It
feels like to me every successive patch in last 2 or 3 years there has been
huge sweeping changes. The Dota I see now is not the game I fell in love with
all those years ago. Almost everything has changed.

Sometimes you need to realize when you have a good thing and leave it alone...

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plantain
On the other hand, if you are a casual but regular follower the constant
changes can make it more exciting - every other month it felt like "Holy shit!
They changed X! This changes everything!", and my day would be full of in
depth discussions on the implications with my friends.

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dash2
You big American softies. Cricket matches last FIVE DAYS, with breaks for tea.

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robryan
Baseball would probably have more game days in a year than the average
international cricketer would, counting all levels they are involved in.

The US baseball season seems to make it impossible to watch all your teams
games, even for the most dedicated fan.

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phamilton
> even for the most dedicated fan

I watched 100+ regular season games of the Dodgers last season. It was a lot
of baseball. That plus an exhausting World Series meant I had to decompress
and avoid sports for a few months.

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justinator
Think about how the players must have felt!

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clw8
They also need to play fewer games. The Cubs' star Anthony Rizzo said he would
gladly take a pay cut. Teams play _162 games a year_. That's just insane
considering how demanding the sport is and how frequently players get injured.

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spike021
I don't think they need to. Baseball's been run this way for decades, and
people are only now complaining about the number of games per season.

One part of the entire draw of baseball is that (usually) it's looked at more-
so as a marathon of a sport. It's all about which teams can withstand the long
season than not. You could have a 10 game win streak in May, but that doesn't
make a difference in September if your team's division is still close. You
need to have the health at that point and durability of players to continue to
be successful, especially through the playoffs.

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joncrane
I feel like fivethirtyeight is like the Freakonomics of sports.

