Sports fans, which sports have gotten better in the past 15 years? Which have gotten worse?

28 comments

1. Don’t watch any global sports?

2. Cricket is completely ruined due to commercialization

3. NHL- by far is getting better every year.

   NBA- is also up there.

   NFL- still fun to watch.

   MBL- ok

4. Soccer is worse. Less flair, more boring styles of play.

5. The NFL has gotten markedly better for me. I’m a Bills fan and the team has really come into their own the last few years with what appear to be even better days ahead. It changes the mood of the city when we’re doing well.

6. NBA – Worse, in my opinion. The amount of contact that is not allowed, constant fouls, rules that let players get away with regulation, (although it has died down) the era of super teams.

   NHL – I feel like it gets more exciting to see every year even though my Sharks do worse.

   NFL – I feel like the game is better but it doesn’t have the star power of the 90s, 00s or early 2010s.

   MMA – better as a sport but worse in the UFC (it’s more about drawing numbers than fighters fighting the best ranked contender)

   Pro Wrestling – Better. Better than 2010s, but still isn’t good.

7. Rally racing has gotten bland. All the cars sound the same and their pretty much full of things that make it all too easy. Long are the days of Group B monsters putting out 400-600HP and being almost impossible to control, all that without power steering and traction control, sequential gearboxes or even ABS. The golden era of driving is over. The different sounds, the smells, the backfire flames, it’s gotten boring.

8. College sports are losing something with the trend away from regionalism. The fact that Missouri and Florida play every year but Missouri and Kansas and Florida and Miami do not makes no sense to me.

   Analytics are smothering MLB. We have pitchers being pulled out of no-hitters in progress now. Nothing is beautiful. I hate it.

9. You should start watching hockey.

   Even as someone who isn’t really into sports, hockey is fucking entertaining as hell

10. To me, NFL and NBA have gotten worse.

    Right now, we are in the “golden age” of offense for both leagues.

    It’s clear the NFL cares about points so everything is done to protect QB’s and to have high-scoring offenses. And the NBA got rid of hand-checking and there is a 3-second violation rule in the paint, which explains why so many players, particularly guards, are scoring so high these days.

    I like good defense and it evens the playing field. Maybe not visually appealing for the casual fan but I think it’s better

11. MotoGP.

    Race are closer than ever now.

12. NHL players and teams are getting better every year. Even Wayne Gretzky has stated he would be average at best in todays game.

13. The three American sports have gotten worse, but hockey has gotten better.

14. MLB and NBA have both lost something for me. With baseball in particular, free agency is a big part of it, not that it’s new, but it seems more like I’m rooting for a brand rather than a team these days.

    And thanks to everybody who mentioned hockey; I’ve been thinking about getting the NHL package for the upcoming season, and I think I will based on the number of positive comments.

15. I agree with you on MLB becoming worse. I hate the three-true-outcomes game it has become. I hate that small ball isn’t utilized much these days. No situational hitting. Just go up there and swing your heart out.

    Hockey is great

16. Formula Drift/Pro Drifting (formula d is the one I pay the most attention to) – Better but I think it’s about to turn worse. The cars are more powerful, the tandem battles are incredibly close, to the point where cars are touching each other during battle but not wrecking or causing a spin, top 32 actually has competitive battles instead of one car 8 car lengths behind the other.

    But I think the golden era of drifting is ending. Drifting as a pro sport is still relatively new. Japan had a pro series in the 90s but everywhere else it was the 00s before it got there. So the fan base is very much you might have a favorite driver but you are rooting for the sport of drifting and probably for half of the drivers at least. The newer fans coming in have their guy and that’s all they care about, they don’t watch after their guy is eliminated. Not that this is that bad of a thing, it’s just turning into more of a mainstream sport, and unfortunately has made live stream chats awful to be in, where they use to be good and filed with actual conversations about the battles.

    I don’t expect the sport to become unwatchable or fail, it’s just something that comes with something become more mainstream that is a negative. The positives outweigh it though. I will just always miss when drifting was just a small community, as I have been around the sport since basically the beginning of it in america.

17. Underwater basket weaving has really gone down his the past decade or so.

18. Hockey gets better and better.

    NBA is even like some others have said

    NFL can be so boring at times. No creativity left in the game so it has gone down

    CFL can be very exciting but with so few teams it gets repetive. So even for me

    MLB down its not fun to watch anymore

    Soccer improved it is way ahead the game is great to watch and every team has a chance for a trophy in one tournament or another

    Olympics both summer and winter are way down

    Curling way up So competitive now from a lot of countries

    Tennis down

    I don’t watch golf so can’t comment

    Woman’s soccer way up
    Woman’s basketball way up
    Woman’s ice hockey even more countries need to get better

    Why is there no Woman’s baseball league?

19. I think golf has gotten better, but now with all the LIV stuff who knows. Just hope the PGA can start paying their golfers more so they don’t all switch leagues.

20. Only one sport that I really care about.

    MLB: Worse. I’ve got a list of things that at least turn me off:

    – I’m not a fan of the four-finger walk because stopping pitches from being thrown just seems ridiculous to me.

    – The ghost runner comes into play *way* too early, shouldn’t be a thing until a few extra innings have gone by in my opinion.

    – Pitchers aren’t allowed to go for no-hitters/perfect games anymore (hi Dave) and combined no-nos aren’t nearly as impressive to me.

    – Most of Manfred’s rule changes have been negatives rather than positives. Four finger walk, ghost runners, the seven-inning doubleheaders which cost pitchers no-nos, expanding the playoffs, I’m sure there’s more. To be fair, I like limiting mound visits and the three-batter minimum, but there’s more bad than good. Don’t even get me started on the “piece of metal” situation.

    – What is the point of having an American and National League now? Teams have moved between the two (Brewers because Selig wanted that Cubs money, Astros for… reasons?), interleague games are common, the umpires are the same, and with the universal DH they now have the same ruleset. I liked that there was a difference, it was unique to the big sports.

    – Don’t know first hand since I haven’t watched any games this year, but I guess now you need like 15 streaming services to see your team play? On top of MLB.tv blackouts, which need to be destroyed ASAP. Not to mention that the national broadcast teams are awful. Always wanted it to be one team’s PbP and the other team’s color commentator.

    – League wide “mandatory fun”, usually tied to uniforms. Everybody wearing 42 for Jackie (what’s the point of a retired number if everyone wears it, and what about the teams that have it retired for someone else?), the ugly jerseys they did for Player’s Weekend, the current City Connect trainwreck, all of the special holiday caps, etc. Let the teams decide what they want to wear instead of doing it league-wide.

    But I’m a Yankee fan so therefore I hate fun or something and need to get with the times.

21. >but the reliance on the statistically correct 3p shot seems to lead to a lot of blow outs

    While there is some truth to this, as well as higher final scores, the reliance of the 3 point shot has also made late game comebacks a possibility. Back then, being down 20 with 8 mins to go in the 4th meant it was over. Today, with a few stops and some 3s, that 20 point lead can be dropped to 9-12 in a matter of minutes, putting you right back into the game.

22. MLB is my sport of choice. It has gone down hill greatly. I can’t even watch my team on TV because they have this stupid black out rules. I can only get the games if I subscribe to direct TV and Bally network. I don’t have direct TV, and I’m not switching. I haven’t seen but an inning or two of the Reds before they block it in my area. I’ve given up. I’ve tried radio and listening to the games, but so much is lost of the finer points in the game. Strategy.

    I don’t understand why you would deny your fan base from watching games? I get it that you want me to come down to the game, but I can’t be there for every game. And not seeing the day to day games, you lose touch with the dynamic of the players and managers. If I could afford to visit the stadium every game, I would, but I can’t.

    So by denying me being able to watch it on TV, I have lost interest. In all games. MLBTV is nice, but they favour NYY and LA. I get it, but then you don’t even have Friday night baseball on?

    I’m SO disappointed in MLB. They dumb down the ball for the pitchers and then look at these HUGE scores teams are putting up. 13~15 runs in a game? I remember entire series that wouldn’t add up to that many runs. I understand that long ball is all that is played now, but feet on bases and runs across the plate is what wins the game. Give pitchers the ability to make their ball move. The ability of the batters will adapt and maybe they will learn to hit without every hour going out of the ballpark. It’s the entire game that is the game, not just home runs.

    They need to do better outreach. Invest in ball parks for kids and make it fun. There isn’t even enough kids in my area to do a little league anymore. No one is interested in playing. And if they are, they have to join a traveling team that costs thousands. Not every parent can afford that money and time commitment.

    Anyways, this is much longer then I intended so to wrap up, I’ve given up on baseball. It’s become a rich man’s game like golf. But at least golf shows some games.

    I like NFL and NHL and a little soccer, but MLB has been my game. Now, not so much. But I have a better looking lawn now.

23. NFL: Offensive revolution has made games more high powered passing attacks but there are still run focused teams like the Ravens to keep it diverse. AFC has a lot of exciting young talent but NFC is a bit stale. Incredibly biased because my team is a contender every year now.

    NBA: Offense has gained almost too much freedom and 3 point style has gotten a bit out of control. Still some teams that run through big men though like the 76ers, Nuggets, and Bucks to keep it interesting. Much better parity than the league has had in quite awhile and great young talent everywhere. Regular season is far to long as it has always been and feels like a lot of the games don’t matter often against some tanking teams.

    College basketball: Much more diverse than NBA in playstyle with teams varying wildly in game plan, conferences are exciting battles for who wins creating interesting storylines outside of just a championship. Rivalries are better than ever. Regular season is the perfect length of being able to turn on your TV on a Saturday in the middle of the season and find big important games to watch. NCAA tournament remains the perfect post season format for a league with so many teams and had one of its best runs yet. Lots of upsets and cinderellas but the final 4 came down to 4 great teams and produced fantastic games. Again I am incredibly biased on that one based off my team. NIL and transfers have created a system where good players on smaller teams show out in the tournament then leave for a bigger school which could have bad effects and conference realignment is always a dark cloud looming.

24. Just for the Record I am 28, turning 29 in less than a month, so my experiences are based on the last 10-20 years of being a sports fan

    College Football has gotten worse over the years as the conferences have expanded and became dominated by one power house team at a time. Since 2014 and the advent of the College Football Playoff, Alabama has won the SEC 6 out of the 8 years, Clemson has won 6 out of 8, Oklahoma has won the Big XII 6 out of 8, and Ohio State has won the Big Ten 5 out of 8, and this makes following the individual top conferences kind of boring to watch. Thank God for the PAC-12 where Oregon has won 3 times in 8 years, and Washington has won twice in that same span. But the College Football Playoff has been bad for the sports post season as well. It’s made the other bowl games irrelevant in a way that the BCS system didn’t, but its not effective enough as a playoff system to make up for it and all it does is further concentrate talent into the top handful of teams. And the advent of NIL isn’t going to fix this issue, at most it’ll change which teams are at the top

    MLB Baseball has gotten worse too, there’s too much focus on the 3 true outcomes and there are fewer balls in play in a given game, which is the thing that actually makes baseball exciting to watch.

    I’d say that College Basketball has gotten better, the move from 65 to 68 NCAA tournament teams has been a good idea as it makes the play in games something worth watching because an 11 or 12 seed in a play in game can actually make it to the second round with some regularity. Plus there is a lot of upsets and Cinderella runs that are always fun to watch. Plus the regular season has just enough games where each game is meaningful while not being so meaningful that one game can sink an entire teams year, and the Conference Tournaments are a lot of fun to watch.

    The NFL is about the same as its always been as far as I’m concerned, sure the Patriots Dynasty sucked, but 6 Super Bowl Wins over 18 seasons left enough room for other teams to win to really prevent things from getting too stale.

    I don’t follow the NBA or the NHL closely enough to be able to make a call about them being better or worse from the past.

25. Does esports count?

26. NBA — even to worse
    Grew up watching basketball. Loved how the game moved in the direction of the 3 point shot. All teams now are basically the mid 2000s spurs and suns.

    BUT:
    – every team that tries to be GSW… is not GSW. You aren’t gonna have the two greatest shooters in history on your team. Stop jacking up 50 garbage 3PA per game
    – the fouls and flopping have made the game almost unwatchable

    My alternative as someone who is much more selective about my sports (never got into football, hockey, soccer, or baseball) – I recently got into watching F1. I can’t speak to the past but here’s some of the few reasons I like it:

    Better dosing — once every 2-3 weeks.

    Better commentary — say whatever you want about them, coming from basketball, all NBA commentators make Crofty and Martin Brundle look like Einstein and Bohr

    **no commercials** — just 2 hours of straight gameplay

    Very technical sport so there’s always something to learn or look up

27. NFL – Better and worse, rules changes make it complicated But I grew up wanting to lay someone out, now you get flags thrown on you.

    NBA – worse, not as much fun without the physicality for me. Not even impressed with triple doubles anymore because players stat farm. The players are more talented for sure, but it doesnt feel like players have to work as hard to score anymore.

    College football – worse, i feel like teams with more money will win more.

    MLB – Worse, I miss the steroid era because it was more fun to watch. I know its bad to admit that.

    NHL – WAY Better. I hope they keep the fighting, they allow a decent amount now and its fun.

    Soccer – Worse, hard to watch US teams tbh. We are just outclassed.

28. I don’t watch ballsports, but I do watch racing.

    Indycar: Better – It’s fantastic right now. Dare I say it’s in a golden era. Nearly every driver is competitive, and you never really know who is going to win until the last few laps. No single team completely dominates the series.

    NASCAR: Betterish – NASCAR was on a downward spiral for years, but within the last two years, they’ve really started to step up their game. They’ve gained a new audience with the introduction of XI23 Racing, partially owned by Michael Jordan, and by banning racist symbols like the Confederate flag. The racing is top notch this year with the introduction of the 7th gen car. We’ll see if they can keep this trend going, but NASCAR is known for making stupid calls and shooting themselves in the foot, so who really knows.

    F1: Worse – I was never a huge fan of F1 (hard to follow as an American) but I’ve spent the last two years trying to watch more races. I feel like half the race are just parade laps, half of them are filled with DNF’s, and regardless of what the race is like, it’s pretty much RBR in the 1-2 spot each time. Ferrari is finally holding a candle, but no one else is (well, Russell at MB is too). The governing body makes downright backwards choices all the time, like when they called the Belgium GP last year after two pace laps due to rain. Or when they don’t penalize a driver for one thing, but do penalize someone else for the same call. I don’t even want to get into the fiasco at the finale last year.