Sports Czar for a Day: Improving the Collegiate and Professional Sports Landscape of the Future

Countless problems continue to mire today's collegiate and professional sports landscape. In a series of suggestive articles, I will remedy sport's most pressing concerns, in order to create a better tomorrow for fans and sport, alike.

BCS Burden: Ardent arguments have frustratingly filled millions of inches of blank editorial space during recent history, regarding the confounding BCS Bowl System in place in college football. The unparalleled lack of a postseason playoff system, or even the incorporation of a "plus-one" game, remains an invaluable opportunity unfathomably unfulfilled.

Irritable Bowl Syndrome: If the NCAA and "powers-that-be" fail to institute a college football playoff system in the near future, at least an overhaul to the current bowl system would serve as a welcome addition (er... subtraction). Irrelevant bowl expansion continues on nearly an annual basis, while currently allowing teams with a 6-6 record to become bowl eligible. Except for a handful of games each year, the oversaturated bowl slate has proven an anticlimactic ending to sport's greatest regular season.

March Madness Gone Mad: Speaking of addition by subtraction... Get the NCAA Hoops Tournament back to 64 teams and be done with it, period.

College Football Overtime: The current overtime format in college football remains a contrived, "Madden-esque mini-game" gimmick, generating tremendous excitement for all the wrong reasons. Far too often, overtime abruptly alters a stellar defensive, field-position slugfest. Adopt the NFL's new "guaranteed possession" overtime rules and play football how it was played for the prior 48 minutes.

NFL Uniformity, Etc.: Institute the new NFL overtime format in the regular season. Make certain rules such as pass interference, player possession, and down by contact identical on the collegiate and professional levels. Expand NFL rosters.

A Vote to Improve Fan Voting: Fans should certainly assume a role in selecting the players for their respective All-Star games. However, "absolute power continues to corrupt absolutely," as evident by this past year's controversy surrounding Allen Iverson and Tracy McGrady. Each league should either adopt minimums for production or participation for eligibility or adapt their voting practices, to safeguard the process from further embarrassment.

All-Star Altering: Cut out the Pro Bowl, entirely. Adding a classy end of the season awards ceremony or placing greater emphasis on the All-Pro teams may serve as desirable alternatives, but the NFL Pro Bowl remains a joke for the greatest professional league in American sports. Baseball's "home-field advantage" carrot for the winning All-Star team provides a similarly potent punchline, while the NBA's "Skills Contest" blatantly lacks skill, excitement, or creativity. Basketball's frontline superstars must rekindle the legend and lore of the league's once-proud Dunk Contest, while also expanding the field to eight bona fide dunkers, as opposed to a measly four no-name participants. Less DeMar DeRozan, Shannon Brown, and Eric Gordon, and more Lebron James, Andre Iguodala, and Rudy Gay would certainly serve as a welcomed improvement.