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

After addressing many of the problems currently plaguing collegiate and professional athletics in Part I, further subtle and significant suggestions to improve the sport landscape of the future will now be revealed.

Designated Hitter Headache: Either abolish the DH or institute it in both leagues. Personally, watching most pitchers hit remains an unspectacular exercise of athletic futility.

Tip the Scales: The lack of a sliding salary scale for NFL rookies continues to dramatically mire the professional football landscape. Annually, with trades at the top of the first-round rare, the league's worst teams remain reluctant prisoners of exorbitant rookie contracts. Ultimately, adopting an NBA-esque rookie salary structure presents numerous potential advantageous for proper salary redistribution in the NFL. Professional basketball does not subject its franchises to bitter rookie contract disputes, appropriately allocates its most lucrative contracts to proven on-court commodities, and internally controls the year-to-year salary fluctuation of its incoming rookie classes.

More or Less: As the NBA's arbitrary one-year college minimum continues to make a mockery of college basketball; abandoning the minimum altogether remains the most rational alternative. Even a three-year minimum, similar to the NFL, would prove a more logical option than the current single-season status quo.

Replay Rules: NFL rules should lift the challenge limit and permit coaches to continue challenging plays continuously, if successful. As for Major League Baseball, replay regarding fair and foul decisions would serve as a welcome addition, but would like to see the strike zone and baserunner outcomes remain subject to human judgment.

Tired Tirades: Today's most outspoken umpires continue to annoyingly violate the age-old adage of "seen, but not heard" on the field, as well as in the media. Baseball must redefine the fine line between umpire control and circus spectacle by instituting stricter internal control measures.

Jump Ball Call for Change: Although the NCAA's institution of alternating possession remains an imperfect practice, the rule remains far superior to laughable jump ball scenarios in the NBA, such as Nate Robinson embarrassingly pitted versus Dwight Howard or Amare Stoudamire.

Playoff Layoff: The prolonged pause between NBA Playoff games remains entirely unnecessary. Ultimately, the 2010 Playoffs could ridiculously span two whole months, from April 17 to June 17.

MLB Goes Soft: Competitive balance remains an elusive commodity in Major League Baseball, due to the economic inequality pervasive throughout professional baseball. For hope to truly spring eternal each baseball season, restructuring the sport's salary structure would prove most advantageous (albeit a far-fetched possibility). An NBA-esque "soft-cap" offers the ultimate transition towards greater competitive balance, while continuing to improve revenue sharing practices and strictly defining redistribution guidelines appear the likeliest potential solutions.