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At the heart of the business model of professional sports around the world is the very nature of audience participation. If no one is willing to pay to watch you play your sport, your skill level will quickly become irrelevant. To that end, most sports franchises around the world go to great lengths to field the best possible athletes and teams to excite as much fan interest as possible about their organization.
However, in the United States, where most professional sports leagues are closed, things may be different. Sometimes it can be of great benefit to the team to intentionally and temporarily reduce your own competitiveness. So-called “tanking” has become a common phenomenon in American professional sports, characterized by teams deliberately fielding non-competitive teams and losing games to gain a strategic advantage, especially by acquiring talented players in their respective drafts. players.
Short-Term Tank: Get a coveted player midseason
Teams can make the decision whether to give up in the middle of the season, when a series of injuries, underperformance, bad luck, or a combination of all three can lead a team to believe in its season before it’s actually over. Already lost. . This can lead to short-term tanking, intentionally underperforming for a season in order to get a high draft pick or a specific coveted player. The strategy focuses on immediate gains rather than long-term franchise rebuilding. Two early examples of single-season tanks give us insight into the nature and goals of this approach.
At the beginning of the 1983-84 season, The Houston Rockets are in the midst of a rebuild, after finishing with their worst record the previous year, in the first round of the draft with Rookie of the Year and four-time All-Star Ralph Samson and perennial All-Defensive Team Rodney McRae. However, they think there is another piece that could help them edge out Nigerian sensation Hakeem Olajuwon at the University of Houston. The problem is, they started the season with a 20-26 record, and Olajuwon was the presumptive No. 1 pick, even in a draft that included Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley and John Stockton. Prior to the NBA draft lottery, the No. 1 pick is determined by a coin toss between the two teams with the worst record in the previous season.
In order to be able to select Olajuwon, the Rockets must ensure that they have a record of failure. So throughout the second half of the season, they intentionally had their best player on the bench for most of the games, while their backups were on the court most of the time. The strategy worked; the Rockets slumped in the standings with a dismal 9-27 record in the second half of the season, but won the coin toss, drafted Olajuwon with the No. 1 pick, and won the Two-time NBA champion.
While the Rockets’ short-term tank strategy was ultimately successful, winning a championship was never a guarantee for a player. It requires skilled team management, a commitment to professional-level player development, and the ability to build a cohesive roster around acquired players, not to mention keep them in your organization after they’ve become household names and can command a large number of players contracts on the open market.
Long-Term Dilemma: Complete Team Rebuild Through the Draft
Long-term tanking is a more ambitious strategy aimed at rebuilding an entire franchise by deliberately enduring multiple losing seasons in order to accumulate high draft picks. This approach prioritizes long-term success and emphasizes the importance of building a solid foundation through the draft.
One of the most notable examples of long tanks is theThe “process” of the Philadelphia 76ers from 2013 to 2016. During that time, the team traded away All-Star point guard Jrue Holiday, veterans Evan Turner, Spencer Hawes, Lavoy Allen, and Rookie of the Year Michael Carter -Williams to be able to draft Joel Embiid, Jalil Okafor, Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz for four consecutive top-three picks (Simmons and Fultz was selected first). However, while acquiring those picks, the Sixers had no one to play in those four years, save for a roster that seemed to be assembled on purpose to lose the most possible games.
The ostensibly deliberate nature of the team’s long tanks was something the professional sports league hadn’t seen before, and Hinkie eventually pissed off enough people in the NBA front office that he was forced to resign as general manager. As of this writing, Joel Embiid is the only player left in the team’s process-generated draft, and the Sixers haven’t reached the second round of the playoffs since their multi-year tank start.
Multi-year tank for the Houston Astros in the early 2010s This is one of the most striking examples of long tanks in American professional sports. After several seasons of mediocrity, the Astros embarked on a deliberate strategic plan to rebuild the franchise from the ground up under new owner Jim Klein. The team traded veterans for rookies and deliberately fielded players with limited talent, leading to three consecutive seasons from 2011 to 2013 with the worst record in baseball.
This long-term tank strategy is designed to secure high draft picks and accumulate young talent, laying a solid foundation for future success. The strategy paid off more than anyone expected, with the Astros’ draft picks, including Carlos Correa, George Springer and Alex Bregman, growing into perennial All-Stars players who played a key role in the team’s future success. The Astros made it to the World Series four times in six years and won championship rings in 2017 and 2022.
What can be done to stop the tanks?
To stop tanking and ensure the integrity of American professional sports, several options can be considered. Introducing financial incentives for competitive performance is one such option that can keep teams from failing. By rewarding teams for success on the field, such as increased revenue sharing or salary cap exemptions, organizations will have an incentive to prioritize building competitive rosters over losing games on purpose. This approach encourages long-term planning, player development and strategic roster building for a more dynamic and exciting sports environment.
Major League Baseball Tanks are specifically addressed in the latest collective bargaining agreement for 2022. They began to weigh the possibility of averaging the No. 1 pick among the bottom three teams in the league to avoid the “race to the bottom” that has become commonplace in recent decades. In addition, rules are in place to prevent any team receiving a net positive amount from the revenue share from acquiring any lottery picks for more than two years in a row.
Ultimately, no one knows what the future of tanks in professional sports will hold. Fans have often divided their reactions to the Tanks, ranging from seeing it as a necessary evil to condemning the practice. Underperformance affects attendance, fan loyalty and the overall fan experience, as fans may be disappointed by a team that deliberately underperforms. As long as major U.S. sports leagues remain closed and there is no relegation or promotion of perceived smaller leagues, it’s hard to imagine the practice going away entirely.
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