Juli Inkster found herself disqualified from a golf tourney Sat the 21st, and this in an interesting turn of events given the disqualification in the PGA tournament last weekend.
On the one hand, as Jay Busbee reported in his article on this topic, at least people (or someone) is watching the LPGA tournament. For the league, tournament, and players, that is good news.
But on a more macro scale, I see two large trends which sports organizers, fans, and advertisers will need to take a hard look at:
- Do the rules make sense? A lot of rules were made for a different time and era of sports, equipment, training, and society. To the specific situation with Ms Inkster; she had to wait 30 minutes in an important tournament. She used an aid to stay warmed up, saving her from injury and keeping her game fresh. Hard to argue that may have been a good decision. Rules that indicate aids are illegal in tourney play may or may not have been prepared for 30 minute waits – given that most golf rules predate telecasting, its almost a given. All sports groups need to take a fresh look at the rules – do they make sense? For as I posted last weekend – if they don’t you can lose fans and viewers.
- How do you deal with phoned in observations? Again referencing Busbee’s article, there are several instances where golf has allowed viewer input to change the outcome of the game. Baseball has chosen not to – Galarraga’s heartbreaking loss of a no-hitter this spring being just the latest example of that folly. Football does, and the game has suffered with long review times particularly in the 4th quarter. Having quick review processes transparent to the fan and players alike are imperative – and scripts for telecasters to be sharing the thinking and process knowledgeably during the wait would be a help.
Sports survive because fans participate. What sports leagues need to insure is that they are ready for a social media driven “right of ownership and comment” situation which today’s fans will demand.
