Incentive to cheer for a loss

[Kranix]

If my team is out of the playoff race and in the lottery race of course I'll cheer for a loss every game. I don't expect the players to throw games, I just hope they try hard but lose. I'd also want the GM to tank it.

 

[pineapplestastegood]

i think that's why the bruins are good now because they didnt want to tank and wanted to compete no matter what, what made the players want to compete more every year even though they fell short and why are good right now, that's why tanking is dangerous because it can set a bad mindset on the players.

No, the Bruins are good now because they drafted well and hit on a bunch of really good young players who are contributing on entry level deals. No team TRIES to lose, management might hold guys out but the players on the ice are always trying to win whether it be for stat reasons, new contracts, whatever. There's always an incentive for the players on the ice to try. That's not what I'm talking about.

 

[Not Sure]

I look at it as cheering for your teams future. There's cheering for the players and cheering for the team. It's always in the players vest intrest to give 100% and win as many games as possible, it's not always in the teams best interest however. Afterall, players are only here a relatively short time, fans are usually in it for the long haul.

I have no issue with GM's moving out good players for future potential good players, have no issue with management icing a sub-par team because they have no good players available. The tank problems arise when management and coaching are in cahoots throwing games. Playing your AHL goalie while a legitimate starter rides the bench, sitting or hiding NHL talent in the AHL or IR. If a bad team gives an honest effort and just isn't good enough, even if it's on purpose but for the future, as long as the on ice product plays the game honestly fans should understand.

 

[Bood12]

no real fan would root for a loss, especially with the way the NHL is set up now with the increased chances for every team in the lottery, but regardless if you are an actual fan it is against your nature to sit and root for your team to lose, teams that lose often get used to it and it is hard to break that culture, fans that actively root for their team to lose are losers and I am guessing are f***ed up in other ways

 

[Machinehead]

Simpler solution: root for the other team in their f***ing GDT.

I completely understand indifference or even quietly hoping the team tanks, but if you're going to actively root for our opponents, go do it somewhere else.

 

[Mr Hat]

no real fan would root for a loss, especially with the way the NHL is set up now with the increased chances for every team in the lottery, but regardless if you are an actual fan it is against your nature to sit and root for your team to lose, teams that lose often get used to it and it is hard to break that culture, fans that actively root for their team to lose are losers and I am guessing are ****ed up in other ways

And the award for the most narcissistic post of the day goes to...

 

[Rorschach]

It's adorable that missing the playoffs is still so new to Red Wings fans.

Anyways, my suggestions:
A) For every goal your team scores, Little Caesars replaces an existing ingredient with a real one.
B) Every game your non-playoff-bound team wins removes a law. Maybe some obscure blue law goes first, then maybe you're allowed to have horses in restaurants again, now you can go through a drive-thru without being in a vehicle, eventually if your team gets on a roll you can **** a man's face off just because you didn't like the way he shaved.
C) As long as your team is in the lead, drinks are half price. If that's not your bag for some ridiculous reason, then fine, nickel off expired baby food.
D) Every win after whatever cutoff gets your team a Pooch Point. Pooch Points can be redeemed after the regular season ends: 5 Pooch Points lets you award a 2-minute penalty to any team during the playoffs. 10 Pooch Points allows you to drop a random team 5 spots in the draft. 15 Pooch Points allows you to swap two other teams' draft picks. 20 Pooch Points allows you to relocate a team. Pooch Points may not be valid in some states. Consult a physician immediately if Pooch Points are ingested. Pooch Point cash value is 1/100th of a Schrute Buck.

$57 small pizza from Little Caesars...

 

[Jeremy Hronek]

My suggestion:The Bottom 6 teams with 10 games to go are put into a group, the more points earned the higher you are in the draft lottery over those 10 games. It gives fans an insentive to cheer for their team, but it ensures that the worst teams will be picking early. This format still doesn't guarentee first overall for the best of the 6 as there would still be a lottery, it's not ideal but it would certainly make for some interesting games for the fans.

 

[johnjm22]

There should be no correlation between where a team drafts and where they finish in the standings.

 

[supsens]

People with nothing to cheer for find something to cheer for and you wanna take it away?

Always look at the bright side of life!

Why wouldn’t the NHL want fans to be happy with a crappy product?
Sounds good for hockey does it not?

 

[Refuse]

Cheering for your team to put the worst product on the ice that they can so they can consistently lose makes you a goof, yes.

I've cheered for the Oilers through a decade of the worst hockey imagineable and never once have I thought to myself, "god I hope we lose all year".

If you think the only way a team can be successful is by drafting in the top 3 you're so sorely mistaken. So in short, yes, cheering for your team to intentionally bomb makes you a **** fan.

I agree, it's the kind of fan that is so emotionally detached from their team and the players, that they cheer for a theoretical version of their team.

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

I don't want to be like the Sabres. Yeah they got Eichel but they dug themselves in a 20 foot hole to get him. And they're not any closer to digging themselves out of it.

The Rangers winning some games down the stretch kills their hope for Dahlin, but we've also seen some very encouraging signs in those wins. Pionk, Georgie, beast mode Kreider, etc.

Once you allow yourself to be as bad as the Sabres did, it's damn nearimpossible to not continue to be that bad.

They even tried to get out of the proverbial hole with the Kane, Lehner and ROR trades but instead found themselves even deeper then when they started.

Once you pop the fun don't stop.

You say you don't want to be like Sabres, let me ask you this would you rather be like the Leafs? I bet you would.

How do you think they got where they are?

They sucked

Rielly 5th overall

Nylander 8th overall

Marner 4th overall

Matthews 1st overall

Then you got guys like Dermott in the 2nd round and Brown in the 6th.

Point is tanking is always the best option It's why Toronto is where they are today

 

[WinUnlimited]

 

[WinUnlimited]

@TheOtherOne ^^

 

[Newsworthy]

Why are we rewarding teams high picks for winning?
For the most part Players don't really tank games. I believe ownership and coaching staff is more responsible
A better suggestion would be to penalize teams for deliberately losing or tanking

 

[The Vasili Jerry]

This is excellent IMO. The actual bad teams will have been bad over the whole season meaning that they get eliminated first, which would lead them to have more games available to accumulate points. The teams just missing the playoffs are usually relatively good teams and they will only get a few games, max, to be able to accumulate points. The teams losing a lot over the first (roughly) 80% of the season are going to be the teams needing the most help because all teams are trying the hardest to make the playoffs through that time but they just plain suck. At the moment teams can try as hard as they can to make it and then when they know they won’t they just pack it in and lose a bunch. Those teams losing at the end aren’t necessarily the teams that are most in need.

It would also mean that teams can’t blatantly sell off their players at the trade deadline because you still have to be competitive later in the year to get a high draft pick.

Another point is that no team is going to start tanking super early in the season to get eliminated first.

Like the instances shown in the video, the games right at the end of the season are mini playoff-style games because they’ll be pushing hard to get wins to help with lottery odds.

It all means fans can continue to cheer for wins and want to go to games. It would make for better attendances and better quality games all the way to the end of the season even for non-playoff teams. Also it should still mean the worst teams get the best picks.

Maybe also add in that no team can pick top 3 in back-to-back drafts.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

People have free will. There's nothing you can do to stop folks from cheering for losses.

 

[Name Nameless]

There are two types of tanking: type A tanking, tanking the entire season. And type B tanking, tanking when you realize you're not gonna make the play-offs.

Type A tanking is very hard to fix. What we often see, is type B tanking, though.

To fix type B tanking, just ignore the late games in the season. Just use the first half of the season for teams who don't make the play-offs , with or without the lottery.

Have a small pre-lottery lottery after the season on the game-number cut off, say in the range 40 to 60, so we reduce the fun in scoreboard-watching just before game 41.

So everybody could quit with the stupid tanking and "must-lose" game talk. At least in the second half of the season? And in particular in the closing stage of a season.

Problem fixed.

Suggestions on having the lottery before the season starts will still mean teams will be in situations where losing is good for their draft. Namely, when the lottery gives first pick to last team. Things like that.

Also giving better odds to teams who is eliminated early will reward underachievers, "now we are out, now we can win and make a better impression". That's not why you should win. You should win because it is fun. This would reward type A tanking, horrible.

 

[hairylikebear]

All they really have to do is make the lottery odds not tied to positions at the bottom of the standings. For example, give non-playoff teams the same lottery odds for picks 1-15 and playoff teams the same normal order of of elimination for 16-31.

From there you can tweak the lottery odds to whatever objective you hope to reach. You could lessen the odds for teams that have recently picked high to spread the talent, or increase the odds for teams that have missed the playoffs for consecutive seasons to give bad teams a boost. In the latter way, you're rewarding bad teams still but not directly rewarding them for losing individual games of a season.

Bad teams that miss the playoffs early will then have an opportunity to give their young players ice time and an opportunity to earn a greater role next year, and fans are going to want to see their team win knowing that their odds will never be any better than if they missed the playoffs by one point that year.

 

[The Vasili Jerry]

There are two types of tanking: type A tanking, tanking the entire season. And type B tanking, tanking when you realize you're not gonna make the play-offs.

Type A tanking is very hard to fix. What we often see, is type B tanking, though.

To fix type B tanking, just ignore the late games in the season. Just use the first half of the season for teams who don't make the play-offs , with or without the lottery.

Have a small pre-lottery lottery after the season on the game-number cut off, say in the range 40 to 60, so we reduce the fun in scoreboard-watching just before game 41.

So everybody could quit with the stupid tanking and "must-lose" game talk. At least in the second half of the season? And in particular in the closing stage of a season.

Problem fixed.

Suggestions on having the lottery before the season starts will still mean teams will be in situations where losing is good for their draft. Namely, when the lottery gives first pick to last team. Things like that.

Also giving better odds to teams who is eliminated early will reward underachievers, "now we are out, now we can win and make a better impression". That's not why you should win. You should win because it is fun. This would reward type A tanking, horrible.

I don’t believe there’s ever a team who does your “type A” tanking. No team ever goes into a season to intentionally finish last. Even if it has happened it’s very rare IMO. It’s the tanking towards the end of the season that seems to be the problem because there’s an incentive to do it. The incentive at the start of the year, and throughout the majority of the season, is to make the playoffs (chance to win the cup, make a lot more money for the organization from ticket sales and playoff revenue, draw free agents, create a winning culture, etc.).

 

[valet]

what kind of fan wants their team to lose?

that's stupid. i don't care what the standings say... i want my guys to win every game i watch

 

[valet]

You say you don't want to be like Sabres, let me ask you this would you rather be like the Leafs? I bet you would.

How do you think they got where they are?

They sucked

Rielly 5th overall

Nylander 8th overall

Marner 4th overall

Matthews 1st overall

Then you got guys like Dermott in the 2nd round and Brown in the 6th.

Point is tanking is always the best option It's why Toronto is where they are today

toronto wasn't tanking, they just had incompetent management for nearly 15 years. the same thing happened in buffalo for nearly 10 years, minus the mcdavid/eichel draft... which seemed to be a pretty straightforward 'tank'

it's ok... can we all admit it for once?

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

toronto wasn't tanking, they just had incompetent management for nearly 15 years. the same thing happened in buffalo for nearly 10 years, minus the mcdavid/eichel draft... which seemed to be a pretty straightforward 'tank'

it's ok... can we all admit it for once?

you clearly didn't watch the 2015-16 Leafs they tanked hard

 

[valet]

you clearly didn't watch the 2015-16 Leafs they tanked hard

that's 1 tank though, it's not like they were tanking for a 4th, 5th, and 8th overall pick. they were just bad

 

[TheOtherOne]

Are you Adam Gold?

First I want to be clear: This is a very good idea. It goes a long way to solve the problems I addressed in the OP, and it would be a massive improvement on the current system.

That being said- fans will still cheer for losses situationally. If your team is bad and getting close to being mathematically eliminated, fans will wish for losses to get to the edge faster for a bigger advantage in the end.

Of course this applies to far fewer games than the current situation, and it at least leaves fans wanting wins nearing the end of the season. So even though it's not perfect, it's still very good.

Leading back to why I like my game 41-60 randomized cutoff. Fans won't know specifically which games they should be tanking, so the only reasonable thing is to cheer for wins.

I acknowledge also that my idea is also imperfect. I think every solution is imperfect, but we should get as close as we can to ideal. I think both of our ideas accomplish this in slightly different ways.