These are the questions that will shape sports over next 12 months
BASEBALL, FOOTBALL, HOCKEY, THE OLYMPICS AND GOLF ARE ALL FACING MAJOR CHALLENGES
The past 12 months of sports delivered both triumph and unrest: A women’s World Cup with a jarring aftermath; golf riven by competing circuits and a controversial proposed alliance; a U.S. collegiate sports system undergoing upheaval; an international baseball star receiving a record deal. What does 2024 have in store? Here are some projections from Washington Post writers regarding the questions that will shape sports:
Q Baseball: Can MLB find a way to keep its best pitchers on the field?
A At this time last year, the biggest question facing MLB was whether the sport could adapt to a fast-moving future and recover fans lost to years of slow-moving games. It did that by implementing the pitch clock in 2023 and while the sample remains small, even the stauncher traditionalists in the sport admit the rule rejuvenated the game and broadened its appeal.
Now, with the game moving like it should, with a baseball player receiving the biggest contract in professional sports history this winter, baseball is back on a promising trajectory. The only problem: that player (Shohei Ohtani), like so many other elite pitchers, was unable to pitch when his team needed him most last season.
During the 2023 calendar year alone, 30 pitchers who did or likely would have pitched in the majors had Tommy John surgery. Dozens more lost months, or even the entire season, to shoulder issues.
According to the database compiled by baseball writer Jon Roegele, just less than 35 per cent of those who pitched in MLB last year had Tommy John surgery — the highest percentage since he began compiling data in 2016. Almost every playoff team was without a key pitcher because of elbow surgery: The Orioles were without closer Felix Bautista; the Marlins without ace Sandy Alcantara; the Dodgers without Walker Buehler, Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May. The eventual World Series champion Texas Rangers were without projected ace Jacob degrom and survived that loss only because they had the money to spend on reinforcements.
As leaguewide velocity increases and pitchers use max-effort deliveries to keep up, injuries follow. Some pitchers posited that the pitch clock, which forced them to work more quickly and rest less between pitches, contributed to a spike in 2023.
Teams that build around starting pitching cannot be assured they will have it all season and must almost expect that any long-term deal will include a year-plus absence because of Tommy John or something like it. The data says pitcher injuries are firmly on the rise, but the sport is better with its best pitchers on the field.
Chelsea Janes Q How does the NFL balance future growth against overdoing it?
A The NFL is America’s most popular and prosperous league, and it really isn’t close. Through the Week 14 games, the average NFL game drew 17.8 million viewers, and 72 of the 75 mostwatched shows on television since the start of the season were NFL games. Josh Harris’s group bought the Washington Commanders from Daniel Snyder this year for US$6.05 billion. The league has broadcasting deals worth more than $110 billion over 11 years.
The issue is: Where does the NFL go from here, after it already is at the country’s sports mountaintop?
The league’s leaders and the owners of its 32 franchises must avoid complacency. That’s why the NFL is expanding its scope of international games in the search for new overseas markets, planning a game in Brazil next season and doubling the number of international games per season to as many as eight beginning in 2025 (plus the possibility for a ninth involving the Jacksonville Jaguars in London). It’s why the league has made a commitment to broadcasting its games increasingly through streaming, putting the Thursday night package on Amazon Prime and placing the NFL Sunday Ticket on Youtube, seeking a younger audience. It’s why the NFL and teams have embraced legalized sports betting, in a bid to intensify viewer engagement and create lucrative new revenue streams through partnerships.
The NFL must be careful not to overdo it. The attempt to squeeze ever more out of an already thriving business is tricky. The spread of legal sports gambling in particular is potentially problematic, given it intensifies the scrutiny on a variety of integrity-of-the-game issues, ranging from the quality of the officiating to the accuracy of teams’ injury reporting.
But the NFL knows it can’t stand still. How it strikes that balance in the coming months and years between what has worked so well to this point and what could work better in the future will determine the extent to which the NFL continues to thrive.
Mark Maske Q Is professional golf irrevocably broken?
A The pro golf world starts the new year in a similar place that it began the last one — mired in chaos and uncertainty — but the stakes feel much higher. Last year the sport was facing an existential crisis, at a crossroads for survival, at least in the case of the PGA Tour. With their duelling litigation now dismissed, the tour and LIV Golf, its Saudi-backed competitor, are not quite friends but also not mortal enemies — at least for the time being. But the entire sport is still on shaky ground, and it’s not clear if the economics underpinning professional golf are in any way sustainable.
The PGA Tour and LIV Golf ’s benefactors sought to unite the golf world when they announced their intent to join forces in early June, but the ensuing seven months only brought more confusion. Players have been divided into factions; the PGA Tour’s talent roster and weekly fields have been watered down; tour players distrust tour leadership; sponsors and broadcasters are left with weekly events with less intrigue; and LIV is still enthusiastically pushing a product that is slow to catch on.
The PGA Tour spent the final weeks of 2023 negotiating with both the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which owns LIV Golf, as well as a consortium of high-powered sports team owners about investing in the tour. If the deals get finalized, billions will be injected into the sport, PGA Tour players stand to get an equity stake in the organization and the tour will see its most pressing financial concerns alleviated. LIV, meanwhile, could be further legitimized for a mainstream audience, though it’s still not clear if there’s an appetite for LIV or a team-golf concept, particularly in the U.S.
But any return on investment is questionable, as sponsors and broadcast partners are seemingly tapped out — Wells Fargo and AT&T have recently decided to stop sponsoring tour events in Charlotte and Dallas — and the sport has essentially spent the past couple of years pushing away its fans. The wearied golf fan who has tried to weather this storm will see the world’s top players compete against each other just a few times a year at the majors, where only a handful of LIV players can even tee it up.
If 2023 was about financial stability and appeasing players, the new year will have to be about presenting a product that golf fans want to see. And if the proposed partnership somehow falls apart, both the men’s game and its anxious fan base stand to continue suffering for the foreseeable future.
Rick Maese
Q Can the NHL get out of its own way?
A On the ice, the quality of the NHL has never been higher. Play is faster, while players are more skilled — and feel more freedom to try out the kind of highlight-reel plays that wouldn’t have been tolerated in previous eras. Whether it’s Edmonton’s Connor Mcdavid using his skating and puck skills to pull off an end-to-end rush or 18-yearold Chicago rookie Connor Bedard (albeit out now with a fractured jaw) showing off a shot that’s already among the best in the league, the game itself is in great shape.
But off the ice, the NHL has taken a hit. Commissioner Gary Bettman has been in his role for 30 years, and the league hasn’t been an innovator in recent years. As proof: In November, the NHL launched NHL Breakaway, its NFT digital collectible program for hockey highlights. In contrast, NBA Top Shot, the NBA’S version of the same concept, launched in 2020, early in the NFT boom. Culturally, decisions such as banning special warm-up jerseys — after a handful of players refused to wear Pride-themed jerseys ahead of their teams’ annual LGBTQ+ awareness games — have created a perception the NHL has little interest in inclusion.
The salary cap has also been stagnant since the beginning of the pandemic, hamstringing teams that signed players to long-term contracts before the pandemic, based on projections of the cap going up. Many NHL executives believe the nearly flat cap (it has risen just $2 million per team since 2019) has limited trade activity, at a time when NBA teams are making blockbuster trades left and right — and drawing fan interest and engagement from those moves.
The latest projection has the salary cap set to increase by $4.2 million to $87.7 million next season. That should help solve one of the issues, but how the NHL is perceived on a cultural level — particularly among the younger demographic the league is trying to cultivate — will remain at the forefront in the new year.
Bailey Johnson
Q Can Paris make the Olympics special again?
A After two COVID Olympics played before empty stands, Paris wants this summer’s Olympics to be spectacular. Throughout the Games, events will be held in and around some of the city’s most famous landmarks, including the Eiffel Tower, Palace of Versailles and Place de la Concorde.
But the Olympics have been clouded by doping and bid-rigging scandals, the wasteful building of unnecessary stadiums and Games held in countries (Russia and China) with histories of human rights abuses. Russia has been a problem for the Olympics since its state-sponsored doping program at the 2014 Sochi Games and subsequent sanctions at succeeding Olympics. The International Olympic Committee has suspended Russia because of the country’s attempt to claim athletes in some of Ukraine’s regions as its own. Still, the IOC, controversially, will allow some Russians to compete in Paris as individual neutral athletes, without their country’s flag, anthem or colours, as long as they haven’t supported the war or been a part of Russia’s military.
Will it be enough to wipe away some of the sour feelings about recent Olympics? Or will scandals and the lingering debate over Russia hang like a dark cloud over Paris’s ambitious Olympics? Les Carpenter