No Tanks: The Draft Lottery Is A Losing Proposition

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The race for the NFL’s biggest prize is almost half over. In the NHL and NBA the hunt is just starting. The race to the top? 

Uh, no. We’re talking about the NFL race to the toilet for Alabama QB Bryce Young. In the NHL it’s tanking for phenom Connor Bedard. Over at the NBA it’s chasing 7-foot-4 Frenchman Victor Wembanyama. The chance to change your franchise’s fortunes in a single pick has produced a vintage season for tanking. And a shocking number of teams are preparing to go that route.

And it’s making the people who run sports leagues talking draft reforms and— gasp— relegation. Put simply, the salary cap/ draft system implemented for half a century at great labour strife in the major sports leagues has incentivized two things. Winning it all. And losing a lot— to recruit the talent you need to win it all. It’s a case of be careful what you wish for if you own a pro sports team.

Tanking can be defined as losing without blatantly appearing to lose. So Carolina Panthers have started a fire sale, sending star RB Christian McCaffrey  to San Francisco 49ers and receiver Robbie Anderson to Arizona. (Then winning this weekend.) In the NHL Montreal Canadiens fans are cursing every win that lessens their chance for Bedard, who despite a French name is from Western Canada. In the NBA a handful of clubs are already starting terrible lineups in hopes of landing Wembanyama.

We did an exhaustive history of tanking in our 2019 book Cap In Hand . For the sake of simplicity just study our chapter on the 1993 Ottawa Senators tanking to get Alexandre Daigle, who turned out to be a dud. Or check out how the GM of the 2010-2015 Philadelphia 76ers launched a multi-year tanking campaign that brought them franchise stars Joel Embid and Ben Simmons.  

Alarmed, leagues have tried reducing the odds of tankers from getting top picks in the draft. Which only convinced more underachievers to pound sand. Teams can now jump up three, four or five picks to leap-frog the worst tankers. Making the end of the regular season into loser-palooza, (in the words of VSIN host Gill Alexander). Great for bettors and teams courting a superstar.

But lousy for fans. Which makes the suits nervous. NBA commissioner Adam Silver has told employees of the Phoenix Suns that his league has "put teams on notice" and will pay "particular attention" to tanking this season. "It's something we have to watch for," Silver said. "A draft is, in principle, a good system. But I get [tanking], especially when there is a sense that a once-in-a-generation player is coming along, like we have this year...  

“Teams are smarter, they are creative, and they respond -- we move, they move -- so we're always looking to see whether there's yet a better system.” One of the ideas considered is the possibility of implementing a promotion/relegation system like the one in European soccer. The three worst teams each year are dropped to a lower league while three are promoted. Games— and big money— ride on finishing the season strong.

Silver says that relegation and dramatic changes to the draft are a bridge too far for his league. For now. But as we write in Cap In Hand, with expansion and the changing economics of pro team sports, leagues are faced with a very different economic model than they faced in the 1970-2000 period. In those days franchising was the byword. Get a team— and a broadcast network— in every large market.

That model is shot. Fans of global sports like the NBA want to see best-on-best, not Sacramento/ Oklahoma City or Winnipeg/ Columbus in the NHL. And they’re willing to bet on it. Commissioners and owners now understand that if they lost or relegated their six smallest markets they’d get the same money for their broadcast/ digital/ logo rights. Betting companies would still flock to them.

A perfect example of this sea change is the fracturing of NCAA college football. Long the purview of about 20 rich, elite schools who carried their conference partners, it’s now seeing a dramatic re-ordering with all the big dogs concentrating in the SEC and the BIG10. Old partners and bowl games are being cast aside. Networks are honing in on the brands they can sell. 

Importantly the top NFL (and NBA) prospects are using the new transfer portal to get to teams that have a higher profile. It’s The Ohio State University, not North Texas or Vanderbilt for young athletes looking for to cash in on their name, image and likeness (NIL) cash.

The same demand to see the best is what led to the messy PGA Tour / LIV Golf schism. After decades of ignoring the demands from stars such as Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson to promote and pamper the top tier of the Tour, those stars decamped to a rogue league funded by the Saudis. Tellingly, the PGA Tour— afraid of losing more of the elite— has now scrambled to deliver on Greg Norman’s wish list that caused the split. Too late. 

In our book we foresee an industry based on the European soccer model of “let the big dogs eat”. No salary caps. No tanking. No driving up the price of talent with 7-round drafts. Keeping all the present teams and adding more— but dividing leagues into divisions based on market factors. 

Traditionalists won’t like seeing their team relegated to a second division. Like the soccer or NCAA football fan they’ll have to get used to seeing players on the way up then go to the biggest markets. But if it does away with losing on purpose it’ll bet worth the heartache it’s causing Adam Silver and his fellow commissioners.

The bus is leaving the station. It’s just a question of who will be left behind when all the seats are filled.  

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft YearsIn NHL History, , his new book with his son Evan, was voted the eighth best professional hockey book of by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted seventh best, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx