In a bold move, the NCAA has planned to announce today that starting in 2016, all collegiate sports will each move to a year-round season. “We have been secretly extending the schedules for years, usually by a few days or weeks at a time,” says a senior administrative official with the league. “We figured we would just go for it and make it year round.” While details are sketchy, the early information shows how the major sports will see some dramatic changes over the next three years. Basketball Basketball will move to “Amazing April” in 2014, “Marvelous May” in 2015, and make the final jump to “Spectacular September” in 2016. “We were worried we would have to compete with the end of baseball, but when we heard that they were moving that to January to meet with their elongated schedule, we were relieved,” says an NCAA marketer. “What do you think of ‘Spectacular September?’ I came up with that, but was voted down for ‘Sexy September’ as that is when Sports Illustrated is moving their ‘Swimsuit Edition‘ and we didn’t want to compete with that. We are really thinking this through.” Football Football will move to a playoff schedule to finally clear the debate against the current bowl game picture. “We are still going to play our bowl game schedule as it stands today, but we have added an additional playoff picture of all division teams in a single elimination tournament. This will give us about 8 months of playoff games, culminating in the championship game in August,” say a senior secretary with the NCAA regional office in Des Moines, Iowa. “Granted, this will cause some issues for teams who are in training for the new season during these months, but this won’t be a problem for the lesser programs who can’t win playoff games and for Ohio State who will still be ineligible. Naturally, the entire state of Florida, Oklahoma, and that team in Utah are worried. But I think if we give them a bigger ‘tattoo allowance’ they may be mollified.” Hockey Hockey will move to playoffs every 3 months to try to make the sport interesting. Baseball Baseball will follow the new schedule being adopted by Major League Baseball for their “season that never sleeps” with a “best of 13” series finals in January. Like the NCAA, MLB is excited for the changes. For instance, a representative for Ballpark Hotdogs is thrilled with the new season schedule. “We have been asked to supply an estimated 3B – yes, billion – more wieners to the parks to keep up with the growing demand and enhanced schedule. With Opening Day happening simultaneously during the league playoffs, it means we sometimes will have a double-header, for say . . . The National League Championship, while those same two teams also play their Opening Day game for the next season. Pretty exciting if you ask me. Now we just have to make sure our mustard supplier can handle it.” …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest