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Tanking in the NBA and NHL can ruin the fan experience. One genius individual has devised a plan to prevent NBA tanking and improve the fan experience all around.
There is a fine line between a team being atrocious in any given season and a team that is mediocre, gets hit by the injury bug, and decides to ‘tank’ in order to improve their draft stock for the following season. Looking at the current NBA standings, however, one has to wonder how the Wizards have only won 17 games and the Pacers have only won 19. It takes a lot of effort to be that bad.
How To Prevent NBA Tanking
The NBA has tried to address tanking in years past to no avail. Adam Silver is ultimately helpless in stopping teams from throwing games to try and improve their NBA Draft stock. He has even threatened to get rid of the NBA Draft to prevent tanking. The same can be said about the NHL where a generational talent like Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews, Steven Stamkos, etc. can turn a franchise around in a hurry.
Ultimately, the onus has to be on the individual franchises. They must be incentivized not to tank and it must be done in a way that remains consistent throughout the season.
Enter reddit user ‘kelownafornia6969’ who proposed ‘Dynamic Beer Pricing’ as the ultimate fix to preventing NBA tanking. His idea is simple: every team starts the season selling beer for $10. Teams will then increase the cost of beer by $.35 for each win and decrease the cost of beer by $.20 per loss.
He ran the numbers for a post on Reddit that was inexplicably deleted by the moderators. Here is what the standings looked like earlier this week, with beer most expensive in Oklahoma City ($22.70) as OKC is 64-16, and least expensive in Washington D.C. where the Wizards have won only 17 games and beer would cost just $.10.
NBA teams simply could not afford to sell beer at $.10 and turn a profit. But if they did sell beer that cheap you can be sure every seat in the arena would be filled. Even a team with just 17 wins on the season would be selling out every game.
Conversely, in a situation like Oklahoma City where beer would be over $20 fans get to watch their team dominate every single day. On top of that, beer wouldn’t cost all that much more than it does at many pro sports games to begin with.
It would work for the NHL too!
This same visionary who solved the NBA tanking issue with dynamic beer pricing quickly recognized this model would work for the NHL as well. He ran the numbers and here is what he came up with:
In the NHL right now, beer would cost $16.50 in Denver where the Avalanche have been dominant all season, $14.25 in Tampa where the Lightning are going to win the Stanley Cup, and just $2.00/beer in Vancouver where hockey fans have seen just one trip to the Stanley Cup Playoffs so far in the 2020s.
Sure, dynamic beer pricing might sound unrealistic and outlandish. But complicated problems require creative solutions. And we need to give credit where credit is due: kelownafornia6969 has solved NBA tanking and tanking in the NHL if the commissioners have the stones to listen up and act!