Ep 101: Sports as Game Design

Sports are games too, you know. In this episode, Marc, Matt, and Bubba sit down to talk about various sports rules and controversies and analyze them as game design. What are they optimizing for? Whose interests do they serve? What's the role of randomness or human judgement in making a sport great? What even makes sports great? 0:34 - Intro 1:32 - What's the goal when "designing" sports rules? 2:45 - What's the most viewer-friendly board game? 7:12 - Gold Drafting 13:24 - Playoff size 16:18 - Promotion/relegation 21:45 - Eliminating the kick return 24:39 - Conservative play in the NFL and elsewhere 29:18 - The designated hitter 31:50 - Changes to the actual baseball ball 36:03 - 3-point line 42:56 - Dunking on basketball 45:44 - Soccer's relatively simple rules 48:27 - Punishments and penalties in different sports 50:35 - Robots and video 54:22 - Disc golf penalty culture 1:03:10 - The 2 meter rule 1:11:41 - Back to robots 1:26:39 - The shift Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast? Want to watch it being recorded, live? Consider supporting it on Patreon.