Do you consider the MLB,NBA,NFL and NHL as good today as it was in the past?

[Jayson1]

I was wondering how people feel modern sports stack up to the past when you were younger or even the not to distant past. For me I would sort of go with this"

NHL= Don't watch Hockey but I wanted to include it for fans who do like it.

NFL=Still like it but I do miss the more brutal nature of it from the past. Granted I understand the importance for safety so I don't mind most of the rule changes. Still I think it has hurt the product just a little bit.

MLB=LIke it just as much as I ever did with the one exception being the pitch count idea of taking pitches out to soon but this is my favorite sport. I also like that we have had some success with smaller market teams so it doesn't feel like the rich teams have been able to totally win all the time.

NBA=It's okay but I miss the days when it didn't feel like every shot was a 3-pointer. I'm sure it's a fine strategy that makes sense but I liked having the big time centers like David Robinson,Patrick Ewing etc and also players seemed to have a bigger variety of skill sets.

Jason

 

[JirinPanthosa]

NHL: I think the league has gone farther and farther downhill since they introduced the 'Point for losing' and started sabotaging defensemen to artificially increase score.

NFL: I don't have much frame of reference for this because I'm a Patriots fan and the time I got into football coincided with when the Patriots got good for the first time. But to me it's just as good. I don't think the protection rules caused a problem after players adjusted to them, it's just as dramatic as ever.

MLB: Baseball is having a crisis of mythology. It started in the steroid era, when every good player was automatically under suspicion which hasn't completely gone away. But then they figured out how to mathematically hack the game. More wins, less drama.

NBA: I think level of play is as high as it's been since the 80s, those big stars all left and the latest wave of expansion watered down the talent pool. More household names, and no major scandal in years. It'd be great if they hardened the salary cap a little to create more parity. But otherwise absolutely.

 

[Danny99]

The content of NHL is as good as it has been. The players are fast, creative and the clutching and grabbing has all but been eliminated. Unfortunately, the league refuses to take stands on players like Tom Wilson, who are obviously head hunters. They also continue to has silly policies like suspensions for skipping the all-star game and fighting having their players in the Olympics on an international stage.

MLB's efforts to "speed up the game" seem silly. One of the "if isn't broke, don't try and fix it" kind of moments.

 

[BillJ]

No. But I find most things aren't as good as they used to be. I think part of it is simply a product of age. It takes more to impress me than it did in the past.

 

[gblews]

Of course, this all depends on what is perceived as the "past". A person who just started watching the sports in question n say, 2000, is going to have a quite different perspective than the person who started watching these sports back in the 60's, 70's, or even 80's.

The NFL - infinitely better. When I first started watching, there were no black quarterbacks, interior O-linemen, middle linebackers, or safeties. There were also no black head coaches, and maybe one or two assistants.

Back then running a (hand timed) 4.6 or 4.5 were the fastest times in the league.This is what receivers and corners ran. Today there are some D-linemen, safeties, and linebackers running (electronically timed) 4.5 and 4.6, 4.7. The athleticism in the NFL now is off the charts today compared to when I first started watching.

Schemes are a bit different. They're being run by better athletes. But my high school team ran 1 back offensive sets, and my JC team ran those "bunch" formations with the 3 wideouts all bunched together. On defense, it's the blitz' and use of multiple DB's that has made pass defense so much better. In the old days the "progressive" teams would add 1 DB on passing downs. Now teams bring in as many as many as 7 additional. Access to replay has made officiating slightly better.

The league is probably not as dangerous as it was with the improvements in equipment, but it's still a deadly sport. I don't think I'd sign off on letting my child play.

The NBA - About the only area of the game that has not improved is MAYBE free throw shooting. Everything else, especially ballhandling, is better today. Access to replay has made officiating slightly better.

MLB - Not my favorite sport, but getting rid of illegal drug use alone makes it better today.
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[Herbert]

No. But I find most things aren't as good as they used to be. I think part of it is simply a product of age. It takes more to impress me than it did in the past.

Pretty much on the nose.
I do miss the days back in the 80s when I could blissfully blow a couple hours watching a Red Sox game or several hours of NFL on Sundays.
The one thing that I do miss a lot from those days is This Week In Baseball with Mel Allen

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