What Makes a Sport Exciting to Watch?
Every sport follows a set of rules, which most people accept without question, focusing instead on the game itself. But let’s pause and ask: Why these rules, and not others?
What makes rules make the sport exciting for the audience? What attracts viewers Here are some ideas I’ve thought of:
Match Duration Should Match Attention Span
People’s attention spans dictate how long a game should last. If it’s 5 days long, like like test cricket, it becomes yawn-inducing.
Faster play
It’s not just how long the match lasts, but how fast the action is. If you watch 15 minutes of each, a One-Day International match is more exciting than test cricket. We can encourage teams to play fast by
Allowing more batsmen per side.
Giving 8 runs for a sixer.
Reducing match length to 20 overs instead of 50, or 3 sets instead of 5
This will make it more exciting.
Fewer Interruptions
Excitement dies in the breaks, like the one after every game in tennis. To fix this, we can make games go on longer. For example, instead of 0 → 15 → 30 → 40 → Game, we could have 0 → 5 → 10 → 15 → 20 → 25 → 30 → 35 → 40 → Game.
When I watch tennis, too many serves end up being bad (either a fault or hit the net). This disrupts momentum. To fix this, we can limit the number of bad serves per game to 1 or 2. Beyond that, the server gets some kind of a penalty. This could be by awarding the receiver a point. Or the receiver, if he has an advantage in a deuce, automatically wins the game. Whatever it is, more than 1 or 2 bad serves per game should result in a penalty for the server.
Allow the unexpected
Unpredictability makes sport compelling. If every over in cricket or every game in tennis played out similarly, it would be boring. A deuce is one example: some games go there, and some don’t. That makes tennis richer than if whoever scores a point at 40-40 won the game directly.
Further, a game could have an unlimited number of deuces. In the 2024 Wimbledon final, Alcaraz and Djokovic had seven deuces in a row. This was rare, and gives enthusiasts something to talk about. Allowing rare events to happen once in a while keeps things exciting, as in life.
Reset
If one side is doing poorly, a reset gives them a fresh start. For example, in tennis, as long as a player wins a set, whether he wins by a lot (6-4) or a little (6-0) doesn’t matter. It gives the loser a fresh start in the next set. Even if he lost 6-0, he’s not 6 points behind in the second set.
Make it Personal
People connect with people more than with abstract entities like teams, especially when players keep moving between teams. For example, Djokovic’s loss to Alcaraz at Wimbledon 2024 wasn’t just a sporting event but a human story of an aging champion facing off and losing to a prodigy playing with finesse beyond his 21 years. That’s a human story that draws us all in, even those who are not gung-ho about tennis.
Recoupment break
When one side is losing, he can take a recoupment break1, relax, talk to his coach, reset his mind, come up with a different strategy for the rest of the game. This gives spectators something more hopeful than watching a slow collapse.
Crowd umpire
Each player can pick one game in the match where the crowd becomes the umpire. The umpire steps down from his chair. Spectators2 with clear visibility get voting devices to press green or red.
Avoid Draws
A draw or a tie should be rare, since viewers feel cheated. Attendees want to see a winner. In ODI, since the chance of both teams reaching exactly the score is low, this is not a problem. But test cricket often results in a draw because four innings have to be played in 5 days. If we run out of time, the match is declared a draw. Since there’s no over limit, a team can drag it on to force a draw instead of losing. This is a flaw in how the game is structured. We should fix this. How? One way is to allocate ½ the match time to each team, and when the clock runs out, their innings end3.
Another reason test cricket often ends in a draw is rain. To prevent this, set aside ½ day as a buffer for rain, and allocate the remaining 4½ days as above.
These changes reduce the probability of draw, making it more fun.
Conclusion
We don’t have to accept sports rules as set in stone. Some are great. Others could evolve. A small tweak to the rules can make sports more fun to play, watch, and talk about.
This break can be taken only once in the entire match.
With nationality limits to ensure fairness. For example, if a British and an Indian player are playing at Wimbledon, and 60% of the crowd is British but only 10% of the crowd Indian, both will have equal voting power, say ⅓ each, with the remaining ⅓ given to people who are neither British nor Indian.
If the team playing the first innings declares early, they use the extra time in their second. If they overextend their first innings, they’ll be short in their second. If they’re bowled out, the remaining time is transferred to the other team as a reward.