- Penalize "flopping" by making the simulation of a foul a technical foul in itself. In soccer, diving (technically known as "simulation") is a foul punishable by a yellow card. The basketball equivalent to this is a technical foul. If technical fouls were issued for flopping, we wouldn't have to face the spectacle of muscular, 6 and a half foot tall men falling to the ground every time they got bumped a little. (Interestingly, flopping is already a technical foul under international rules, but not NBA rules.)
- In soccer, when a team is desperate to win at the end of a game (like the USA against Algeria in this years' World Cup, or Turkey two years ago in Euro 2008) they desperately push forward to score an incredible goal at the last possible moment. Nothing is more exciting. In contrast, the desperation of the last few minutes of a basketball game leads to slow, boring play as the losing team fouls to stop the clock, the winning team takes free throws, and the losing team tries to quickly score, usually a 3 point shot, to get an advantage. Every close NBA game I've ever seen ends this way. It's very boring and almost never works. Solution: don't stop the clock for fouls, at least not in the last few minutes of the game. If you want to stop the winning team from running down the clock, have the shot clock go down to 12 seconds in the last 2-3 minutes and maybe 6 seconds in the last minute.
Football should:
- Improve the flow of the game by reducing or eliminating huddles. It's fun to watch a no huddle offense, every football fan knows this, and yet every team in football spends most of the game standing around discussing their next tactical move. One way to do this is to reduce the play clock to 20 or 15 seconds except on first and fourth down. That way teams could huddle at first down and bring on substitutes to set up their plan for the next series of downs, and teams could huddle at fourth down to either set up a great play to go for it or to bring on the punting team.
- Simplify the massive NFL rulebook, which changes important things about the game every year. Does it count as a touchdown if you catch the ball in the end zone but get pushed out of bounds by another player before you can get your feet down? Some years it does, some years it doesn't.
Finally, I'm willing to make one concession to critics of soccer. FIFA should allow video technology to be used in certain circumstances (dubious goals, handball incidents, dives). The fourth official does nothing but stand on the side of the pitch and occasionally hold up an electronic board with numbers on it to designate substitutions or the duration of stoppage time--give him a video monitor and a radio to the referee to give the benefit of television's all-seeing eyes.
