Changing the Seeds

I read this article talking about how the NBA and other sports leagues should change the playoff seedings to match the best v best in the Finals/WS/SB.

The gist of it goes something like this: the title games should and would be better and more competitive when we reseed the teams. It eliminates the pretenders from the contenders earlier and allows greate matchups like the 2007 Spurs v Suns to take place on a much bigger stage than the second round.

I agree. Its what they do within the conferences themselves. The reason we have the two league/conference system now was for organizational purposes. It was easier travel wise. As teams began to fly on charters and not commercially, it makes less and less sense. Especially in the NBA.

So how does this work? Let's see. Assuming that there will be no traditionalist argument in the NBA (which there will be, but not as loud as the NFL and MLB's ) there would obviously be the travel concerns.

NFL:

Its not so big a deal here. It would be just one more road trip. It would suck for Seattle to play, say Miami in the first round but really its no different than a regular season trip there. Also, its just one game, unlike the:

MLB and NBA:

The first four games are not a huge problem and additional playoff revenue would slightly offset any additional long range traveling. However, its the final 1-1-1 of the series' that would suck financially. However, the answer would be charging the media more (as in TV) with the promise of a more amazing World Series or Finals. I think that is the answer. Owners who are cutting salary already probably are not to happy with the potential of a huge travel expense for playing 3 or 4 long playoff series that require lots of nationwide travel. If you can get the networks to foot the bill somewhat by really pimping the possible Sox-Yankees WS or instead of Spurs sweeping the Cavs in '07 we could have watched Spurs v Suns.

The NFL doesn't really have to consider this. It is the number 1 sport in America (don't start w/ NASCAR). The NBA, however, should consider it. It wouldn't be hard to convince traditionalists (are there any?) and they would potentially putting their best foot forward for the cameras.