Before there was no draft system, players in major sports leagues in the United States mainly rely on the team to sign amateur players themselves. If a team likes a certain player, they can directly issue a contract for him. As long as the other party agrees, they can join the team to play. It can be said that as long as both parties are in love, there is no other threshold.
This also creates a phenomenon, that is, rich teams can spend a lot of money to sign some more powerful players, and teams with no money can afford to pay, so they can only sign some relatively weak players. This also leads to stronger teams becoming stronger and weaker teams becoming weaker and weaker. Big cities can support first-class professional teams, while small cities can't even support amateur teams. In the end, the only remaining teams are big teams, and small teams can only end up closing.
This situation continued until 1934. At that time, the University of Minnesota had a student named Stan Costka, who was a football player. Under his leadership, the University of Minnesota also achieved unbeaten results throughout the season, so almost every NFL team wanted to sign him.
The teams started bidding, and eventually Stan Costka won a $5,000 contract, and he became the highest-paid player in the entire NFL league.
However, this bidding model has also aroused the vigilance of the team bosses. The team bosses naturally don’t want to spend more money. If every player is waiting for the price like Stan Costka and waits for the team to add price to each other, the team’s profits will also be greatly reduced, and it is very likely that the ticket income is not enough to give the players’ salary.
At the same time, another thing happened in the NFL League. The poor record of the Philadelphia Eagles wanted to sign a player and he offered the same reward, but the player eventually chose a team with better record, which annoyed the Philadelphia Eagles. So Philadelphia Eagles shareholder Bert Bell proposed a draft draft to the NFL League to enhance the possibility of teams achieving competitive equality on the court.
At a conference of the league in 1935, this draft was unanimously passed, and the draft system was implemented starting in the year. This was also the beginning of the four major sports leagues in the United States adopting the draft system.
The rules of the first NFL draft in 1936 were very simple. According to the record of the previous year, the poor first choice will be made, and the selected players will be made after the good results will be made, and the selected players will be allowed to be traded. At the NFL draft that year, the names of 90 players were written on the blackboard in the conference room and selected by each team. The list of these 90 people mainly comes from media introductions, team manager recommendations, and universities recommendations. In the end, 81 players were selected by the team.
However, in that era, being a professional rugby player in NFL was not a very profitable thing, so most of the selected players did not sign with the NFL team to become professional rugby players. Among the 81 selected players in that year, only 24 eventually entered the NFL League.
If it is in later generations, it would be a very glorious thing to be selected by the NFL team. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is a glorious family. If you become a hometown person, you will regard you as pride. The elementary school, middle school and university you went to will be proud of you. But before World War II, playing basketball was not a job, but more like realizing your dreams.
As for the NBA draft, it started in 1947, which means that the second year after the establishment of the Baa League, the predecessor of NBA, had a draft.
Now, Chen Qiang plans to introduce draft rules into the second year after the establishment of the new basketball league.
Chen Qiang held the draft rules in his hand and continued: "Please turn to page 5, here is my detailed introduction to the draft rules. First of all, the order of drafts will be ranked according to the record of last season. The worse the team, the more they can choose. The best team, I am very sorry, can only select players in the last one. In this way, the worse the team will get players with higher talent, thereby enhancing the strength of the team, making it closer to balance between weak and strong teams."
"In addition, I have set up a supplementary clause. Please see the supplementary clause below, allowing the team to give up the team's draft qualification before the draft and instead select a rookie in the team's location. This is done so that the team can get more support from local residents."
The regional nature of sports has always been very strong. For example, in domestic sports leagues, fans will instinctively support their own teams in their hometowns, and in international competitions, fans will instinctively support their own teams in their country.
The same is true for the American Sports League. As a fan, of course, it will support local teams and local stars. As a star, I definitely hope to play in my hometown. If possible, it would be a great thing to bring a championship to my hometown.
For example, Kobe, although he has played for the Los Angeles Lakers for his whole life, he is a die-hard fan of the Philadelphia Eagles. Because Kobe is a Philadelphia, even if he leaves Philadelphia, he will support his hometown team. This situation like Kobe is not uncommon in the United States.
That's why Chen Qiang sets up such a supplementary clause that allows the team to choose local players first. The main reason for doing this is to please local fans.
In this era, television broadcasting has just started. If ordinary people turn on the TV, they can hardly see live broadcasts of sports games, and teams will not gain profits from live broadcasts. In the future, if the games of the four major sports leagues in the United States are broadcasted online, each team can get a part of the broadcast share. In the 1940s, the team's main income is to sell tickets.
Since you are selling tickets, you must rely on local fans. Those who go to watch the game on site are basically local fans who support the home team, and there are not many fans of the visiting team. So pleased local fans is something that the team must do. After all, these local fans who are willing to spend money to buy tickets to watch the game are the team's parents of food and clothing. Pleasing local fans is also the most important thing for the team to do.
The team owners here are smarter than the other. Of course they can see that this supplementary clause is to allow each chess team to attract more local fans.
Seeing that everyone had no objection to this, Chen Qiang continued: "I think the age of those participating in the draft is a relatively suitable range."
"Mr. Chen, is there any basis for you to set this age range?" someone asked.
"Age 18 is an adult age. You don't need to rely on guardians to decide your own affairs independently. We cannot hire child labor. I don't want our basketball league to recruit some minors, which will cause some unnecessary trouble, so I set the lower limit of age at 18. As for the upper limit of 23 years, that's because as an athlete, at the age of 23, the body has basically been set. How much potential the athlete has to explore, and this age will be clear and clear. Therefore, setting a 23-year-old upper limit can prevent the team from choosing some players without potential." Chen Qiang explained.
Regarding the knowledge of athletes' physical potential, the people here are definitely not as professional as Chen Qiang. After all, Chen Qiang is a professional athlete and is also the world's number one athlete, so the conclusion he gave was not refuted by others.
"Mr. Chen, does setting this age limit mean that athletes who are less than 18 years old or over 23 years old will not be able to participate in the draft and cannot enter our team?" someone asked again.
"If you are under 18 years old, you can wait. When he reaches 18 years old, you can naturally join the team. As for players over 23 years old, I'm very sorry, they can only be excluded." Chen Qiang paused and continued: "I know what you are worried about. Are you worried that we have missed some excellent players, right? If a player is over 23 years old and he is very good, it would be a loss if he can't join the team."
The other party nodded: "I do have this kind of concern."
"So in the next few years, the draft rules will be parallel to the current free agent signing rules. Players over 23 years old can still get signing. This will be a transitional stage, and this transitional stage will be cancelled in the future. My ultimate goal is that all our players in the future have participated in the draft." Chen Qiang answered.
"If all players join the team through the draft, does that mean that those who have not participated in the draft cannot be signed by the team?" someone asked.
"Yes." Chen Qiang nodded again, and then explained: "But please note that I mean, all our players in the future have participated in the draft, not that all our players in the future have been selected by the team."
"I understand what you mean. You mean that as long as this player participates in the draft, no matter whether he can be selected by the team or not, he can be signed by the team in the future." Someone next to him responded.
"Yes, that's what I mean. For example, a certain player participated in the draft but was not selected. After a few years, his level became higher, and the teams interested in him could still sign him. Since he had participated in the draft before, there was no age limit for this kind of signing. Even if he was thirty or forty, as long as both sides were willing, he could still play." Chen Qiang explained.
"In other words, participating in our draft in the future will become the only ticket to our basketball league." The man just continued.
"Your description is very appropriate. Participating in our draft is a ticket to play in our basketball league. You can see this as a monopoly mechanism. I hope that in this way, those who want to become professional players will participate in our draft so that our league can get more fresh blood." Chen Qiang said.
The same is true for the future American Sports League. The teams often sign some free agents, and many are foreign free agents in their thirties. These players do not have draft picks, but they can still join the American sports league. These players are not unsuccessful in the draft, but they are not selected during the draft. In order to attract excellent international players, the NBA even formulated rules for international players to automatically become unselected free agents at the age of 23. In this way, many players who are around thirty years old who are worth a lot in Europe or South America can enter the NBA as free agents.
At this time, someone next to him asked: "There are so many high schools and universities across the United States, and there are so many young people of appropriate age every year. How should we determine the qualifications of players participating in the draft?"
"It's very simple, let them sign up for themselves! I know that eight years ago, the NFL of rugby held a draft, and most of the players selected did not join the team in the end. This is mainly because many of the players participating in the draft were not voluntarily. So I decided to let the players sign up and participate voluntarily. In this way, if the players are selected, they will not give up on the spot." Chen Qiang said.
"If the player doesn't come to register by himself, he will lose the qualification to participate in the draft and will not be able to play in our league? Is this right?" someone asked again.
"Your understanding is correct. Regarding this, I would like to add that I set the age of the draft between the years. From the age of the year, there are six full years, and players also have six opportunities to sign up for the draft. As long as he seizes one of these six opportunities, he can come to our league to play. We give a player six years to consider, and he also gave up six opportunities in a row. I don't think such a player will really come to our league to play. What do you think?" Chen Qiang asked with a smile.
Everyone nodded in agreement. They said that missing an opportunity was not considered well. Missing two or three opportunities may be an accident. Then missing six opportunities for six consecutive years is definitely not a coincidence. If you have given you six opportunities, you will not come. Such a player really doesn’t plan to play basketball.
Chen Qiang then continued, "In order to protect the rights and interests of the team, I have specially formulated a rule. If a player is selected by the team, his signing rights belong to this team. Unless this team trades out his signing rights, the player's signing rights will always belong to the team that selected him. That is to say, no matter when the selected player comes to the league to play, he can only join the team that selected him, otherwise he will have no ball to play."
"Of course, in order to protect the rights and interests of players, I have also formulated a signing rule. For example, if the team wants to sign him in the first round, he must give him a two plus two contract, which means that the contract for the first two years is guaranteed, and the next two years are the team options. The purpose of this is to hope that each team can cherish the draft quota in their hands and not choose randomly in the draft. Since you have chosen a player, you must pay him a salary. Every choice you make is valuable. I also hope that the draft rules can continue. If you choose one by one, the draft rules will not be implemented."
"In addition, I also plan to set salary standards for rookies. Each rookie will receive different salary according to their own different draft rankings. For this salary amount, we can refer to the average salary of players in the league and formulate a formula for calculation. Everyone should know that if you want to run a car, you will not be able to not refuel the car. If we want more excellent young people to come to play here, we have to pay the corresponding reward. We cannot let players work for us for free, right? Setting a salary standard for rookies can encourage those excellent young people to participate in our draft, and excellent players will also improve the viewing of the game, and the tickets for the game will be sold better!"
Chapter completed!