Tanking has become the norm in major league sports as an acceptable means to fix teams. Coaches and managers are often given the choice to rebuild or resign if they don’t take part in tanking to improve a team. Organizations are often lauded for their successful rebirth after seemingly intentionally poor seasons. Nicknames are given like “the process” and “McEichel” for franchises who have undergone “rebuilds” successfully. The Houston Astros’ recent strategy yielded a World Series championship, but often this style of focused losing comes as the cost of those who suggest it as the path forward.
The examples are exhaustive and one only has to look as recently as the firing of Hue Jackson as an example of the fallout from such a strategy. Bryan Colangelo certainly helped improve the ’76ers roster but it didn’t help his career path. Sashi Brown was part of an “analytics-focused” rebuild that ended after only one and a half seasons. So if these strategies often cost coaches and general managers their positions, why do they ever agree to take part?
One aspect may be the money involved as many coaches and managers make millions of dollars for their role in the rebuild. Sometimes the owners and managers that bring in the staff will often take risks on candidates and the candidates will make significantly more in their role and have an opportunity to coach or manage a team in a way that maybe under more banal circumstances wouldn’t dictate them receiving a shot.
But lets consider for a second the primary factor in taking on a rebuild, ego. No one begins with the belief that they could fail. Hue Jackson still believed that even after going 1-31 over 2 seasons and 2-5-1 this season that he could still turn things around. Simply put, someone being willing to bet on you may be the biggest blinding factor of all.
So as season after season pass and we see more professional sports franchises look to the draft and other promote “analytical” or “future” focused strategies, just remember that those touting the merits of such approaches are rarely the ones to benefit from it.