A couple responses. First to Nat, I guess the reason I'm happy about this is just that the Lakers are likely to be a very low seed and if they're playing Dallas or Sacramento, or even Portland, I don't want the "dethrone the champs" series to be 5 games. On the other hand, going down to 6 teams a division would be fine, you're right it is a little large... Although one could also just shorten the regular season, since the playoffs are such better basketball anyway.

As for football vs. baseball... Yes most of the time nothing interesting is happening in baseball, but the same is true of soccer, most of the time they're just passing around doing nothing with no chance of scoring in the immediate future. In baseball at least you know when something interesting is about to happen. You can go get a beer, go to the bathroom, and be back knowing that you're probably not missing anything too crucial if you're only gone for 2 minutes. With football, although the vast majority of the time is boring, the whole game is decided in a few exciting moments here and there and you don't know when they're coming and they don't take breaks during the game. What sort of attention span do you have over there??

Alec and Dave any guesses on liability insurance rates or should i post the answer?