5 Rule Changes that Completely Changed the Game

Every sport we’ve come to know and love today has experienced rigorous changes throughout the last few decades to make our games more fair and schedules more efficient. Depending on the sport, you can have an opinion on whether the rule change was for the better or worse, but regardless, they still happen.

It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, rule changes generally affect how they play the sport, from the pro leagues down to youth leagues. In this article, we outlined the top five sports rule changes that transformed that game, including the sport where the rule was changed, what rule was altered or implemented and the results of the new law being put into place based on the sport.

1. Salary Caps

The only league in American sports that never adopted a salary cap is the MLB, meaning that teams can spend as much money as they want on players. Other than that, the NFL, the NHL, the MLS and the NBA all implemented salary caps into their league, which surprisingly weren’t there in the first place.

While the salary caps hit different heights depending on the league (NHL – 2024-2025 $65-$88 million cap range, NBA – 2024-2025 $140.6 million cap), they effectively limit the “All-Star” roster possibilities by forcing teams to pay fair wages while still obeying their financial cap limit. Starting in 2025, the English Premier will impose a salary cap to limit teams to only spend 85% of their total revenue on wages. It’s without a doubt that no matter the professional league you play in these days, the salary cap single-handedly affects the strength of your team roster.

2. NBA 3-point shot

While you may not have known this, it wasn’t until 1979 that the three-point line began appearing on professional NBA courts. Before this, 3-pointers didn’t exist in basketball, and by implementing this new rule, the way that points were scored in the NBA would be forever changed.

Now, players could adjust their team tactics to provide the ball to the best shooter on the team in an attempt to score an extra point from on or outside the 3-point line. Games would end overall with a higher scoring number, and players could effectively utilize their decision-making to determine whether to shoot from outside or score within a point difference of one.

3. MLB designated hitters

Baseball’s designated hitter rule wasn’t adopted in the American League until 1973 and the National League until 2022. This rule was specifically implemented for batters who don’t play outfield positions to swap out their pitcher in the batting order.

The goal of this rule was not only to preserve pitchers, but it allows unengaged bench players to impact the game when batting instead of their pitcher. If a designated hitter switches positions, they are no longer a designated hitter for the game. From this, we can see how different baseball teams, specifically in the MLB, utilize their designated hitters to provide the best outcome for their team, whether it’s to rest a pitcher’s arm or get your best batter up to the plate.

4. NFL’s replay system

With the change of times and rapid growth of technology, the NFL’s much-needed replay system was born in the 1986 season. Love it or hate it, the replay system allows coaches to challenge the call on any given play, forcing the referees to video review it, resulting in the call to either change or stand.

Both teams are awarded only two challenges throughout the game, although if one team gets both of their challenge calls correct, they’re awarded a third. If their initial challenge call is incorrect, their second challenge call gets taken away, and they lose a timeout as well (think of this as the best way to combat unnecessary time wasting). Whatever your opinion is on this rule change, you can’t deny it’s changed the way football is played in the NFL to this day.

5. FIFAs goal-line technology and VAR

The 2010 FIFA World Cup might as well have been the most referee-error-filled sports tournament of the century. Just one of the few mistakes made out of the whole tournament was English midfielder Frank Lampard’s goal against Germany, which wasn’t ruled a goal, after bouncing down off the crossbar, crossing over the line, and bouncing back out in the blink of an eye.

At the moment, this was not called a goal, but fans and players were outraged as they saw it cross the line, and with a 1-goal deficit to Germany, this would’ve single-handedly affected the game, pulling it to a 2-2 tie in the Round of 16. In the end, this disallowed goal resulted in a 4-1 win to Germany, but it inspired the introduction of goal-line tech (GLT) and video assistant referees (VAR), which are now commonplace in most major soccer leagues today.