Help for sports could be on the way, if only...

The great thing about sports is that what is wrong with sports can be fixed by anyone with a TV, a brain and a backbone, which exempts college presidents, NFL commissioners, and Gophers revenue-sport schedule-makers.

Here are my 2009 New Year's Sporting Revolutions:

College football It's so simple even a college president can grasp it: Take the eight best teams in the country, slot them into seeded brackets and let them play each other.

It's called a "playoff." Who knows, it might even work in college basketball.

This radical system would employ the seven current best bowl sites in the country -- including, I'm sure, Detroit -- and propel college football past the NFL in terms of mass appeal.

This year, you'd have something like Texas Tech playing Florida, Utah against Oklahoma, Penn State against Texas and USC against Alabama. That puts to shame the mediocre matchups the NFL is offering this weekend, and could lead to such dramatic pairings as Florida-USC and Texas-Oklahoma. You'd have underdogs, superpowers, high profit margins, incredible ratings and a true champion. College presidents apparently would rather sort through Sartre.

Lesser programs (Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Notre Dame) may play in lesser bowl games, but may not celebrate if they win.

NBA It's actually a pretty good league, as Minneapolis will find out if it can ever land an NBA franchise.

A couple of suggestions:

• Each team can put no more than eight tattoos on court at one time. This would make the game more visually appealing and keep Rashad McCants from graffiti-ing up Target Center.

• From now on, any player taking more than five steps without dribbling should be called for traveling.

College basketball During the nonconference schedule, colleges bearing a state name (Minnesota, Texas Tech) may play only against other schools bearing a state name, the name of a large city, or a name that the average fan can locate on a map.

NFL Stop fining players for making hard hits and snow angels.

You want to act tough, Roger Goodell? Bust steroids, not diuretics. Bust players who lead with the crown of the helmet, not exemplary wide receivers who inject a little fun into a long, brutal season by making a snow angel in the end zone.

NHL Eliminate the neutral zone trap and any other gimmick defenses that depress scoring.

When Marian Gaborik -- or even an active player, such as Alex Ovechkin -- tries to go end to end, he shouldn't have to fight through the TSA, the Secret Service and the Vikings' defensive line to score a goal.

If you're the NHL commissioner, or even if you're Gary Bettman, you should crave the kind of scoring and excitement that might win back the casual fans who can no longer find the game on TV without divining rod and bloodhound.

Major League Baseball Keep looking for ways to speed up games, like maybe letting Delmon Young bat every inning.

Soccer Let the players use their hands. And bats.

Youth sports Anyone who screams during a youth game -- coach, parent, Dick Vitale -- will be fined the equivalent of the Twins' payroll or Alex Rodriguez's divorce settlement, whichever is larger.