New Year's resolutions that can create meaningful change for fans, franchises, and sports

Thoughts and prayers to anyone hitting the gym this month, as New Year's resolutioners, hopped up on pre-workout, optimism and post-holiday diet guilt, overrun your local health club. If we're discussing substances that help whip civilians into shape, January motivation is a top-tier performance-enhancing drug.

But if you, like me, have been around a while, you also know motivation has a short half-life. That's why three quarters of the people you see pumping iron on Jan.1 are back on the couch by Valentine's Day. If you want to make meaningful progress, you need to make that new behaviour a habit.

It works in fitness, where habit sustains your workout routine once that initial surge of motivation wanes.  It also works in sports opinion writing, where most of us are in the habit of using late December and early January to write wish lists for all kinds of sports world stakeholders.

The idea of forming new habits can also help the people and organizations we write about. So when I run down this list of New Year's sports resolutions, I'm not just hoping the folks I'm discussing are motivated to make these moves. I'd love to see them adjust their habits, so that meaningful change is also long-lasting.

Is it a lot to ask?

Of course it is, as you'll see.

But is it too much?

Let's reconvene in 12 months, and we'll see. For now, here are three resolutions we think will improve the sports landscape.

WATCH: What 2024 gave us:

1. For the Blue Jays to give Vlad Jr. what he wants, when he wants it.

Assuming Guerrero sees a long-term future with the club that first signed him as a 17-year-old, "what he wants" is a contract extension, sometime between now and spring training. If there's no deal by mid-February, don't just pencil him in as next winter's most expensive free agent. Write it in pen.

Has he become the singular superstar many of us envisioned when we first saw him play as a teenager? Not quite. Statistically, he peaked in 2021, when he led the league in nine offensive categories, including home runs (48), OPS (1.002) and runs scored (123). He has struggled with consistency, but when he's at his best he's one of MLB's very best.

As he enters the final year of a rookie deal that paid him $19.9 million US last year, he's after a contract befitting his elite status. His .323 batting average last year was a career-high, and his 96 strikeouts were a career-low for a full season. He's been an all-star in each of his four full MLB seasons.

Post-2023 the Dodgers signed Shohei Ohtani for 10 years and $700 million US. The Jays either whiffed on the two-way star, or were simply outbid. This season's premium free agent, Juan Soto, signed a 15-year deal with the Mets worth $765 million. We're not sure if Toronto ever even bothered to enter that competition.

So from here the Blue Jays' options seem pretty clear:

1. Extend Guerrero now, even though it'll be expensive. It's a big down payment on the club's present and future, the cost signalling to the fan base that winning matters

2. They can also trade Guerrero and hope ticket-buyers stick around for the rebuild.

3. Or they can let him go in October, with no guarantees he'll re-sign. If you think extending his contract is expensive, ponder the cost of watching him hit .300 in another uniform.

Or maybe don't think about it at all. It's depressing.

WATCH | What we can look forward to in track & field in 2025:

2. For the sports books: Please give us a chance.

A chance to do what?

To miss you, for one. A CBC Marketplace investigation last year found that the average Canadian sports telecast includes 2.8 gambling-related ad messages per minute. I understand gambling sponsorship dollars contribute to the rising tide lifting every sport's team's boat these days, but some of us still tune in to watch the game. If you want to make sure we tune you out, keep hammering us with your ads.

Also give us a chance to win.

You're selling us an opportunity to engage more deeply with the game but putting money on everything from the outcome to the point total to Jontay Porter's three-point shooting. And you're promoting the fantasy that hitting the right number could make us rich.

The reality?

Sports books are like private insurers — they all make a lot more money when they weed out potential customers who eat away at profit margins. If you're insuring cars, you don't want bad drivers. If your business is health insurance, you deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. And if you're a sports book, you crack down on people who win too much money. You can deduct fees from their winnings, a strategy that backfired on DraftKings when they tried it midway through 2024. Or you can investigate when too many people beat the odds, which is how the NBA uncovered the Jontay Porter shenanigans. 

Either way, it all looks to me like different ways to help the house keep winning.

So…what exactly are they selling us?

WATCH | Olympic gold medallist Aaron Brown looks ahead to 2025:

3. To world-class track and field: Figure out how to ride the post-Olympic publicity wave.

It's a big ask, I know. Every significant recent development also comes with a "but" and an "and." Grand Slam Track has a four-meet springtime schedule and nearly $13 million in prize money at stake, but, as of the New Year, no broadcast deal, and no commitments from brand-name American stars like Noah Lyles and Sha'Carri Richardson. I'd tell you to imagine a healthy Serena Williams or Roger Federer opting out of a Grand Slam during their peak years, except you can't. The mere thought makes no sense. Like playing tennis on the moon.

And World Athletics? The Sprint series on Netflix should, in theory, generate some buzz in the U.S. for the Diamond League circuit and its marquee performers. But, the only stateside Diamond League meet is in July, in Eugene, Ore., and that town, while a track and field hotbed, is notoriously difficult for travelers to reach. So if they're hoping to sell tickets to casual fans, they might have a better chance of beating Mondo Duplantis in a pole vault.

Meanwhile, roster limits are on the way for NCAA sports, thanks to the never-ending legal wrangling over how, and how much, to pay college athletes. Here's the upshot in two short sentences:

More money for football and basketball.

Fewer resources for track and field.

Great news for football fans, but troubling for every track and field national program that leans on the NCAA to bridge the gap between high school and the pros. If track and field decision makers at every level, in nearly every country, aren't devoting 2025 to figuring out how to cultivate talent with less help from the NCAA, they're doing New Year's resolutions wrong.