Worst sports competition format changes

Sometimes sporting competition formats change every now and then. Sometimes it's changed because the league/tournament is expanded to include more teams, or sometimes it's to create new action to the tournament. But these changes can sometimes not work out for many reasons.

One example of a format change that failed was the elimination-style qualifying that was used for the first two races of the 2016 Formula One season. 22 drivers would all go out and set the fastest lap time they could. After nine minutes the driver with the slowest lap time was given 90 seconds to set a new lap time that was quicker than at least one of the other drivers, otherwise they would be eliminated. After that, the next slowest driver would be eliminated, then so on.

The format completely failed. Most of the time the cars weren't on the track. And during the final qualifying session of the new format's debut, most drivers weren't even on the track for the final minutes of qualifying. So the final few minutes of qualifying had no cars on the track at all trying to challenge for pole position. So it just made qualifying boring to watch.

This format completely failed to make qualifying more interesting, instead it just made it boring and took away most of the action. It was quickly dropped after two races, and the old qualifying format was restored.

I'll link to a YT video showing the highlights of the first qualifying session to use the format:

Ah yes, the elimination qualifying was ridiculous!

However, I think it's hard to beat the 1994 Caribbean Cup. This tournament resolved draws by using a special variant of the 'Golden Goal' rules: the first team to score would win, and it would count as two goals. This was intended to lead to a more intense and exciting game - which it did, but for entirely the wrong reasons.

In the final qualifying match, Barbados were facing Grenada - and they needed to win by at least two goals in order to qualify for the tournament (otherwise, Grenada would qualify). With seven minutes to go in the match, Barbados were leading 2-1: it wouldn't be enough for them to qualify. They could have tried for another goal to make it 3-1 - but then, somebody on the team realised something: if they drew 2-2, then they would have a chance of making it 4-2 by scoring again in extra time, when it would count as double. So, Barbados deliberately scored an own goal, in order to take the score to 2-2 . But then, the Grenadian players immediately realised that they could do the same thing - so, you had the ridiculous situation where Grenada were desperately trying to score an own goal, and Barbados were desperately trying to stop Grenada from scoring an own goal!

 

In the end, Barbados held on, and the score at the end of full time was 2-2. This meant the match continued into extra time....where Barbados were the first to score, thus getting the 4-2 victory they needed to qualify for the tournament.

Needless to say, this rule was never used again .