Tanking in sports refers to the practice of intentionally fielding non-competitive teams to take advantage of league rules that benefit losing teams.[1] This is a much more common practice in American sports that utilize closed leagues than in open sports leagues in other nations, which typically penalize poor performers using a promotion and relegation system, in which the worst teams after each season are sent to a lower-tiered league and replaced with that league's best teams. Relegation costs teams revenue and makes it more difficult for them to attract top talent, making tanking unfeasible. Tanking teams are usually seeking higher picks in the next draft, since league rules generally give the highest draft picks to the previous season's worst teams. Teams that decide to start tanking often do so by trading away star players in order to reduce payroll and bring in younger prospects.[2] While the terms tanking and rebuilding are sometimes used interchangeably, there are differences between the two concepts.[3][4]
Tanking is differentiated from actions taken to achieve a pre-determined result in a specific contest, usually for the purposes of sports betting, thus violating the rules of the game, along with laws, which is more specifically deemed as match fixing.
- ^ Obi, Samuel (April 1, 2020). "Tanking: The NBA's Pressing Issue". Samford University. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
- ^ Sheinin, Dave (March 2, 2018). "No longer sports' dirty little secret, tanking is on full display and impossible to contain". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
- ^ Ziller, Tom (3 July 2013). "Rebuilding is not tanking". SB Nation. Archived from the original on 12 November 2020. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
- ^ Snyder, Matt (9 June 2016). "Sniffing out the difference between rebuilding and tanking among MLB teams". CBSSports.com. Archived from the original on 11 June 2016. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
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