When draft day comes to a sport, why is it that the worst team gets the 1st pick?

You cant get any better unless you work on your team. Getting first pick as a terrible team is a way of making them better.

An attempt to make teams more even

Exactly. If you make the good teams better and the bad teams worse, what sort of league would you have?

Yes and no one will want to watch it becasue the same team will win all the time.

They need the most help.

See, leagues value competitiveness, because that’s what brings in the revenue. If the good teams got all the good new players, the games would be pretty boring foregone conclusions. No one would attend, and nobody would make any money. Unless maybe you did some kind of schtick, like the Harlem Globetrotters.

So leagues try to help the worst teams get better, and the fastest way for them to get better is to get the best new talent. Of course, this doesn’t stop a lot of franchises from drafting the wrong players, or screwing it up even when they do draft the right ones, but then, there’s a reason why some teams stay good for a long time, and others stay bad for a long time. Although, I’m not at all sure which category the Red Sox belong in.

What @daloon said.

The categories seem to be great teams, good teams, okay teams, and cursed teams that will never be any good no matter how hard they try.

well… except in the nba… they use a lottery type format. the teams with the most losses the the most chances and sometimes teams go without getting a pick in the draft at all. this year it happened to the Orlando Magic.

@Darwin i wouldnt say cursed teams.. in the NFL the dolphins were 1–15 in 2007 and in 200 they were 10–6.

@Kiev749 – I really wasn’t thinking about the Dolphins. Or the NFL.

Its pretty hard to go back in time from 2007 to 200
@Kiev749

It’s called parity and is designed to allow weaker teams to draft potentially good players to help improve the team. It also supposedly keeps dynasties from developing. But the system obviously isn’t foolproof, since the dynastic teams like the Steelers and Patriots are consistently strong due to smart drafting, trading, and development of players by superb coaches and management.

@mountainman Go Patriots

@pats04fan ~ Yessir. The Steelers & Patriots are my favorite teams. I grew up in Pittsburgh and live in New England, so I love it when the Steelers and Patriots meet in AFC championship games, ‘cause I know one of my teams is going to the SuperBowl.