The league has announced that it’s cracking down on tampering. Any team guilty of wrongdoing can now get fined up to $10 million and lose draft picks. Executives can be suspended and contracts voided. Five franchises will also be randomly selected to have their communications with agents and rival executives audited, among other measures.
It’s hard to be against any of those changes. No one likes blatant tampering, after all. Still, it’s naive to think the new rules will be able to prevent the type of abuses they are designed to stomp out.
The league probably knows that, but is going through with the measures anyway because it desperately needed to address the tampering concerns growing among the media and fans.