http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketb...t-problems

College hoops, on the other hand, continues to fight the stigma that its all-or-nothing month of March negates the importance of its regular season. Last year, Sports Business Journal reported that television viewership for college hoops continued to slide during the regular season.

Certainly that's not just a hoops problem; TV sports audiences are shrinking everywhere. The NFL saw a double-digit drop in viewership this past year and the numbers for this past Summer Olympics were significantly lower than for the 2012 Games in London.

One idea: crown a regular season champ in addition to the tournament champ. Might help a little.

(04-24-2017 09:45 PM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketb...t-problems

College hoops, on the other hand, continues to fight the stigma that its all-or-nothing month of March negates the importance of its regular season. Last year, Sports Business Journal reported that television viewership for college hoops continued to slide during the regular season.

Certainly that's not just a hoops problem; TV sports audiences are shrinking everywhere. The NFL saw a double-digit drop in viewership this past year and the numbers for this past Summer Olympics were significantly lower than for the 2012 Games in London.

As the article points out, it will always be difficult for college basketball to grab the limelight while the majority of college football is going on. But I don't think the college football playoffs have much effect on college basketball as so few college football teams and dates are involved.

Moving the opening night of college basketball to the Tuesday before the Friday night it currently starts on is a no-brainer good idea! And it would give a little more room to spread out the non-conference schedule for basketball which is really jammed up with two major holidays and final exams taking place before the first of the year when conference play starts.

I still maintain the best thing is to rate the conferences 1 to 30 whatever over the past 3 seasons using some understandable computer formula and give the regular season champion of the 16 highest rated leagues an auto bid regardless of whether they win their tournament or not (but they must play in the tournament and it will be considered in seeding).
The regular season champion of the top 8 rated conferences are assigned to a subregional (but not assigned a seed until the committee meets) before the season begins. So Big East might be assigned to Storrs Ct, Pac-12 to Anaheim, WCC to Seattle, etc.

Puts pressure on league 12-16 to hold their standing, 17-20 to get better. Clinching a regular season becomes important in the top half of conferences and those are the leagues that drive 95%+ of interest.

(04-24-2017 09:47 PM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  One idea: crown a regular season champ in addition to the tournament champ. Might help a little.

Don't they do that now? Doesn't the overall champ get a trophy and the tournament champion a trophy.

Not that I have seen.

(04-25-2017 07:54 PM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  Not that I have seen.

May be wrong, but I thought we got two trophies last season, one for the conference season, and one for the tournament. Maybe not.

(04-25-2017 09:57 PM)LRTrojan Wrote:  

(04-25-2017 07:54 PM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  Not that I have seen.

May be wrong, but I thought we got two trophies last season, one for the conference season, and one for the tournament. Maybe not.

I think you are correct, but I wouldn't swear to it.

Sorry. I was speaking of nationally. You may be right about the SBC.