(07-25-2020 03:10 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(07-24-2020 05:05 PM)whittx Wrote:  

(07-24-2020 03:41 PM)sctvman Wrote:  It wasn’t until the 80s that they started deemphasizing the Ivy League on national TV. PBS had national Ivy League games in the late 80s with Sean McDonough on the call.

In ‘80, Yale-Harvard aired on 11/22, Dartmouth-Cornell on 10/25 as a deep regional game. Yale-Cornell aired on 11/3/79.

In ‘78 3 Ivy games aired, including Dartmouth-Princeton as a LEAD regional game on 11/18, including New York, Boston and Philadelphia.

The last year ABC had the solo CFB rights in 1981, a Navy-Yale game was their lead game one Saturday at noon. Dartmouth-Yale was their 2nd TV game.

In ‘82, Penn-Cornell was broadcast on 11/20 on ABC with Curt Gowdy on the call, along with Harvard-Holy Cross on 11/6.

In ‘83 Dartmouth-Penn aired on 11/19 as a regional game, the same weekend Holy Cross-BC aired.

Keep in mind that there were some deep regional D2 and D3 games in this package. I remember seeing a Cortaca Jug game in there at some point.

This is actually excellent evidence that a large percentage of fans are more interested in seeing student athletes than a de facto professional minor league with college names on their jerseys.

Is it though? That was in a near-monopoly situation. There were maybe four channels. You could watch the Cornell-Colgate game on Channel 2, you could watch the Million Dollar Movie on Channel 4, you could watch Gilligan's Island and Star Trek on Channel 7, you could watch Donahue on Channel 11, or you could turn off the TV.

If that large percentage of fans are interested in seeing student athletes, why aren't they streaming FCS or Division II games? Or, heck, Ivy League games?

Yes, state high school playoff games get local TV and decent ratings. But the idea that "oh people would watch college athetics more if it were less corrupt" doesn't really have a lot of evidence to support it.