The Kentucky Wildcats are college hoops’ biggest brand (sorry Duke, you know it’s true). If John Calipari keeps the pipeline of McDonald’s All-Americans coming every year, and coaches them into more national championships, they could become to college basketball what Notre Dame, Nebraska and Oklahoma were in the 1970s.
Unfortunately, people outside of these four states: Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas and Indiana, just DO NOT CARE about college basketball until March, or maybe mid February.
That’s sad, but so true.
THEY DO NOT CARE
College basketball is a victim of its own success in regards to its postseason. When you have the best postseason by far in all of sports….well, it’s really hard to get people to care about the regular season. The NBA and hockey struggle with this too right now.
Between food and shopping, football is the only sport people will make time for during the holiday season in November and December. When conference play begins in January, there is much more interest in the sport.
Apathy runs amok during the pre-conference, and scheduling, is a big reason why. No one wants to watch their power five conference team waste time pummeling a low-major or mid-major.
Most of the pre-conference games are de facto preseason contests. However, the sport is doing a really good job of changing that.
The steps that college hoops has taken here are really underrated and underappreciated
The Kentucky Wildcats are doing their part and more to aid in this effort. UK are playing in yet another early season double-header showcase. UK, Ohio State, South Florida and Memphis. The Kentucky Wildcats will take on USF on Thanksgiving weekend at the home of the Miami Heat.
Big Blue takes on all comers, and they play on the biggest stages. The Kentucky Wildcats are in ESPN’s “Champions Classic” with Michigan State, Duke and Kansas. They’re also a part of the CBS Sports Classic with UCLA, North Carolina and Ohio State.
It’s just going to take time for the names of these events to stick in the public consciousness. People still don’t know/recall what the Champions Classic or the CBS Sports Classic is, but they know the Big Ten/ACC Challenge.
That’s been around for 17 years already and it was the first of these made-for-TV by television networks non-conference showcase events. College basketball needs as many of these as possible.
ESPN has two and CBS has one. Now Fox Sports and NBC Sports have to throw their hat into the ring. The latter two networks don’t have as many college hoops broadcast rights as the former two. The packages they do have are lower quality too.
Fox has the Big East, and although that league is not what it once, it still has plenty of brand appeal with Georgetown and Villanova. Maybe they can do one with Georgetown, Indiana, Arizona and Texas? NBC could have Maryland, Florida, North Carolina and Syracuse.
Throw some more teams into the mix: Wisconsin, Michigan, get Duke to play in a second one. You get the idea here.
If the Kentucky Wildcats can play in three of these showcases, there’s no reason to think other teams can’t do the same.
The more of these the better. And the more interest will be created in the sport.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and sometimes writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. The website is also featured on News Now.
Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye. He also appears regularly on numerous television and radio talk shows all across the country. Catch him Tuesdays on KOZN 1620 The Zone.
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