It’s been a long time since college basketball was at the center of sports conversations.
Photo: John Biever / Sports Illustrated via Getty Images
Imagine if the fate of a Major League Baseball team were directly tied to that of an NFL team that plays in the same city. In this scenario, if the New York Giants decided to move to Connecticut, the Yankees would have to do the same. This arrangement would also impact the network you watched Yankees games on, as well as the team’s budget and possibly even its opponent list. (We better hope the Patriots move to the same conference as the Giants, or… no more games against the Red Sox!) Does this seem like a good position for the Yankees, or for Major League Baseball, to be in going forward? Does this seem like a league that is well-positioned for long-term success, or one that has real control over its future?
That’s how college basketball fans feel lately. In an era of constant realignments and radical shifts in priorities at universities and television networks, the sport, which begins its new season Monday, seems to be losing more and more importance with each passing year. Some of its wounds are self-inflicted; for example, a high turnover rate makes it somewhat inhospitable to fans. But the more existential problem is the chaos that reigns in the sport. college footballwhich has shaken up the entire college sports landscape, and not in a good way.
As NCAA and television executives (It is difficult to distinguish the two now) were shaking up college football until every penny dropped, which shows how little they cared about anything else. Men’s and women’s basketball are typically the second and third highest-grossing college sports, but they’re so far behind football that they’re almost irrelevant to executives. Top 50 Revenue Generating College Sports Teams Last year, only one team, the No. 48 Duke men’s basketball team, wasn’t a football team. (The University of Illinois football team, which this alumnus will tell you has been consistently both awful and unwatchable for nearly 40 years, brought in more revenue last year than all the college basketball teams in the country.) The leadership made every decision with one sport in mind. And that approach left college basketball largely in tatters, trying to figure out how to rebuild.
The geographic disparities caused by realignment have led to some odd conference matchups in college football: Illinois vs. Oregon, Stanford vs. Boston College, and so on. But at least those teams only play one game a week, so they have plenty of time to travel and prepare. In college basketball (and all other college sports, of course), there are multiple games a week; if you thought Rutgers-UCLA was odd, you’ll be particularly baffled by California-Clemson on a Tuesday night in February. More to the point: Student-athletes (almost all of whom are in college primarily to earn a degree, not to prepare for a professional sports career) are being dragged across the country in the middle of the school year for games that aren’t major television events that the networks pay top dollar for.
The relentless focus on the bottom line has forced college basketball to justify its existence to television networks in a way that seems deeply damaging to the sport. The only real moneymaker in college basketball is the NCAA Tournament, aka March Madness, aka the thing that everyone pays attention to even if they haven’t watched a game all year. The appeal of the NCAA Tournament has long been driven by underdogs and upsets; the main draws of the event are (a) its bracket and (b) the fact that a nowhere school like Fairleigh Dickinson or Northwestern State can have a moment on the national stage. The new world, where television ratings are the only thing that matters, could well disrupt both. The super conferences that emerged amid the great realignment of college sports have begun lobbying the NCAA not only to expand the tournament to 96 teams — to provide more TV inventory, of course — but also to focus on more bids for the big leagues rather than the smaller ones, in an effort to promote the biggest brands. (The current fight over the NIT, the consolation tournament, is largely devoted to this question.) These are selfish measures intended only to increase audiences, which are nevertheless so important.
Cost may be the very soul of the tournament. Television executives don’t care about the long-term health of college basketball. They’re just trying to burden it financially in a system rigged against everyone but football. But with the sport at such a low point, there’s no one in a strong position to fight the vultures.
And make no mistake, he’s at a low point. The average sports fan is increasingly focused on the NBA and often only pays attention to college basketball to keep up with upcoming draft picks. But ESPN predicts that one of the four best hopes Players in the upcoming NBA draft will even play college basketball this year, despite the one-and-done rule meant to push more players to play college basketball. Then there’s the style of the college game, which has increasingly drifted away from the NBA. As the NBA moves away from traditional big men, those big men remain in college basketball and dominate, but they make the game even more radically different from the pros. Only one player on the preseason All-American team — Duke’s Kyle Filipowski — is projected to be a first-round pick. The only thing that was supposed Bronny James, LeBron’s son and a highly regarded NBA prospect, was the first to play for USC. But his heart condition could keep him out of the team all season; he still hasn’t been able to practice. It’s very possible that your most die-hard NBA fan friend can’t name a single college basketball player this year. That’s not good.
Men’s basketball’s decline in visibility is happening at the very moment women’s college basketball is experiencing a cultural moment, thanks to the kind of high-profile figures not found anywhere on the men’s side. Iowa’s Caitlin Clark had her full-on crossover moment at last year’s Final Four, helping to propel the sport to unprecedented, if not near, heights. surpass TV ratings for men’s tournament. But she’s not exactly the big name in women’s basketball: LSU’s Angel Reese (who had a fun and spicy moment with Clark in the title game last yearthe kind of thing that was also missing from men’s hoops) has the potential be even bigger than Clarkand that’s not even counting the sport’s marquee coaches, from South Carolina’s Dawn Staley to LSU’s Kim Mulkey to the sport’s ultimate villain, Connecticut’s Geno Auriemma. And those players, along with Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers and Stanford’s Cameron Brink, will be heading straight to the WNBA, already famous and beloved by millions of fans. That’s what the men’s game used to be like.
This won’t stop Caitlin Clark or any other college basketball player from having to travel across the country on a Tuesday night in the middle of the school year, simply because television executives wanted the same system for football. And that’s the problem with college basketball: It has no control over itself. It has to do what football tells it to do. I say all this with sadness. love college basketball: You’re reading someone who spent their Sunday night screaming at their television while A exposure college basketball gameI am a loyal fan of the sport who will watch no matter what. But there aren’t many fans like me left. Right now, I’m just trying to enjoy a sport I love while I still can. But if the sport continues to suffer from the sins of college football, I may soon find myself alone.
