How Did College Basketball Fall So Far? (TV Scheduling)

[throatybeard]

Men's college basketball is overexposed, not under-.

There's a reason that ESPN eventually moved the first Duke-UNC game after the Super Bowl. They use it to kick off "college basketball season for non-diehard college basketball fans." Most sports people pay attention for the last three weeks, the conference tournaments, and the NCAAT. Most casual people pay no attention before the NCAAT.

Nobody but us and the Vermont people will be watching our game tonight. Everyone else is watching the late afternoon NFL game in their market, and they don't even care if the game is in their market or not if their team played in the early slot.

[Grey Devil]

Mods Delete.

Found it. Thought it was at noon for some reason, but still, my complaint remains. This sport used to get major respect. There was none of that ESPN3 nonsense or in other words a blackout.

I graduated from Duke in 1971. For decades i couldn't see any ACC games, let alone Duke games, on TV, nor could I read box scores in the local newspaper, because I didn't live in the ACC market area. (Yes, newspapers were about our sole means of learning about the sports world then.) Now, not only can I see virtually every Duke basketball game through the wonders of technology (and also record them for later playback via my DVR for deeper analysis), even though I live thousands of miles away from Durham, I can go online and complain about it to hundreds or thousands(?) of fellow fans via the DBR when I can't see it live.

Some folks just don't know how good they've got it. Or how bad it once was.

(Don't take this the wrong way. I, too, am frustrated when I can't see every single game live on my huge flat screen TV with my audio system cranked way up to get the full effect of being in Cameron. I just think a dose of humility can be healthy now and then.)

[loran16]

Maybe I have just been a Duke fan for too long, but a non-top 25 college football game is worthless outside of local views, am I wrong? I just started actually caring about more than Alabama losing so that I wouldn't have to hear the phrase "Roll Tide" used in all sentences from some people(I don't even think they're really Alabama fans). Is Nascar still more popular than the early season tournaments? These are the best things going prior to conference play. Maybe my priorities are just out of place. It just feels weird seeing that Fox Sports has somehow found a slot for "Ultimate Dodgeball", but I have to rely on ESPN 3, Tru TV and HDNet to watch some good games (UNC could very well lose or we will surely win games).

PS Sadly this is not true. College football games between non-t25 teams, such as say MACtion on Tuesday nights gets better ratings than even good hoops games.

Hell, the belk bowl did ratings better than I think all but two Duke regular season bball games last year.

[Cameron]

...one of which was played in Alaska, with typical tipoff times of like 12:45 am Eastern.

The good old days. The Great Alaska Shootout was by far my favorite early-season tournament growing up because it meant that, when Duke played in it, I got to stay up practically all night to watch basketball. For a period of time, it was one of the better early-season tournaments period, regularly featuring the defending national champion and many of the game's most storied programs.

I get why the tournament lost its luster over the years -- who wants to go play a tournament at the North Pole when there are so many high-profile events being held today on tropical islands and other exotic locales -- but thinking about its heyday does make me nostalgic and I wish it was still as big as it once was.