https://sports.vice.com/en_us/articl...ketball-league This should give us plenty to discuss during these slow off-season summer months.
https://sports.vice.com/en_us/articl...ketball-league This should give us plenty to discuss during these slow off-season summer months.
Sounds legit. What could go wrong?Quote:
Originally Posted by MHNOLADevil
Corruption.Quote:
Originally Posted by jacone21
unc might get involved?Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Green
Is there a reason to have the league tied to educational institutions? I may have missed it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by camion
Marketing.
No one will care, no one will watch and it will lose money.Quote:
Originally Posted by jacone21
Yes, as a revenue source for badly underfunded HBCUs.Quote:
Originally Posted by camion
This should make Bilas happy. He wants college players to be paid. The problem is that this effort will almost certainly fail demonstrating the folly of this approach. People watch college hoops mostly because of the amateur college connection. There isn't much of a market in the U.S. for minor league professional basketball.
Do they though? Sure we all do - we are on a Duke fan board. We have relationships with the university. But not every college basketball fan is affiliated with a college. Just look at all the Tar Heel fans who couldn't find Chapel Hill on a map, much less know anyone with a degree from there.Quote:
Originally Posted by hallcity
You might be right - this could fail. But I don't take for granted that college affiliation is a must for all fans. Especially given than some HBCU schools are in some dense urban areas that might rally around the idea.
Yes college revenue sports are built on affiliation with the school by alumni and other fans. My neighbor is a huge Clemson fan. His father and grandfather attended Clemson but he did not. Neither did his brother. Yet their entire family funds Clemson's athletic department and assembles at Death Valley for home football games. His kids grew up decked in orange attire but attend other schools. Yet they still bleed orange. All bigtime programs are funded similarly. This loyalty was built over many decades. The schools have been the constant. You can't recreate it instantly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15
Well said.Quote:
Originally Posted by lotusland
I did not attend Duke but I have lived & died with Duke 🏀 for over 50 years.
My son's team is Duke & my oldest niece is as diehard a Duke fan as you will find.
FWIW, 31+ million tickets to minor league baseball games were purchased in 2016. Some of those in cities not far from major league teams. The Dayton Dragons, a single A team, sold 548,000 tickets. Dayton is 45 minutes from Cincinnati, the major league team they are affiliated with.
Could this work? On a small level, yes. If the teams can keep overhead low such that they can break even on 1,000+ attendance. Howard University men's basketball averaged 1,285 per game in 2016.
Well it "could work" sure, there's a chance, but it's not a very good chance imo. Paying players $50,000 - $100,000 with benefits isn't a good start to keeping overhead low. Minor league baseball doesn't pay that well and it's extremely volitile with teams moving constantly. It's also the farm system supported by the big league teams. Sounds like the mastermind behind this hair brained scheme has an agenda other than making a profit. Perhaps Bilas will invest to help proove that talented players are the key to big time college sports. I predict they will actually be the ones who learn a valuable and expensive lesson.Quote:
Originally Posted by YmoBeThere
Two me it is a question of getting buy in from fans and from players, and which comes first.
Players at that age have hopes of being in the NBA. If you are making $50k for a year or two, but no one is watching you aren't building your brand/draft stock. Kids want to be in packed arenas and on national TV.
Fans want to watch good basketball. The only way I see fans showing up or tuning in is if "one and done" style talent that will be on display at the next level is on the floor. I find it difficult to believe that if this new league had players of one and done caliber that basketball fans wouldn't watch.
Sure, most of us have affiliation with Duke of a degree or two, but I also tune in to watch the Warriors. Never lived in the Bay Area, no Duke players on that roster (closest thing would be Livingston), no family connections with San Francisco or Golden State. I just enjoy good basketball, and I don’t think I am unique in that.
For me, the problem is that it is usually not good basketball! Heck, most college games are not good basketball. To posit that you begin by diluting the talent pool by adding more teams and then expect to turn out a quality product that will attract paying fans is the dream of someone smoking wacky tobaccy! :cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15
Well, if it isn't good basketball, then sure, people won't watch. But, if top players buy in and head to these schools for these opportunities it changes quickly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Indoor66
As someone who has been saying for a few years that the NCAA may be in danger of losing revenue sports at big colleges (especially with the pending UNC case) , I will be watching this development with interest.
College (revenue) sports is heading towards professional sports. I don’t like it, but it feels like a freight train heading down the tracks.
I admittedly have a harder time getting emotionally attached to Duke teams post-2001. The further college sports goes down this road, the more my interest wanes.
It just feels inevitable. And, I have say I am impressed with HBCU schools coming up with a creative solution.
This league is not going to resemble Golden State or even a bad NBA team. They'll be like an average Kentucky team at best minus the top coaches and facilities. Most importantly they'llQuote:
Originally Posted by Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15
Be no big blue nation of fans to watch or Louisville fans to watch in order to root against them. The games will be less entertaining than European league games and D league games you are already not watching.
I clearly wasn't comparing this new experiment with GSW on talent - I was pointing out that I, like my others, enjoy quality Ball.Quote:
Originally Posted by lotusland
Much like Stephen43, I long for $20 shoes, $15 tickets, and an 8 team ACC that plays most games on Saturday afternoons. But a new era is coming one way or another. And I salute HBCUs for out of box thinking.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15
clever