Devin Williams - WVU to the NBA
- Thread starter Bret44
- Start date
http://www.ncaa.com/news/ncaa/artic...nt-has-highest-average-viewership-22-yearsThe 2015 tourney was the highest rated tourney in 22 years. TV ratings from pre cable days shouldn't even be compared to modern ratings. There literally was only two other shows on. That doesn't mean there are less fans NOW, just less options THEN.
The NBA will not go back to letting high school kids into their league so it's pointless to advocate for it.
So we ignore the fact that most people called THIS a down year because there were no well know superstars or uber elite teams despite the fact that it was called "The Year of the Seniors"?
So the guy with his finger on the pulse of the sport doesn't even remember what class one of the best players in our conference is in?
I'm not an old **** like you but I'm not young. You used to be tolerable. Now you're just annoying.
No, I'd say the pulse would be guys like Kelly Oubre, Andrew Wiggins and your latest buy, Josh Jackson. Williams is just a solid journeyman guy, who will be soon forgotten after ending up with Rodney McGruder in Sioux Falls or some such playing for $25k a year.
In the 2013-2014 season, ESPN aired 586 regular season college basketball games and averaged more than 500,000 viewers over that slate of games. Pardon my shaky math but that's 293 MILLION viewers, correct? That record setting 24.1 rating for the '79 title game? It registered an average of 35 million households. You really think there were 258 million viewers of games the rest of the 1979 season? Get real. More people are watching college basketball games now than ever before. The tourney has become such a phenomenon. TV ratings for big games such as the ncaa tourney and the Super Bowl also do not take into account the huge number of people that watch at parties or at sports bars. Relying on Nielson ratings to make your argument is antiquated and proves nothing other than that you need to catch up with the times.
Wanting the game to be like 35 years ago when all but a very tiny fraction of high school players were even remotely prepared to play and impact the college game as freshmen is dumb. It is a totally different animal now than it was back then. Kids are way more prepared to play in college right away now. I'd guess that between AAU, high school and all star tourneys that kids play more games in their last year or two of high school than kids in the 70s did in their entire high school careers.
To this day Durrant and Beasley were two of my favorite opposing players to watch for their year of college. Players like that make the game better.
You win an argument that I wasn't part of, congratulations. Straw mans are meant to work like that. Kudos.
"The NBA rule is making college basketball but a shadow of its once glorious self, when Bird and Magic ruled the airwaves. Now, we're left to a bunch of journeymen plus one&doners just past their high school prom. Really sad, what's become of college hoops, relegated to TNT, which is ironic in some ways, since that's where the NBA plays and no one watches them either." Did you not post this? Ironic that you ignored that Magic was a sophomore and Bird was a junior...
Yes, you should read the rest of the thread. And your point is amongst the weakest made anyway. The fact they are higher quality basketball players than yesterday only points out why the college game is less interesting today than before, on a relative basis.
As I recall, the K-State v. Arkansas bowl game had TV ratings about triple the blue blood match between Ku and UK basketball.
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You mean more people in this country watch football? That's crazy! Surely that is only a recent phenomenon thanks to the eroding of the quality of the sport due to players leaving early, right? Wait, you mean that there has ALWAYS been more football fans than basketball fans? What is this blasphemy you speak!
What? There's a difference between the senior stars being guys who weren't good enough to get drafted earlier, like this year, and 80's-early 90's when you had junior and senior stars who were there because that's just how long almost everyone stayed.
If you want to make the argument that having better players playing together longer wouldn't result in better basketball, well good luck. Just look at Perry Ellis, he was a star by default because a lot of better KU players came and went while he stayed. If he's on a team with McLemore, Wiggins and Embiid, he's not going to be the focal point.
I don't care, either. It's a slow day and Surly is selectively remembering the "good old days".