What are the viewership figures without a Cinderella team? The South owns the tournament this season.
OT: Viewership numbers?
- Thread starter Mr_Twister
- Start date
Record highs. People don’t want cinderella, they want the top teams. 4 1-seeds in the final 4 is unreal, possibly the strongest final four in history.
Maybe not …
“There are a couple of caveats there, as CBS was the sole broadcaster for the tournament until 2011 and Nielsen didn’t include out-of-home ratings in its totals until a few years ago.”
Comments from a potshot artist. The world did not start in 1990.
I'm fine if it thrives in its new form. It might just give me a lot of time back to pursue other interests, though. It's certainly saving me some money on season tickets.
To me, though, it's the free transfer era, not the NIL era.
I am officially out. I didnt watch a minute of the games this weekend and wont watch the rest of the way.
You missed out. While the games haven't all been the closest, there has been some high level ball played.
I didn't watch the game that busted my bracket, Duke beating Alabama.
I tried early on but then got turned off when announcers were talking about where the rosters of the teams came from. I tuned in to Alabama and BYU to watch Mag and Cliff and that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Was leaning towards not renewing, but watching Alabama take 80% of their 3 point attempts beyond the line and knowing it is the right way to play is just too big of a turn off for me.
I will peak at this board and may watch RU hoops games or may not. I could also go cold turkey like I have done with college football.
Forgetting the transfer rules and NIL, the game has been changing. Some like it, but I don't. How you defend the 3 point line and how you shoot the 3 point shot has become SO important. So much screening is done 20+ feet from the basket to try and get a long shot off. This isn't basketball.
I'll watch hockey in the winter and baseball, with torpedo bats, in the summer.
its absolutely sickening and everyone is pretending like this is normal and that players deserve all this money because they were taken advantage of for so many years blah blah blah
schools literally have no players or maybe 1 or 2 coming back...they are filling out rosters with a checkbook and players who are moving from one place to the next each season with the price tag now the most important selling point on getting them to a school.
this is like the third season of this and we have reached a point of no return, they will never be able to put restrictions back on players. Good luck if you think the settlement is a start to get a hold of this. RIP College hoops. Its pathetic what we are seeing right now.....oooh and dont ask what the players are making...you have no right to know it......hahahaha what a joke
schools literally have no players or maybe 1 or 2 coming back...they are filling out rosters with a checkbook and players who are moving from one place to the next each season with the price tag now the most important selling point on getting them to a school.
this is like the third season of this and we have reached a point of no return, they will never be able to put restrictions back on players. Good luck if you think the settlement is a start to get a hold of this. RIP College hoops. Its pathetic what we are seeing right now.....oooh and dont ask what the players are making...you have no right to know it......hahahaha what a joke
It’s bad professional basketball if we are being honest.
I watched the college hockey tourney which was great. Psu/uconn unreal game
Ok . What does this mean ?
Will you still post here to tell us you’re out ? Are you done watching Rutgers ?
It is what it is. Hopefully, there will eventually be some oversight, but it’s not in the immediate future.
You are free to not watch or not do bracket analysis. No one is forcing that on you. There are other hobbies or entertainment options. Why choose to subject yourself to college basketball if it’s sickening to you ?
Who knows....
I like JaMike and Ogbole so they may keep me sucked in a little.
College basketball has changed. Many don't like and will leave. Many don't mind and still enjoy it. New fans will replace the old ones. It's just the way the world works. College basketball isn't disappearing.
Ratings and attendance are still great.
I don't get why people are crying about this. If you don't like it just don't watch.
Ratings and attendance are still great.
I don't get why people are crying about this. If you don't like it just don't watch.
All the "I'm not watching the tourney because of roster turnover" is fake.
Unless you can name Auburns 2023-2024 starting lineup and the changes to this year - then what does roster turnover have to do with watching tournament games?
"I was going to watch Ole Miss - Texas Tech but a bunch of guys who I had no idea about left those schools and replaced with other guys I had no idea about. So I'm not watching. As a Rutgers fans, I was emotionally attached to last years Texas Tech players."
Rutgers being terrible is the #1 reason (by a long shot) to people disinterest in CBB and the tournament.
minor leagues like baseball where players are paid and disappear if they don't show improvement.
The biggest irony is that it seems many of the most vocal people who said:
- "The players don't deserve to be paid. It's the name on the front. Players are replaceable. The name on the back has no value without the name on the front"
- "I'm not watching anymore if the names on the back keep changing. I don't care that the name on the front is still the same. I want the specific names on the back to stay the same. I get value from that"
So which is it?
Oh - with the obvious caveat that only the good names stay the same.
Don't actually want all the players. Just the good ones to stay.
The bad ones need to change.
So we can obviously bring in other teams good names (like Cam Spencer).
Those other teams don't get to keep their good players.
Don't actually want all the players. Just the good ones to stay.
The bad ones need to change.
So we can obviously bring in other teams good names (like Cam Spencer).
Those other teams don't get to keep their good players.
They better show improvement and production pretty quick. Some of these NIL deals will be for longer terms with buyout clauses. The guys footing these bills are a lot smarter than the people negotiating them for the players. Ultimately they will win out.
These sound like takes from someone who is a relatively new Rutgers basketball fan, from an era where we've been somewhat competitive.
I've been watching the tournament each year since middle school in 1991... which was years before I enrolled at Rutgers or cared about Rutgers at all. In my time as a Rutgers fan, we have appeared just twice.... Rutgers being terrible hasn't previously impacted my interest in CBB or the tournament.
Reductionist.
The players do deserve to be paid, imo - I'm pro-NIL.
The "you play for the name on the front of the jersey, not the one on the back" concept means it's not about your individual ego as a player, but the success of the wider team. It's not about player replaceability, but self sacrifice for the good of the group. Players are part of a whole, and the whole is more than the sum of its parts. "The 'we' is stronger than the 'me'", "a fist is stronger than five fingers", etc.
But the concept of a "program" had been that each year you lose a couple of guys to graduation and pick up a couple of newcomer freshmen. There had always been occasional transfers out/in, but most players left through graduation and most new players came in from HS. Most of the "team" carried over year to year, and roleplayers became leaders as they grew within the program.
That's what drew me to college basketball - seeing guys through from the recruiting process, experiencing their growing pains, watching them develop and grow into leaders, and sending them off on senior day. The team became almost like a parasocial extended family - where you would cheer their successes and lament their failures, but appreciate the 4-5 years they spent on the Banks. And on the other bench, there were established "villains" that you'd see every year until they mercifully graduated, who you would root against and speculate how the newcomers might match up with them.
The changes to the transfer rules seem to have ended all of that. It feels like we're heading into an era of NBA-lite... which some people will love, don't get me wrong. The NBA makes a ton of money and has rabid fans... just not me.
I've always loved the first two rounds of the tournament, and schedule time off each year on Thursday/Friday of the first week. This year was as dull as dirt in the early rounds, and I found myself getting distracted by other chores in the house instead of swapping between games.
Things may change over the next few years... but they probably won't. I'll just have more free time during Dec-Apr, and my wife will be happy we won't have to schedule things around basketball.
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I've never claimed to know what will get ratings. Games were boring to me, sure... but some movies I've found boring were blockbusters. I'll say I was not the target audience for the product that has been broadcast this year.
The NBA is still popular, but ratings have been continuing to drop. Silver is having some sleepless nights that's for sure. It's just a bad product now. Seeing guys jack threes all game with a compete level that is pretty weak just isn't brining in or keeping new viewers. They are lucky the last commish and RU grad was smart enough to see China as a money source.
All fair points. But weren’t you heavily interested in our season back in November , when you knew the Rutgers roster was going to turnover in March with two guys that weren’t even going to finish 2 semesters here?
Ok two separate followups:
#1. If Rutgere had won this year with Ace/Dylan on their way out before even arriving and all the transfers, how excited and interested would you have been? Say they made the Sweet 16
There are 4 outcomes for winning/veterans and I'd wager this is the priority for most:
1. Win with program veterans
2. Win with "mercenaries"
3. Lose with program veterans
4. Lose with program "mercenaries".
This season was a 4. But could have easily been a 2 and then all this "disinterest" would be gone.
#2 If the Rutgers specific issues aren't the cause, then why the disinterest in the tournament? Why was it boring?
I can't imagine Rutgers fans caring if Flordia or Texas Tech had massive roster turnover.
As the poster said, that is to be expected. Just not the whole kit and kaboodle.
Because for most programs it's not sustainable.
And that's why it's probably going to be all #1 seeds (or close to it) for the Final Four from now on. So if it ain't you, its boring.
Let’s be honest , most fans here are complaining because Rutgers stinks and with NIL there doesn’t appear to be much hope on the horizon . If Rutgers was playing in the final 4 this weekend, people wouldn’t be whining here. Most of them would be packing for Texas
Interested enough to have season tickets, but less than prior years. It was hard to get invested in the team this year with so many new faces and so little carryover. The deterioration of transfer rules has been steadily getting worse (April of last year saw the last vestiges of them erased).
My last deeply invested season was 2022-23. I was really excited at the end of the season for the prospects of 2023-24.... then Spencer/Mulcahy bounced, and interest deflated. At the end of 2024, I was interested to see how Harper/Bailey would lift the team... but the loss of Omoruyi/Mag/Simpson/Woolfolk dampened that.
Still, I'd hoped we would carry at least 6 of 7 possible guys into next year. We're down to just 4 already, with more possible departures to come.
People whined when Cinderellas Florida Atlantic and San Diego State were in the Final Four a couple of years ago. Now they're whining because the Final Four are all 1 seeds. No pleasing some people.
Nah - you’ll watch. I’m near certain of it.
We both know Pike’s gonna be recruiting
defense and under appreciated kids. He’ll no longer be making decisions based on keeping the one and done (or 2 and done hopefuls like GG) that you can’t stand happy. In fact, I’ll take it a step further. In a sense, our roster will probably represent the antithesis of (possibly even an outcry against) everything you now hate about what college basketball has become.
For this reason, I’m going to double down here and predict you’ll not only watch, but you’ll probably enjoy the season more than you have the past 2 - win or lose. The change will be refreshing for you…
