For me, watching the NCAA basketball tournament is like watching the Lions: it’s occasionally frustrating, often inexplicable … and yet it draws me like Florida draws whiny football coaches. Okay, maybe not quite that much, but I am a sports fan. (Besides, I’m in a pool.)
Anyway, a few thoughts from the first few rounds of this year’s tournament:
- Obviously, CBS doesn’t highlight attendance deficits, but they also can’t always hide the empty seats. Even into the third round, I have been a bit surprised at the number of empty lower bowl seats. Last night, I had no problem spotting blocks of empty seats at the Ohio State/Tennessee game; tonight I’m seeing them at the Florida/Butler game. When do the games start drawing capacity crowds?
- At the beginning of the year, Ohio State freshman Greg Oden was hyped as one of the best player in the nation. I have a question for the more basketball-minded among us: is he really an elite player? The two times I’ve watched him play, he’s gotten in early foul trouble and played limited minutes, and his team won without him. For his sake, I hope those were isolated incidents.
- More generally, I dislike the offensive bias in basketball. Actually, I’m not too fond of it in most sports, but I’m watching basketball right now, so it’s on my mind. Most basketball fouls are a mystery to me anyway, but it bothers me to no end that defensive players are whistled for seemingly pedestrian bumps while offensive players are given the liberty of backing into a defender and creating space for a shot near the basket. Maybe there’s something I’m missing (likely), but it irks me nonetheless.
Apparently he did well tonight – I didn’t watch the game, but that’s what ESPN says.
Your hype talk reminds me of Shaq – he’s supposed to be this dominating force, but he plays only at the end of the season, and he seemed only a minor actor in the playoff games I watched (other than at the end, when teams decide to foul him).
The deal with the seats is sad. These games are almost all sold out. However, many of the fans are parents or just fans of a particular school and not basketball. These arenas are hosting multiple games and some of the people only show up to watch their favorite school, or son play. For instance if your son plays for say Georgia Tech and they play at 7 on Thursday of the first round, you might skip the afternoon games and show up at 7 and then end up going home after UNLV beats you instead of paying for a few extra hotel nights and meals. That leaves your seat empty for all the other games Thursday and then all the games Saturday as well.
I went to Tempe, AZ for the opening rounds sometime in the mid-90’s. Paul hit it on the head — you have to buy tickets for the entire weekend, and you can’t sell off individual games — it’s all or nothing. However, I do remember the second round games on Sunday were better attended, probably due to losing fans selling to fans of remaining teams that didn’t have tickets. I know I made out nicely selling to some Kansas Jayhawk fan for the last game (had to catch a flight). Highlight of my trip….seeing Steve Nash lead an upset, and seeing Lew Alcindor in the stands — his son played at Valparaiso or some such school.
From my perspective, that’s a lousy system. For the NCAA and the arenas, fine, technically, the games are sold out. But they’re really not sold out. That system benefits only the financially interested parties. And I’d say it really doesn’t help the teams much, having to play in front of crowds that are smaller than they should be.
I realize it would take more organizational effort, but would it really be prohibitively difficult to sell individual games instead of weekends? Or would that be less profitable? I’m really curious as to why they’ve settled on such an odd system, where they know a bunch of fans will have tickets they don’t want. Because, as Paul noted, many of the people who come to town for these games are partisans.