Changing the College BBall Schedule - Bring on May Madness!

[Not A Serious Person]

Bring on May Madness
Erik Buchinger - February 11, 2019
http://deceptivespeed.com/fixing-the-college-basketball-schedule/

College basketball overlaps with the NFL and college football far too much, and it shouldn’t be that way. Every weekend is dominated by football from Labor Day through the first week of February. America loves football. It’s what we do. Instead of trying to fight it by doing the same thing year after year, college basketball should make a drastic change to its schedule.

College basketball starts in early November and ends in early April. A five-month season essentially turns into a one-month season because it spent the majority of its time competing with a superior product.

Start the college basketball regular season on the first Thursday after New Years. College basketball did a great job opening the season with a bang this year with the Champions Classic involving some of the top programs in the country. Do that exact same thing to create some buzz right out of the gate.

The first month of the season should be dedicated to the non-conference portion of the schedule. Die hards hoops junkies will be watching the Big Ten-ACC Challenge and other exciting non-conference events, but by the time we get to life post-Super Bowl, we’ll be ready to roll with conference play.

But what about our beloved March Madness? To hell with your March Madness. It’s May Madness now.

[tower912]

I would rather they switch the Super Bowl to Saturday.   If we are just talking  random ideas to start a conversation.

[Not A Serious Person]

I would rather they switch the Super Bowl to Saturday.   If we are just talking  random ideas to start a conversation.

So then we are into June Madness?

[brewcity77]

So then we are into June Madness?

By playing the Super Bowl a day earlier?

[Not A Serious Person]

Misread, I thought he meant to start the college bball season the day after the Superbowl

[GooooMarquette]

If it ain’t broke....

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

Why compete with the NBA playoffs?

[Galway Eagle]

Why compete with the NBA playoffs?

This plus NHL playoffs. Plus every school that isn't on quarters will have finals and graduations to deal with. I'd be pissed if it was between seeing my school in the final four or even elite 8 vs attending my graduation. I could see an argument moving the start back one month but not more than that.

[Not A Serious Person]

This plus NHL playoffs. Plus every school that isn't on quarters will have finals and graduations to deal with. I'd be pissed if it was between seeing my school in the final four or even elite 8 vs attending my graduation. I could see an argument moving the start back one month but not more than that.

But you're ok with your college football team's bowl game conflicting with winter finals and December graduation?

[Not A Serious Person]

Why compete with the NBA playoffs?

This plus NHL playoffs.

But it is ok to compete with the last few weeks of the college football season, the entire bowl season, the national championship, the end of the NFL season and some of the NFL playoffs?

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

But it is ok to compete with the last few weeks of the college football season, the entire bowl season, the national championship, the end of the NFL season and some of the NFL playoffs?

The Tournament doesn’t compete with anything. And that’s where college basketball makes its coin. Why have the most valuable part of the season compete with multiple other sports for the sake of a less valuable part?

[Galway Eagle]

But you're ok with your college football team's bowl game conflicting with winter finals and December graduation?

Literally couldn't give 2 crapes about CFB. Also haven't a decent amount of schools gotten rid of December graduation and just tell people they'll walk in spring?

Also doesn't bowl season start the week after most finals let out?

[tower912]

Seriously, though, don't change it.  It is part of the marking of the changing of the season.   And for me, all football is something that fills time between baseball and college basketball season.  Something I watch when nothing else is on and there isn't anywhere I have to be.   Waiting an extra 6-8 weeks would be torture.

[wadesworld]

But it is ok to compete with the last few weeks of the college football season, the entire bowl season, the national championship, the end of the NFL season and some of the NFL playoffs?

So compete with 40 meaningless college football bowl games and then a couple hours on Saturday and Sunday vs. competing with games every night throughout the entire week.  Tough choice.

[SqueallyDRyan]

College football does nothing to distract me from college hoops. Keep it the way it is.

[HowardsWorld]

They are already going up against opening day in baseball this year during the Sweet 16 games with MLB starting a few days earlier this year. Not sure how that is going to affect the viewers but it will. Opening day for baseball is very important across the country. As someone who is a die hard baseball fan this is almost like a National Holiday for me.

[Cheeks]

This is beyond dumb and ignores the realities of the tv sports schedule where all the money comes from.

So what if preseason college b-ball games overlap with college bowl games....a giant yawn.  College basketball owns March....owns it.  In May the would go up against NBA playoffs, baseball is underway, NHL playoffs, PGA in full swing.  Silly by any stretch.

Most college bowl games start after finals, so that is a red herring.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

But you're ok with your college football team's bowl game conflicting with winter finals and December graduation?

1. I don't give a rat's behind about college football
2. A college football bowl game is a single game, not a tournament
3. I think 99% of graduations and finals are completed before all but the first day of bowl games (there's a specific delay between the end of the season and bowl games to allow for finals/graduation)
4. December graduation is a lot smaller than spring graduation

[HowardsWorld]

This is beyond dumb and ignores the realities of the tv sports schedule where all the money comes from.

So what if preseason college b-ball games overlap with college bowl games....a giant yawn.  College basketball owns March....owns it.  In May the would go up against NBA playoffs, baseball is underway, NHL playoffs, PGA in full swing.  Silly by any stretch.

Most college bowl games start after finals, so that is a red herring.

Exactly. I love college basketball and am not really a fan of the NBA. I feel there is a giant divide when it comes to college basketball vs NBA. You like one or the other not both. But I am a realist and if they think March Madness could go up against the NBA playoffs they are going to get smoked. In terms of advertisement dollars there is no chance a company spends the kind of money on commercials they do in march if they are competing with the NBA playoffs.

[MU82]

Zero percent chance of happening.

Might as well have posted an article headlined, "Unicorns should replace humans as college basketball players," and asked us to discuss it.

[Cheeks]

Exactly. I love college basketball and am not really a fan of the NBA. I feel there is a giant divide when it comes to college basketball vs NBA. You like one or the other not both. But I am a realist and if they think March Madness could go up against the NBA playoffs they are going to get smoked. In terms of advertisement dollars there is no chance a company spends the kind of money on commercials they do in march if they are competing with the NBA playoffs.

The divide is real.  We have done plenty of customer overlays during the years of ncaa b-ball fans vs nba, the overlap isn’t very strong.....significantly smaller than college football and nfl overlap.  NBA and ncaa hoops is just a different game played on same court, and a large percentage of fans of one aren’t hopped up over the other.  However, as you state, the college fan will pay attention mildly to the NBA come playoff time....they don’t during reg season.  No need to split their viewing priorities...this is just a very bad idea all the way around.  NEVER going to happen. NEVER.

[frozena pizza]

Yeah, pretty weak argument.  There is minimal overlap since college football is essentially over in early December with the conference championship games.  Then it's a bunch of meaningless bowl games until the few that actually draw a national audience for a few days around New Years.

As for the NFL, sure it owns January...for a few hours on Saturdays and Sundays for the handful of teams that are still playing.  And it's popularity is declining. 

College hoops slots in perfectly as it starts at the end of baseball season, ramps up as the football is ending and then finishes before the NBA and NHL playoffs and the Masters and just as MLB starts up again.

[Not A Serious Person]

This is beyond dumb and ignores the realities of the tv sports schedule where all the money comes from.

So what if preseason college b-ball games overlap with college bowl games....a giant yawn.  College basketball owns March....owns it.  In May the would go up against NBA playoffs, baseball is underway, NHL playoffs, PGA in full swing.  Silly by any stretch.

Most college bowl games start after finals, so that is a red herring.

So, go to 96 teams and add another week to the tournament?

[Cheeks]

So, go to 96 teams and add another week to the tournament?

I don’t mind expansion, but get rid of NIT if you do that.  Most will be against this idea....that’s fine.

[Not A Serious Person]

So compete with 40 meaningless college football bowl games and then a couple hours on Saturday and Sunday vs. competing with games every night throughout the entire week.  Tough choice.

Except those meaningless bowl games will get better TV rating than this weekend's Duke/UNC game.

[HowardsWorld]

I don’t mind expansion, but get rid of NIT if you do that.  Most will be against this idea....that’s fine.

If you are going to expand it should be literally all mid majors that they add. I hate that schools that go 29-5 miss out because they lose there championship game yet a team thats 18-15 makes it from a big conference.

Stories like George Mason, Loyola etc are what make march madness great. I wonder how many more we could have had if they just let the small school in instead of a power 5 team who had 30 games to show they dont belong.

[Cheeks]

If you are going to expand it should be literally all mid majors that they add. I hate that schools that go 29-5 miss out because they lose there championship game yet a team thats 18-15 makes it from a big conference.

Stories like George Mason, Loyola etc are what make march madness great. I wonder how many more we could have had if they just let the small school in instead of a power 5 team who had 30 games to show they dont belong.

Fine with me, I have long argued this here going back 10 years.

[frozena pizza]

Except those meaningless bowl games will get better TV rating than this weekend's Duke/UNC game.

Except not really.  The first meeting of Duke / UVA had a 2.3 rating.  Well below the major bowl games but equal to the 12th highest bowl game (tied with Wiscy / Miami) and above 28 other bowls.  Not bad for an early January matchup.  Also shows that the argument that nobody cares about college hoops until March just isn't true.

[Not A Serious Person]

If you are going to expand it should be literally all mid majors that they add. I hate that schools that go 29-5 miss out because they lose there championship game yet a team thats 18-15 makes it from a big conference.

Stories like George Mason, Loyola etc are what make march madness great. I wonder how many more we could have had if they just let the small school in instead of a power 5 team who had 30 games to show they dont belong.

Adopt the NIT rule ... regular season conference winners also get a bid.

Or, how about going beyond 96 and taking a page from tennis and having "qualifiers?" To go to 128 teams.  96 teams are picked by the committee.  The other 32 are picked from the qualifying rounds.  Everyone with a better than .500 record  (which should be 60 to 80 teams) are sent to four sites (I.e., MSG, AllState, Staples, etc) to "play in" with the top eight coming out of each region to fill out the brackets.  These would be competitive "win or go home games" that would attract interest. (to do this, most likely the conference tournaments would have to be eliminated.)

The point is if college basketball is all about the tournament, which seems to be the argument here, then expand the tournament into the entire month of March.

[Not A Serious Person]

Except not really.  The first meeting of Duke / UVA had a 2.3 rating.  Well below the major bowl games but equal to the 12th highest bowl game (tied with Wiscy / Miami) and above 28 other bowls.  Not bad for an early January matchup.  Also shows that the argument that nobody cares about college hoops until March just isn't true.

So the absolute top regular season game has TV ratings are equal to a middle-level bowl game. Sort of makes my point about the relative popularity of college football versus college basketball.

To the point of those above that say they don't care about college football, they are outliers.  That is not how the rest of the world sees it.

It's a football world, basketball just lives in it.

[MUBigDance]

The superbowl and NFL has the issue. I'm not interested except for the commercials and they're awful....so I don't care so much.
College football is also not as interesting to me. Did watch Clemson win but bowls are off my radar....I suppose if I lived in a college football town I might be more into it.

I think the NFL could be in trouble. its not a superior product anymore to me....among sports, NBA is ascendant in my opinion.

as for starting in January. There is some appeal...but not good for BBall only schools like MU.

[MU82]

I vote "yes" to unicorns playing in NCAA basketball games.

[Cheeks]

The superbowl and NFL has the issue. I'm not interested except for the commercials and they're awful....so I don't care so much.
College football is also not as interesting to me. Did watch Clemson win but bowls are off my radar....I suppose if I lived in a college football town I might be more into it.

I think the NFL could be in trouble. its not a superior product anymore to me....among sports, NBA is ascendant in my opinion.

as for starting in January. There is some appeal...but not good for BBall only schools like MU.

NBA is ascendant, but still trails NFL 14x....the gap is so massive.

The NFL literally owns a day of the week for 5 months of the year.  Think about that.

[frozena pizza]

So the absolute top regular season game has TV ratings are equal to a middle-level bowl game. Sort of makes my point about the relative popularity of college football versus college basketball.

To the point of those above that say they don't care about college football, they are outliers.  That is not how the rest of the world sees it.

It's a football world, basketball just lives in it.

Okay, but you weren't talking about the relative popularity of college football versus college basketball and I'm sure we would agree on that.  Lower tier bowl games do not get better ratings than a top regular season college basketball game.  In fact, sweet sixteen games compare pretty favorably to even the top tier (non-championship) bowl games.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

So the absolute top regular season game has TV ratings are equal to a middle-level bowl game. Sort of makes my point about the relative popularity of college football versus college basketball.

To the point of those above that say they don't care about college football, they are outliers.  That is not how the rest of the world sees it.

It's a football world, basketball just lives in it.

No one is arguing any of this. College football and NFL dominate college basketball when they overlap.

The argument is that the college basketball postseason is where the sport makes it money and right now it is the undisputed king of March with virtually zero competition.

[frozena pizza]

One thing college basketball has going for it that is a driving force in its popularity is the bracket.  It's like what fantasy football has done for the NFL.  People who otherwise couldn't care less end up getting obsessed because they took 5 minutes to fill out a bracket and put $10 into their office pool.  There is really nothing else like it in sports.

[Cheeks]

Except those meaningless bowl games will get better TV rating than this weekend's Duke/UNC game.

This is not accurate depending on what you are defining as meaningless Bowl game.

[MU82]

No one is arguing any of this. College football and NFL dominate college basketball when they overlap.

The argument is that the college basketball postseason is where the sport makes it money and right now it is the undisputed king of March with virtually zero competition.

Yessir. It doesn't get much better than March Madness leading to the Final Four in the first weekend of April and then the Masters the following weekend. Plus, some MLB for those who can't get enough sports.

As an aside, here's the latest: Vegas oddsmakers now say it's more likely that unicorns replace NCAA athletes than the college basketball season starting in January.

[MUCam]

I personally think that replacing humans with unicorns would not nearly be as exciting as it seems at first glance. Once the novelty of real live unicorns in short shorts wore off, it would become boring.

Humans are best suited for college basketball. Unicorns should stick to fighting with elephants and wounding them in the belly.

[muwarrior69]

Actually Major League baseball has it right. Their season begins when college basketball ends and ends when college basketball begins. Now if the NFL could start their season in June along with college football and end the beginning of November I'm in. After all if it is so popular who cares what season it is played in and just think all those tail gate partys would be so much more fun in warm weather.

Edit: No way ESPN is giving up feast week!

[brewcity77]

I vote "yes" to unicorns playing in NCAA basketball games.

Of course, everyone loves watching Zion.

[muwarrior69]

Except those meaningless bowl games will get better TV rating than this weekend's Duke/UNC game.

True, but there a lot more basketball games on that together would probably equal the viewers of one bowl game. If you're an advertiser would you rather have a narrow audience from one football game or a wide audience from several basketball games?

[rocky_warrior]

I'm not sure a legit unicorn discussion belongs in the superbar.  Maybe merge with NM?

[MU82]

I'm not sure a legit unicorn discussion belongs in the superbar.  Maybe merge with NM?

Bigot! Scoop is no place for unicorniphobes!!!

[rocky_warrior]

[Not A Serious Person]

Yessir. It doesn't get much better than March Madness leading to the Final Four in the first weekend of April and then the Masters the following weekend. Plus, some MLB for those who can't get enough sports.

As an aside, here's the latest: Vegas oddsmakers now say it's more likely that unicorns replace NCAA athletes than the college basketball season starting in January.

So the regular season is not that important.  It's all about the tourney.

So increase it to 96 or 128 games and take a month.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

So the regular season is not that important.  It's all about the tourney.

Pretty much.

So increase it to 96 or 128 games and take a month.

Are you familiar with the law of diminishing returns?

Maybe increasing to 96 or 128 would be worth it, I honestly don't know, but I don't think its as simple as "the more teams you add the more money the tournament will make"

[Not A Serious Person]

Pretty much.

Are you familiar with the law of diminishing returns?

Maybe increasing to 96 or 128 would be worth it, I honestly don't know, but I don't think its as simple as "the more teams you add the more money the tournament will make"

You're adding an extra week which is why you would do it.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

You're adding an extra week which is why you would do it.

I'll ask again. Are you familiar with the law of diminishing returns?

[Cheeks]

So the regular season is not that important.  It's all about the tourney.

So increase it to 96 or 128 games and take a month.

Reg season very important.  Part of the process.  Games matter.  March is about the tournament, separate from regular season....both important.

[Cheeks]

I'll ask again. Are you familiar with the law of diminishing returns?

Adding the extra week would yield more money simply from an inventory perspective and if they did it right would make for some crazy games.  One theory would be to start it right away on Tuesday with the non bye teams and you don’t even add an extra week.  With so little time to prepare, it would be a free for all with upsets lurking. 

I would cap it at 96 to guarantee every reg season champion is given a shot.  That ensures the regular season remains viable.  Mid majors get the representation they are due, kill the NIT...could be done.  Logistically would need to set up Dayton like venues for those first two days.

[MuMark]

Any schedule change that gets rid of " Feast Week" is a no go for me........got to have CBB during Thanksgiving week...........I'd rather give up turkey!

[Not A Serious Person]

I'll ask again. Are you familiar with the law of diminishing returns?

Yes, and it does not apply here.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

Yes, and it does not apply here.

Well it certainly applies. If it didn't, we would just make the tournament 365 days a year and include every team.

Now that doesn't mean that adding another week and bumping it to 96 teams would be a bad thing. I'd just need to see some research before I would see it one way or the other.

[MU82]

So the regular season is not that important.  It's all about the tourney.

So increase it to 96 or 128 games and take a month.

The only opinion I have offered is that it's not gonna happen so we might as well be discussing unicorns replacing athlete-students as players.

If they expand the number of teams in the tourney, great. If they don't, great. I like it the way it is, so for me it would be greatest if they keep it the way it is.

March Madness is so wonderful that it would be difficult even for the clueless yahoos who run things to screw it up.

[ZiggysFryBoy]

Zero percent chance of happening.

Might as well have posted an article headlined, "Unicorns should replace humans as college basketball players," and asked us to discuss it.

What kind of necks do these unicorns have?

[MU82]

What kind of necks do these unicorns have?

Gotta ask MUFINY.

[WarriorFan]

Reg season very important.  Part of the process.  Games matter.  March is about the tournament, separate from regular season....both important.

or we could have each conference stage a meaningless conference tournament between the end of the season and the NCAA tournament - the one that really matters.

oops, wait, already did that!

at the end one does run out of way to contrive more basketball and more revenue from the situation.  more basketball without more revenue just won't happen.

i for one as a die hard hoops junkie would prefer that college basketball start as soon as the NBA playoffs are done and finish with the tournament before the NBA all-star break, so that there is never a day without basketball. 

[Benny B]

Zero percent chance of happening.

Might as well have posted an article headlined, "Unicorns should replace humans as college basketball players," and asked us to discuss it.

Who would be the players on our team?

Sam and Joey Horser
Jamal Rainbow
Sparkles Howard
Ed Marshmallow
Theo John

[MU82]

Who would be the players on our team?

Sam and Joey Horser
Jamal Rainbow
Sparkles Howard
Ed Marshmallow
Theo John

Magic Dawson
Tyler Horno
Jarrett Applejack
Unicornbread Maxwell
And, of course, Ners. I mean, there has to be one real baller on the team!

[Benny B]

Magic Dawson
Tyler Horno
Jarrett Applejack
Unicornbread Maxwell
And, of course, Ners. I mean, there has to be one real baller on the team!

Ah yes.... Unicornbread Maxwell.  But didn't he go on to make a fuss about that being his "white girl" name and change it to Earthblossom McFuchyourself?