College Basketball Tournaments, Remarkable Performance and Poor Television Ratings - Jul 10, 2008 | 11:14:51
posted by: Howard Smith
- Speaking of early-season college basketball tournaments, the Top of the World Classic, which has been held annually in Fairbanks, Alaska, announced that it will not be held this year for the first time since 1996. Before 2006, there were only 10 certified preseason tournaments nationwide, but the rule was changed in that year to allow any school to host one. This has increased the number of tournaments around the country, up to 45 in 2007, according to Alaska Fairbanks Athletics Director Forrest Karr. The tournament is hoping to make a reappearance in 2009. Word is that the Great Alaska Shootout is having some financial troubles as well, but still will have a tournament in 2008. Do you think it is good for college basketball to have so many tournaments around the country or do you like it better they way it used to be?
- Recent Tennessee graduate Candace Parker had a monster game last night with a career-high 40 points and 16 rebounds in an 82-74 overtime victory for her Los Angeles Sparks over the Houston Comets in WNBA action. Seems like Parker has made a smooth transition from college basketball, wouldn't you say?
- Strange situation in the Red Sox/Twins Major League Baseball game yesterday afternoon. The Twins had what they thought was a triple play on a sliding line-drive "catch" by center fielder Denard Span in the seventh inning. It turned out that he trapped it - a difficult call that the umpires eventually got right. Instead of ending the inning, the single for Jason Varitek opened the floodgates for a seven-run outburst from the Red Sox. Can you imagine being the umpire during that inning...wondering if the call you made, which led to Boston blowing open the game, was actually correct?
- Speaking of baseball, I saw this statistic and it is so mindboggling that I have to bring it up. According to Nielsen Media Research that was published by SportsBusiness Journal, only 9,000 household television sets tune into the average Washington Nationals game. We aren't talking about a town of 50,000 people here...this is a metropolitan area of 5.5 million people, the nation's capital! How can the average home attendance be nearly 30,000 per game, but only 9,000 tune in on television? Remember that half of the games are played on the road where you would think many of the team's "fans" would be interested since they can't attend the game.
- We always love to hear about blogs that cover intercollegiate athletics well around the country. We recently got a note from Sam Wasson, the co-founder and editor of bleedCrimson.net, a blog that covers New Mexico State athletics. I checked it out and it has a lot of good stuff about the Aggies. We always are looking around for interesting news to include on Morning Coffee, so feel free to share articles and other blogs with us at hssmith@ncaa.org or mhlawrence@ncaa.org.
