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The Alternatives to March Madness But Seriously Folks Is There?

Years ago when I was attending a university there were basically only two sports that interested the majority of the student body, football and basketball. Both sports had nearly sold out venues for every game and of course both were huge money makers for the school both in tickets sales and TV rights. Millions of dollars hung in the balance as thousands of students drank beer, cooked BBQ and chased the opposite sex in a weekly or bi weekly event that drew several more thousands of fans from near and far from around the state. As we all know now, that picture of college sports has changed forever, well maybe just a little. Nowerdays we have become just as obsessed with the smaller market sports, once called “none revenue sports” as we once were with football and basketball. Woman’s basketball, men’s and woman’s volleyball, lacrosse, men’s and woman’s hockey and a host of other sports have become just as popular as the games we play on the gridiron or the hard court and yes the money involved is huge. Venues are sold out across the country to watch the girls play basketball, volleyball and hockey. Football and basketball players now need to contend with water polo and lacrosse players for the attention in the student cafeteria. What has the world become I ask? Of course like most things in our world one must merely follow the money when searching for a relevant explanation for the growth of these non revenue sports. College sports is a massive, money making industry. It doesn’t matter if you go to Alabama or Detroit Mercy, you follow your team year round. You buy tickets to the games. You buy the t-shirts hats and sweat shirts. The rise of multi streaming sports services has given us unprecedented opportunities to watch just about any sports at any school at anytime of the year. Many schools, if not all, have their own on line streaming services to watch live or to download and view when convenient. Most are free and to be honest I’d rather watch from the comfort of my living room them spend a couple hundred bucks to get packed in with a few thousand screaming students and alumni, but that’s just me. Each of us can make our own decisions but the bottom line on all of this is that if you’re a die hard college sports fan like I am your life has never been better. There are times however when the king and queen of college sports (I’m talking football and basketball here) play second fiddle to no one. If you find me on a Saturday in October sitting in front of my big beautiful TV I couldn’t give a hoot who’s playing who in college hockey. Woman’s lacrosse? Never heard of it. The same for basketball in the winter and spring. At that time of the year I’m interested in one thing and one thing only, The NCAA Tournament. End of story. Yes sports fans, the more things change the more they stay the same. Go figure! Speaking of The NCAA Tournament, every year I’m blown away at how early the media comes out with “preliminary brackets” and “early tournament seedlings”. I mean seriously, there’s almost an entire month till the tournament and people are already talking about the winner. A lot can still happen and does. Standings and team performances change weekly if not daily. This week’s king of the hill can be next week’s dog so in short you never know. Sure, there are some dominating conferences like The SEC and The Big Ten but they’re in it every year. It’s the unknowns that I’m looking forward to, the big upsets that no one saw coming. If everything was a sure thing then why would we even bother watching? I’m looking for last minute shots and come from behind victories, the things that really matter. There’s absolutely nothing like it. As of this point I’m not looking at anyone’s bracket. How could I? The bracket is the bracket and when it finally come out in March your team might be in it, it might not! Who knows? There’s only one bracket right? But don’t fear, if your teams not in it you always got volley ball and lacrosse to fall back on! Good luck with that!! Play on I Say!!KevKev's Corner Our Staffs Weekly Sports perspective(click here for more of Kev’s past articles)