I have a couple of comments:
i) Regarding the conversation on the first two pages of this thread about the shot clock- Canadian university went to a 24 second shot clock several years ago. Before it happened I had the same view as many of you - that 24 seconds was too short a clock for that level of basketball. However, it works well and I was surprised to find out it doesn't turn the game into a mess. I actually like the 30 second shot clock because part of what makes college basketball special to me is that teams can play multiple different styles and still win. I think the shorter the shot clock, the more it turns into an athleticism contest. So I don't like it from that perspective, but if your concern is that a 24 second clock will be too quick for D1 kids, that's not the case.
ii) Regarding the original question, here are a few thoughts:
- The tournament has been glorified to the point of absurdity. 25-30 years ago the tournament was just as amazing, but it wasn't being marketed as hard. Then everyone figured out that it had massive, massive money making potential. Now you can't turn on a game in November without some reference to March Madness. The tournament is talked about from the moment the season begins until the moment it ends. Then they start talking about next year's. I think the result of that is the tournament receives more attention than ever before, but the regular season probably receives less.
- Nearly anyone can get a TV package that shows 20 games a night. When I was growing up we only had an antenna that got 3-4 channels. When a game was on CBS on Saturday afternoon it was a reason to stop everything else that you were doing and watch it with no distractions. Now I can watch Pacific play Portland in a game that starts at 11:00 EST on a Wednesday night. This is awesome for the people on this board. I will be watching literally hundreds of games this year. I think, though, for the average person it means they will watch fewer. If a very good, but not blockbuster game (say a top 5 team versus a top 20 team) is the only game on maybe the average sports fan ends up watching it. But now, what if it is one of 20 total games that is on that night. He would need to sort through all 20 games in order to find that one. People are really, really lazy. In addition, I'm not sure if this next concept has a name, but I have this issue with things other than college basketball. If my wife and I are hanging out on a Saturday afternoon together we might use the TV menu, scroll up for a couple of minutes and choose the first half crappy movie we find. But if we turn on Netflix, there is absolutely zero chance that we would ever watch that movie. In fact, we might even turn on Netflix and not end up watching any movie because it takes us so long to decide. I think this is a slightly different version of the issue I discussed at the start of this very long bullet point. If you are really passionate about a topic, you will watch anything and everything available on that topic. If you only half care about a topic, you might flip to it as a default option. But if you only half care and are presented with 20 different options of that topic, there is a decent chance you aren't going to care enough to choose one of the 20 options. I have no idea if that made sense to any of you. It's like an oversaturation which causes anyone that's not an avid fan to not even bother.
- I do also think the point that was raised earlier regarding there being more options of things to do these days is valid. Also, how do they measure how popular it is? I know many of my friends stream games online. That wouldn't be picked up in TV ratings I would assume.
