The NCAA and CBS have announced that the viewership for the entire NCAA Men’s basketball tournament and the championship game between Villanova and Michigan fell far below past years. Together they offered that, “The 30 percent drop is likely due to a combination of a relatively non-compeitive game and its airing on a cable network instead of CBS.”
They just don’t get it.
Overall, the NCAA tournament averaged 9.7 million viewers for all of its games. That’s down from nearly 11 million last year. The NCAA and CBS offered, “That is perhaps a reflection of upsets knocking out many teams with a national following early.”
They just don’t get it.
They should consider that the American sports fan, the college basketball fan, appreciates the game for what it is. They love the game. They love the upsets, not run from them. Cinderella teams bring viewers, not chase them away. What chases them away is the hype, the hoopla, the “Hollywood and Show Business” atmosphere that CBS has pumped into the championships. They’ve turned the introductions into a rock star performance, not basketball.
This “entertainment” trend got started several years ago in the college championships that are televised and was borrowed from the hype and production of the Super Bowl and has slowly bled into the college games. Most sports fans are turned off by this ramping up of the hype and Hollywood entertainment atmosphere.
That and CBS’ annoying habit of turning to the NBA for their commentators and analysts. More blabbing, more hype, more uninformed analysts.
College sports and their fans are a unique group. They are attracted to the games because of a basic love of the sport. The show business atmosphere does not enhance their enjoyment but detracts from it. CBS doesn’t get that. Neither does the NCAA.
The solution is simple: the NCAA needs to take more control of the content of these telecasts and give the networks less influence. One must remember who owns and runs these networks: CBS is owned by a joint venture of Warner Brothers Entertainment. ABC is owned by the Walt Disney Co. Fox is owned by 21st Centrury Fox and NBC is owned by Comcast. Entertainment and Hollywood companies all. Their forte is movies and concerts, not sports. They need to be told by the NCAA what to do, not the other way around.
The NCAA, of course, does all of this for money. Truckloads of it and they have assumed the position of, “You paid for it, you can do whatever you want with it.” The American sports fan, meanwhile, is saying, “I don’t like that. I will watch something else.”
They’ve got it all wrong when they think the fans of America don’t like the upsets, don’t like it when the “Blueblood” programs are not in the hunt for the championship. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Give us basketball. Give us upsets. Give us college basketball analysts and commentators. If we want the NBA, we will tune it in. If we want a rock concert, we will find one. For now, just an upset of Virginia by UMBC will do and we will all be watching!

Buddy Tabler is a guest columnist for the Great Bend Tribune and his views don’t necessarily reflect those of the paper. He can be reached at budtabler@gmail.com.