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Message: [QUOTE="freescooter, post: 3927203, member: 1023"] Really every conference final was way down except 1. You would think they would be up this year. We weren’t the worst at down23%. You have to wonder if the public is getting tired of these made for tv events that rarely have an impact on anything. The Big East this year was the exception in getting a not very good team a bid. But it didn’t cost the others their bids. It basically didn’t matter to UConn, Creighton or Villanova what happened. Just extend the season buy 2-3 games and make the season champ the auto bid winner. So Connecticut fans don’t panic, arrange to end every season against St Johns at MSG. But this isn’t just a NBE issue. In a pandemic when people are encouraged to stay home, viewership of these “championships” are falling. Something is up. My theory is that they are meaningless and people know it. As far as the NBE tv ratings, they are usually not very good. Even when they get “high” ones they typically lose the time slot to other leagues. In part it is that they are on a 3rd tier network, and even when they are on FOX it isn’t really a basketball network. the other problem is the makeup of the league. Outside Villanova and UConn, there is nobody with a history (sorry but Georgetown in the 1980s doesn’t matter any more than Providence winning the NIT in the 60s) nobody with a national presence, and no real rivalries. Actually not even a regional presence. Just a bunch of schools playing basketball at a pretty high level except DePaul. The original Big East was identifiable as eastern urban basketball. Even with a couple of outliers, it had that feel...That is gone too. [/QUOTE]

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