Fox Sports’ Analyst Joel Klatt takes aim at the NCAA tournament

[superjohn]

I somewhat remember reading how ratings show fans like Cinderella in first and second weekend, but by the Final Four you need name programs to get the big ratings numbers.

For sure.

 

[Dove]

Who?

Right? Never heard of him.

 

[Rocktheworld]

Wow, I don’t know when or how he wound up discussing the NCAA tournament. Some context would be interesting.

He ought to stay in his lane, because he’s generally otherwise been spot on about the NCAA, its general idiocy, the eventual break of the power conferences from the NCAA, and the CFP. Plus he clowns Colin Cowherd just about every time he comes on his show. What an embarrassing take.

 

[Jaydumo20]

1st weekend is the best weekend in sports. I'm a blue blood fan and even I dont want to see all top seeds win.

 

[CTFAN4LIFE]

Tearing Klatt a new one... and backing it up with real info/data...

 

[HuskyHawk]

I can follow his logic if his point is that the college football playoff shouldn't be modeled after March Madness. I'd actually agree with him there. They are two very different sports with much different levels of variance on a game to game basis. Your average 14-seed might beat the 3-seed one out of ten times in basketball, but that's still probably once more than the college football equivalent of a 14-seed would beat, say, Oregon over the same sample.

But to take aim at the NCAA Tournament like he does shows me that he's just a guy that doesn't get it. Anyone who thinks the NCAA Tournament should be the literal 68 best teams isn't worth taking seriously.

Also, this notion of "fairness" bothers me, because one could easily make the argument, as @Gurleyman just did, that postseason tournaments are by definition unfair and arbitrary no matter how many teams qualify. Last year we watched Ohio State lose to first place Oregon (in addition to Michigan) en route to a third place finish in the Big Ten, only to get another crack at them because of the expanded playoff. How is that fair? The NCAA Tournament may not always crown the best team either, but at least it's honest about what it is.

The only real issue I have with it is conference tournaments deciding the automatic qualifier. That’s a bad idea that often eliminates worthy teams. If you eliminated that we’d have no bad teams in the field.

 

[REB1094]

6 of the 8 final four teams in the last 2 years were 1 seeds

Dude is complaining just to complain

 

[superjohn]

1st weekend is the best weekend in sports. I'm a blue blood fan and even I dont want to see all top seeds win.

It's by far the best 4 days in sports and always has been. Whole offices get into it, people take off work that Thursday and Friday every year for it, people fly out with old friends to Vegas every year to hit the sports book or fly out every year wherever their school is playing, everyone fills out their brackets whether they follow sports/college basketball or not etc.

Those first few days are all about the Cinderella. Bars are packed all over with everyone pulling for the little guy to take down the big dog. That's by far the most fun part of the tournament unless you're the fan from the major school seeing your team get taken down in real time or unless your team is going to the final 4.

The only comparable thing is the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl of course gets the most viewers and people lobby for it to be a national holiday but most people just meet up at someone's house and they're really in it for the food and commercials.

 

[gsmooth]

I somewhat remember reading how ratings show fans like Cinderella in first and second weekend, but by the Final Four you need name programs to get the big ratings numbers.

Nailed it. Cindarellas for the most part have fans cheer for them because they are the lovable underdog and fans want to see David take down Goliath. But Cindarellas by their definition are the smaller schools and don't have many organic fans in their fan bases and therefore don't bring that many fans for the Final Four TV/online viewing and won't create big ratings because of that. The TV execs want the big brand names, they want to see Goliath vs Goliath generally speaking.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Nailed it. Cindarellas for the most part have fans cheer for them because they are the lovable underdog and fans want to see David take down Goliath. But Cindarellas by their definition are the smaller schools and don't have many organic fans in their fan bases and therefore don't bring that many fans for the Final Four TV/online viewing and won't create big ratings because of that. The TV execs want the big brand names, they want to see Goliath vs Goliath generally speaking.

How does taking more 6-12 SEC or Big 12 teams impact that outcome?

 

[Gurleyman]

The only real issue I have with it is conference tournaments deciding the automatic qualifier. That’s a bad idea that often eliminates worthy teams. If you eliminated that we’d have no bad teams in the field.

It happens to one or two a year, but the low major regular season champions are still going to be smushed for the most part. The ones who are good enough to add value to the tourney usually have a good enough resume to get in anyway - but it is true there is a small subset of teams ranked around 50 that have to win their tourneys that sometimes get left out when they have potential.

The plus to the conference tournaments is that they essentially give everyone a chance to get in. If the regular season winner made it, you’d have a little bit of the reverse effect - teams that were injured, or hadn’t figured stuff out, in January and couldn’t climb out of the hole they’d fallen in … even though they were playing better at the end of the year than the teams in front of them.

I’ve thought a little more could be done with byes maybe so that the No. 1 seed advances to the semis or something like that to add more value to the regular season. But conferences determine their format for themselves.

 

[Kolumbo]

The Big Dance is the best sporting event of the year. He does have a point though. It is not the best way to crown a champion. The champion has to win 6 games in a row to win it all and basketball is ripe for big upsets. You get a Cinderella team with a couple of hot players and they can knock off a favorite.

 

[blkknight1]

Joel Klatt should stick to football its what he's okay at.


This take is one of the dumbest. Anyone remember the story of Goliath and Goliath. Nobody wants to see cinderellas? Everyone wants to see the little guy rise up and take down the big guy. UMBC and FDU will live forever in tournament history, St Peters making a run to the elite 8, Loyola Chicago and sister jean making a run to the final four. Hell 40 years later and people still take about the perfect game where the Ewing led lead hoyas got taken down by villinova. Danny and the miracle in 1988. That young baby faced kid from Davidson I forget his name taking his team all the way to the elite 8 in 2008.


I would argue the teams that make the 68 team field do way more to earn their way into the tournament. Look at the scheduling done by the top teams this year in bball where teams are looking schedule themselves against other top teams and in football you have people arguing well now the top teams wont schedule one another because its too much of a risk to their playoff chances. Football; lets get rid of out conference championship games because they might hurt us. Basketball; lets

 

[80shusky]

This guy looks old as hell for 43.

Morons always do.

 

[DRBackup]

View attachment 114661

You mean "bloviating hot air jack a s s" ? That's not a "sports analyst", that's talking head full of idiotic ideas

 

[DRBackup]

He's getting talked about. Probably what he was looking for.

That's ALL he was looking for

 

[mauconnfan]

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Wow did he lose any respect he may have had with anyone, total clown!

 

[cwh20]

I love the 64 team tournament. It’s the best playoffs in sports. As far as underdogs go, who didn’t enjoy watching Florida Gulf Coast rocking the tourney as just one example. It refreshing to get reminded that it’s not all about the power conferences. Even when a lower division teams lost it was often a revelation to see some crazy good players and standout individual performances. But those players probably wouldn’t have been on those teams if the current portal rules were already implemented earlier because they would have moved up to the a power conference team.

 

[Palatine]

The only real issue I have with it is conference tournaments deciding the automatic qualifier. That’s a bad idea that often eliminates worthy teams. If you eliminated that we’d have no bad teams in the field.

The automatic qualifier eliminates bubble teams not worthy teams. If they were worthy they wouldn't be on the bubble. The automatic qualifiers often don't have the resume to be selected for the tourney, but they may be very good, it's just hard to judge.

Besides this idiot doesn't care about getting the best teams, it's about getting another 15 million dollars for the SEC or B10.

 

[uconnbill]

Klatt was a solid football player and baseball player, but his knowledge, or lack thereof, in NCAA basketball, which he knows ZERO about, or so it seems

 

[willie99]

It's arguably the most popular sporting event in the country.

And this buffoon is saying it's not what we want, we want more than 10 teams from the B10 and we want to leave the smaller conferences out

LMFAO, he's categorically incorrect

 

[Kowalski]

It's arguably the most popular sporting event in the country.

And this buffoon is saying it's not what we want, we want more than 10 teams from the B10 and we want to leave the smaller conferences out

LMFAO, he's categorically incorrect

He’s completely wrong. A birth in the NCAA tourney is what gives purpose to the seasons of virtually every good college program in the country. It’s exciting and the fans love the first round upsets over overrated & exposed top seeds.
The CFB playoff needs to figure out a better way to keep non-power conference fans engaged in the same way. I think expanding the field more would help.

 

[JVN]

Joel Klatt wants a mulligan on his 'terrible' March Madness take

 

[Fan1978]

march madness is perfection. The college football playoff is a made for tv event created by and for ESPN

And the fourth betting interest is not just invited. This guy is a moron

 

[Ha Who]

Joel Klatt wants a mulligan on his 'terrible' March Madness take

I guess the job at ESPN fell through