Tony Barnhart's Friday blog covered a variety of topics. One of which being "What's all the fuss about Auburn's Limo." As you've probably read already, the Aubies rented a stretch limo to go "prowling" for recruits. Personally, I'm glad that they are putting seven coaches in the same location for recruiting. It means they can cover less total ground during the Spring evaluation period. However, you can't review this topic without checking out Bulldog in Exile's look at Georgia Tech's possible approach to this issue.
Also, Barnhart points out that the average attendance at the SEC Spring Football games (~38,000) was greater than 63 Division I programs averaged during the regular season. That's a jaw dropping stat in and of itself.
The fact that ESPN is now covering spring practice on the flagship network and SportsCenter means that these events are considered important in the eyes of many fans. This...I would argue...explains the explosion in attendance. Wondering aloud here....when the SEC / ESPN marriage takes it next step in September, and they expand coverage of all SEC sports via ESPN2 and ESPNU, I wonder how far away we are from them deciding that College Baseball is important.
Currently Disney World Bristol only covers college baseball's post season. If they ever deem the sport worthy of full season SportsCenter coverage, we're going to need a dramatically larger facility than the current or even proposed renovation. Think they won't eventually stumble into the value of the sport as cheap TV inventory? The NHL is mainly on Versus because women's college softball outdrew pro hockey's ratings.
Sorry for the ramble. Just a stream of conciousness type of day.
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17 comments:
The regional Fox Sports stations carry a good deal of college baseball at least out west.
I see Big 12 and Pac 10 games listed.
http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee253/3rdSaturday/image002.jpg
Paul, can you please provide some links to support your claim about women's college softball outdrawing the NHL? I find that very, very hard to believe.
I think Versus simply offered a lot more money than ESPN did for a product (the NHL) nobody knew how the public was going to respond to after a year-long strike/drastic rule changes.
Sure.
Here's a link.
http://www.sportsbusinessradio.com/node/14
The details of my original story are off, but the broader point isn't.
A 3 year old blog entry on a northwestern sports radio site? Must've done some digging to find that gem. But hey, at least your sources are up to date...
If you consider that the article pretty much explains why the NHL is not on ESPN this year and links it directly to attendance, it's pretty relevant even if old. It would seem that the NHL getting outdrawn by women's softball even once would be news.
I've heard the spelling bee on ESPN even gets better ratings than the NHL. Other than the NHL being "forced" on us in sports bars. No one watches that sport.
If you're not watching the Capitals v Pens series then you're missing out. Game 1 was fantastic and Crosby and Ovechkin are the best athletes at their sport in the world. Not Kobe, not Lebron, not Pujols, not Ronaldinio, not Brady, not Woods...nobody is better than these two NHL stars.
Don't bash hockey b/c you people are too dumb to watch. Just follow the heard and miss out out something truly amazing.
95K plus at tOSU's Spring Game setting the national record. College football is big in the south but it is nothing compared to O-H-I-O!!!
Anon at 12:58 calls those of us who don't like hockey "dumb" and misspells "herd" in the same comment. Pot meet kettle!
There is also another mistake w/ his spelling Korndawg, but maybe you are too dumb to notice...
He also forgot about me! How could you forget about me, Anon 12:58?
I guess the two dozen people that care about hockey are the smartest people in the world.
Attendance and revenue is up in the NHL. Like baseball did after it's strike, hockey is slowly gaining some steam again.
Paul, I thought you were smarter than those bloggers on that link you provided that failed to realize that ESPN's viewership is far larger than that of Versus (not to mention most of the people that were "counted" as watching the softball games were probably guys that just flipped on ESPN to see if anyone was interesting on, only to change the channel when they saw softball being shown).
Not to mention, even if you do love hockey, not many people even have that channel, thus further lowering the ratings. The NHL will be back on ESPN, once it's deal with Versus expires in a few years. The only way hockey can continue its growth is to get back on ESPN and I think they realize this.
Priceless Buckeye fan on a Georgia blog. Eventually the Buckeyes will get around to losing to Georgia, too (again). Be patient!
I like hockey, but any dispassionate observer will tell you that it's ten times better live than on TV. It simply doesn't translate well enough to the tube and given that very few Southerners ever played it as a kid, it's not going to be high on our list of priorities.
College baseball is the next step for ESPN. But they'll probably ruin it once they realize how long the games last.
Also, I'm a big fan of Foley Field, but I think the SEC West expansions are going to force our hand to expand Foley Field. We're going to lose a regional based on our facility very soon if we don't address it.
OSU doesn't play in the little crappy bowl games UGA plays in. The Dawgs are better barely beating powerhouse teams like Michigan State.
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