WHY ARE RATINGS GREAT? NIL FUELS THE BLUEBLOODS AND WIPES OUT CINDERELLAS
March hasn’t seen viewership so good since 1993, meaning Saint Peter’s was good for Saint Peter’s but wasn’t selling the NCAA basketball tournament with the massive girth of major conference kingpins
Is it possible Florida Gulf Coast, Saint Peter’s, Loyola Chicago and George Mason were just silly flaws of overzealous media? Maybe Americans don’t care about Cinderellas and mid-majors in the NCAA tournament. With nothing resembling an upstart in the Sweet 16, March has no Madness but still averaged 9.4 million viewers over the first two rounds, the highest number in 32 years.
Google Maps should be deleted. The Bluebloods win, as always.
We saw Amir “Aura” Khan for one round. We haven’t seen Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, who is 105. Does the University of Maryland, Baltimore County still exist? Was it Fairleigh Dickinson or Dickinson Fairleigh? Does anyone even care when 15.3 million viewers saw Kentucky beat Illinois, without necessarily knowing a player or coach in either program?
The SEC forgot how to win football championships but funneled prime resources into basketball, where seven teams remain. The Big Ten has four teams left. The Big 12 also has four. The ACC has one with Duke, which should win it all as Cooper Flagg does more commercials than Kevin Hart. No longer do play-by-play broadcasters have to explain the whereabouts of a program while hucksters — former ESPN president John Skipper, who has nothing else to do — project four super conferences.
Actually, we should acknowledge shifty realignment as sacred and focus on the start of the transfer portal, which happened Monday and embraced new NIL proceedings. That is beyond irrational. A coach is attempting to reach the Final Four and must concentrate on whether players might leave tomorrow, which is what happened at Michigan, where one of Scottie Pippen’s kids left Dusty May’s camp. The sport is overloaded with mayhem that has nothing to do with college and, sometimes, even athletics.
“The portal opening on Monday is the dumbest thing ever,” said Richard Pitino, the new coach at Xavier, son of Rick. “There’s no logic behind it whatsoever. Why not do it in April because school doesn’t end until mid-May, so give them a month then.”
John Calipari was preparing for Texas Tech — still no Bill or Hillary Clinton on the Arkansas bandwagon — when he was informed of the portal launch. “Welcome to my world,” he said. “We’re really preparing for a game — and having individual meetings about, ‘Are you coming back?’ ”
Kevin Willard threatened to leave Maryland if his travel budget doesn’t improve. NIL? “The transfer portal is crazy,” he said. “There are kids asking for $2-3 million right now. The money has exploded crazy because we have no guardrails. We have no rules. It’s been as badly of a rule implemented as ever. And agents are taking advantage of it.”
Dick Vitale continues to roar about the furor after battling multiple cancers. “We’ve got chaos … they just opened up the transfer portal, which I think is a joke. I think it’s absurd to have the transfer portal (open) during the heart of March Madness,” the ESPN analyst said. “I think that’s crazy, it’s ludicrous. In only one day, about 1,000 kids are in the portal — 1,000! It is total wacky what’s going on.”
Yet does anyone care when TV numbers are outrageous? Niko Medved reached the Round of 32 with Colorado State and jumped to Minnesota. May was a golden child at Florida Atlantic and jumped to Ann Arbor, then sent stars to Florida and Arkansas. Will Wade beat Clemson at McNeese State in the first round and was off to North Carolina State, despite huge recruiting violations at LSU. Any small fry who makes a rumble will be stolen away — immediately.
Look at the eight games Thursday and Friday. Does anyone qualify as even medium? Duke plays Arizona. Houston plays Purdue. Auburn plays Michigan. Kentucky plays Tennessee. Ole Miss? Wait until Chris Beard bests Tom Izzo? Texas Tech? Watch Calipari go down. Brigham Young might beat Alabama. Maryland? Florida is the favorite, but who didn’t love how freshman Derik Queen spoke of Willard after hitting a buzzer beater?
“He do pay us the money,” he said, with the coach burying his head in his hands.
Hall of Famers are gone — Pitino, Bill Self. Two-time former champions are gone — Dan Hurley. Don’t be shocked if Jon Scheyer is the next winner, though his Duke players don’t believe he was called “White Mike” (as in Jordan) in Chicago, where he scored 21 points in the final 75 seconds of a game. “If anyone doesn't know Jon Scheyer, he played at Glenbrook North. When I say he never ducked any smoke from any athlete in Chicago, he never ducked any smoke,” Pat Beverley said on a podcast.
Said Scheyer of his players: “They have completely disregarded the fact that I played at all. They think that I did not play whatsoever. I asked our guys a couple days ago to call me, ‘White Mike.’ They refused. They're just going to call me Coach. But that's nice of Pat to talk about me that way.”
Consider it fun. There are wonderful stories available from places you’ve actually heard of. I could deal with Florida playing Michigan and Duke playing Houston in San Antonio. They hail from four conferences. Their coaches are intriguing.
I wish Sister Jean another happy year. I root for Amir Khan online. Baltimore County remains a site for the University of Maryland. Fairleigh Dickinson, indeed.
Their stories are in the past. The NIL fuels the bite of the Bluebloods, who complain about Monday’s absurdity but also flash a wink. They know which players are coming and can make one call to secure $2 million or $3 million if necessary.
The donors will pay. And they watch the games religiously.
###
Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.