AAC in March Madness 2023

[ml wave]

Interesting point linking viewing to gambling. Obvious reply is why do they stop betting then? Is it because their favorite teams ain’t there no more?

Absolutely. I would bet a large number of Americans - more than the NCAA and the networks want to admit - don't watch any college hoops all year, but will watch during the tourney because they filled out brackets at work, school, with family, or with friends. (Same situation as the Super Bowl, you can't tell me those millions or billions of people were NFL fans all year, they're watching because it's a social event.) So all these "rookies" who filled out pools purely based on seeds and maybe some high-level knowledge of "who is good" overall are now without any teams left, and have already lost (or even won!) their pools, and just plain don't care. One thing I've learned is that sports fans, such as people on this forum, often tend to overestimate the amount of people out there who actually care about sports, or who will watch a game that doesn't involve "their" team. You tend to assume people are like you, ya know? Heck, I'm a basketball guy and I don't think I watched a second of last year's Final Four.

The popular teams in all sports draw bigger ratings...Lakers, Cowboys, Yankees, Tiger Woods, etc. I don't think there's any reason why college basketball would be any different.

[CT Wave]

The popular teams in all sports draw bigger ratings...Lakers, Cowboys, Yankees, Tiger Woods, etc. I don't think there's any reason why college basketball would be any different.

Wait. Are you actually suggesting that the more popular teams draw bigger ratings? Like, the more popular teams are more popular? How can that be?

[Baywave1]

Of the six schools coming into the conference next year:

Charlotte won the CBI
North Texas and UAB will be playing in the NIT Title Game
FAU, of course, in the Final Four

As one critical of the football adds to AAC, I’ll give a giant huzzah to Aresco for the basketball adds. If FAU wins NCAA (doable but still not odds on) then the new members’ tournaments hat trick will nicely complement Tulane coming off CB win going into next season. Branding matters and being able to still “claim” P6 status for AAC entering ‘23-‘24 with reasonable justification matters more.

May the good karma continue.

[Roller]

Interesting point linking viewing to gambling. Obvious reply is why do they stop betting then? Is it because their favorite teams ain’t there no more?

Absolutely. I would bet a large number of Americans - more than the NCAA and the networks want to admit - don't watch any college hoops all year, but will watch during the tourney because they filled out brackets at work, school, with family, or with friends. (Same situation as the Super Bowl, you can't tell me those millions or billions of people were NFL fans all year, they're watching because it's a social event.) So all these "rookies" who filled out pools purely based on seeds and maybe some high-level knowledge of "who is good" overall are now without any teams left, and have already lost (or even won!) their pools, and just plain don't care. One thing I've learned is that sports fans, such as people on this forum, often tend to overestimate the amount of people out there who actually care about sports, or who will watch a game that doesn't involve "their" team. You tend to assume people are like you, ya know? Heck, I'm a basketball guy and I don't think I watched a second of last year's Final Four.

I can identify with that, Pete. Back when Perry Clark's teams were consistently good, I became a follower of College Basketball. I even rn an office pool with over 150 participants (and increasing year-to-year) for several years, and I developed software to score the results. But when there was no Tulane in the bracket, maintaining the pool became an unrewarding chore, so I quit doing it after the second non-Wave year, despite many requests to continue. Now, I don't follow college basketball at all, other than checking the scores of Tulane games and watching an occasional one if I happen to think of it.

[ml wave]

The popular teams in all sports draw bigger ratings...Lakers, Cowboys, Yankees, Tiger Woods, etc. I don't think there's any reason why college basketball would be any different.

Wait. Are you actually suggesting that the more popular teams draw bigger ratings? Like, the more popular teams are more popular? How can that be?

Mind blowing, isn't it?

[PeteRasche]

Sure, there are more Kentucky fans than FAU fans. But the numbers that make the NCAA (and its advertisers) get excited are not just fans of Kentucky. That's like the argument that having a Tulane football roster full of locals would fill Yulman with their friends and families. The bulk of viewership is other people, just like the bulk of people needed to fill Yulman are "otherwise disinterested" locals.

Many of the viewers of the tournament are just sports fans in general, and almost all of them are going to watch anyway. So who is missing to create this drop in ratings? The numbers drop from Kentucky to FAU is not purely the difference in fan base size. What causes the remainder of that ratings drop? I'm suggesting it's casual onlookers who'd be watching if they still had a team in their pool but won't be when they don't. You can look at the numbers on all the major online pools are see how many people no longer have a team left. It's millions upon millions.

Otherwise, you're arguing that the huge drop in numbers this past weekend is because a huge number of American sports fans are snobs who love watching college basketball but only if it's Kentucky, Duke, and Kansas, but turn up their noses at FAU and SDSU and the like. Do you believe that to be the case?

From personal experience, there are tons of people at my office, there were tons of people in school with me, etc., who couldn't care less about college hoops, but happily filled out a pool and watched with us until their pool was dead.

[ml wave]

Otherwise, you're arguing that the huge drop in numbers this past weekend is because a huge number of American sports fans are snobs who love watching college basketball but only if it's Kentucky, Duke, and Kansas, but turn up their noses at FAU and SDSU and the like. Do you believe that to be the case?

Yes, certainly. Well, not so much that they love it but that they'll watch it. People are more apt to go out of their way to watch a game if it involves teams/players that they are familiar with. Do you think it's an accident that the same teams (Lakers/Celtics/Knicks, Yanks/RedSox/Cubs/Dodgers, Cowboys, etc.) get all the prime TV spots regardless of how good they are? Susie the office secretary who picks her bracket based on the team nickname isn't driving ratings, Coach K is (was).

[PeteRasche]

Otherwise, you're arguing that the huge drop in numbers this past weekend is because a huge number of American sports fans are snobs who love watching college basketball but only if it's Kentucky, Duke, and Kansas, but turn up their noses at FAU and SDSU and the like. Do you believe that to be the case?

Yes, certainly. Well, not so much that they love it but that they'll watch it. People are more apt to go out of their way to watch a game if it involves teams/players that they are familiar with. Do you think it's an accident that the same teams (Lakers/Celtics/Knicks, Yanks/RedSox/Cubs/Dodgers, Cowboys, etc.) get all the prime TV spots regardless of how good they are? Susie the office secretary who picks her bracket based on the team nickname isn't driving ratings, Coach K is (was).

I would argue that professional fan bases vs. collegiate fan bases is not really an equal comparison, as there are way more fans of Yankees, Cowboys, Cubs, Sox, etc., across the country than there are fans of Alabama or Duke or Kansas. In those cases (pro teams), losing just a fan base from viewership is most likely a significant loss in viewership. A random MLB game on ESPN is getting terrible ratings so they might as well choose teams with huge fan bases and get those viewers. So they do and we get every single matchup of those teams forced down our throat. One of many reasons I ditched cable 15 years ago.

But I would also disagree that *other* people are more apt to watch a game because they are familiar with the team and players, unless it's a generational talent (Jordan with the Bulls, Tiger Woods, early LeBron, etc.). But again, that's almost always pros, not college, and they are choosing a single player, not a team. If you don't really care about college hoops, you aren't going to turn on the NCAA finals just because "oh, I know that Kentucky and Duke are storied programs, I should watch." Think about that person at your office who jokes about "sportsball"... would they be watching this Saturday if it was last year's final four matchups instead of this year's? Nope. But they might be tuning in if they had Duke in the finals and that would win them your office pool.

To the "individual talent" thing above, sadly you rarely come across "generational" talents in the NCAA tourney any more since nobody stays long enough to really show it... the only ones who seem to stay are, ironically, usually NOT on the power teams. Actually, the last time I can remember people who otherwise wouldn't care about NCAA hoops tuning in to watch NCAA games, was some young unknown kid on Davidson named Curry. Meanwhile, most Americans today couldn't even name the starting five on the blue bloods because like 4 out of the 5 change yearly.

Some sportswriter also tweeted the opinion that people like to tune in to root against teams they hate, i.e., thats part of why the Dukes and Kentuckys have bigger numbers. Who in the heck purposely chooses a game with a team they hate over another game? I wouldn't watch an LSU game if you paid me... okay, that's not true, if I see they are losing in the final minutes I might flip it on to laugh at them being sad.

[ml wave]

Otherwise, you're arguing that the huge drop in numbers this past weekend is because a huge number of American sports fans are snobs who love watching college basketball but only if it's Kentucky, Duke, and Kansas, but turn up their noses at FAU and SDSU and the like. Do you believe that to be the case?

Yes, certainly. Well, not so much that they love it but that they'll watch it. People are more apt to go out of their way to watch a game if it involves teams/players that they are familiar with. Do you think it's an accident that the same teams (Lakers/Celtics/Knicks, Yanks/RedSox/Cubs/Dodgers, Cowboys, etc.) get all the prime TV spots regardless of how good they are? Susie the office secretary who picks her bracket based on the team nickname isn't driving ratings, Coach K is (was).

I would argue that professional fan bases vs. collegiate fan bases is not really an equal comparison, as there are way more fans of Yankees, Cowboys, Cubs, Sox, etc., across the country than there are fans of Alabama or Duke or Kansas. In those cases (pro teams), losing just a fan base from viewership is most likely a significant loss in viewership. A random MLB game on ESPN is getting terrible ratings so they might as well choose teams with huge fan bases and get those viewers. So they do and we get every single matchup of those teams forced down our throat. One of many reasons I ditched cable 15 years ago.

But I would also disagree that *other* people are more apt to watch a game because they are familiar with the team and players, unless it's a generational talent (Jordan with the Bulls, Tiger Woods, early LeBron, etc.). But again, that's almost always pros, not college, and they are choosing a single player, not a team. If you don't really care about college hoops, you aren't going to turn on the NCAA finals just because "oh, I know that Kentucky and Duke are storied programs, I should watch." Think about that person at your office who jokes about "sportsball"... would they be watching this Saturday if it was last year's final four matchups instead of this year's? Nope. But they might be tuning in if they had Duke in the finals and that would win them your office pool.

To the "individual talent" thing above, sadly you rarely come across "generational" talents in the NCAA tourney any more since nobody stays long enough to really show it... the only ones who seem to stay are, ironically, usually NOT on the power teams. Actually, the last time I can remember people who otherwise wouldn't care about NCAA hoops tuning in to watch NCAA games, was some young unknown kid on Davidson named Curry. Meanwhile, most Americans today couldn't even name the starting five on the blue bloods because like 4 out of the 5 change yearly.

Some sportswriter also tweeted the opinion that people like to tune in to root against teams they hate, i.e., thats part of why the Dukes and Kentuckys have bigger numbers. Who in the heck purposely chooses a game with a team they hate over another game? I wouldn't watch an LSU game if you paid me... okay, that's not true, if I see they are losing in the final minutes I might flip it on to laugh at them being sad.

Sure, sub in Notre Dame, Ohio State, and Alabama for Lakers/Yankees/Cowboys and the point still remains. You saw all the articles about how the Big 12 ratings in games without Texas/Oklahoma were AAC level. There are teams (schools) people care about watching, it's not that complicated.

I agree on the talent thing, it's rare for a player to make that much of a difference (Zion, maybe, more recently) but in college the stars are the coaches. I couldn't name two players on Michigan State's team but I sure know Izzo is coaching them.

As for your bracket prediction theory, the Miami-Texas game on Sunday was down 16% from the ratings of last year's UNC-St. Peter's game (same round, same time window)...I'll let you guess which of those two games featured a Cinderella 15 seed against an 8 seed that struggled to get in the tournament, and which featured a 2 seed that was the 5th most popular Final Four selection.

[PeteRasche]

Sure, sub in Notre Dame, Ohio State, and Alabama for Lakers/Yankees/Cowboys and the point still remains. You saw all the articles about how the Big 12 ratings in games without Texas/Oklahoma were AAC level. There are teams (schools) people care about watching, it's not that complicated.

But again, you're using regular season games as examples, where the overall numbers are WAY lower, so a large fanbase absolutely makes all the difference. I would never argue that point about regular season games. The tourney is different because the majority of the viewers have historically just been sports fans and people watching for the social aspect... that aspect being pool bets. Large fanbase vs. small fanbase makes a difference but not THIS LARGE of a difference. The fanbases are just a fraction of the viewing total. Something is driving why the "other" people are not watching tourney games featuring Cinderellas.

I agree on the talent thing, it's rare for a player to make that much of a difference (Zion, maybe, more recently) but in college the stars are the coaches. I couldn't name two players on Michigan State's team but I sure know Izzo is coaching them.

Agree about Zion, he was probably the last (more recently than Curry). But as for coaches, I'd argue my point that people are not tuning in to watch the coaches, they are betting on those coaches in their pools, and therefore watching those teams because they bet on them.

As for your bracket prediction theory, the Miami-Texas game on Sunday was down 16% from the ratings of last year's UNC-St. Peter's game (same round, same time window)...I'll let you guess which of those two games featured a Cinderella 15 seed against an 8 seed that struggled to get in the tournament, and which featured a 2 seed that was the 5th most popular Final Four selection.

So... you literally just proved my point. My whole point was that people stop watching when their pool teams are out, and that's why Cinderellas get poor ratings and Blue Bloods get good ratings. UNC was the fifth most popular pick in pools, millions more people still had that team alive in their pool and were still watching, hence the higher ratings. Exactly my point.

[ml wave]

As for your bracket prediction theory, the Miami-Texas game on Sunday was down 16% from the ratings of last year's UNC-St. Peter's game (same round, same time window)...I'll let you guess which of those two games featured a Cinderella 15 seed against an 8 seed that struggled to get in the tournament, and which featured a 2 seed that was the 5th most popular Final Four selection.

So... you literally just proved my point. My whole point was that people stop watching when their pool teams are out, and that's why Cinderellas get poor ratings and Blue Bloods get good ratings. UNC was the fifth most popular pick in pools, millions more people still had that team alive in their pool and were still watching, hence the higher ratings. Exactly my point.

Except that you guessed wrong and UNC was the 8th seed vs a Cinderalla 15 seed (St Peter's). Texas was the fifth most popular Final Four pick in pools this year. Whoops!

[PeteRasche]

As for your bracket prediction theory, the Miami-Texas game on Sunday was down 16% from the ratings of last year's UNC-St. Peter's game (same round, same time window)...I'll let you guess which of those two games featured a Cinderella 15 seed against an 8 seed that struggled to get in the tournament, and which featured a 2 seed that was the 5th most popular Final Four selection.

So... you literally just proved my point. My whole point was that people stop watching when their pool teams are out, and that's why Cinderellas get poor ratings and Blue Bloods get good ratings. UNC was the fifth most popular pick in pools, millions more people still had that team alive in their pool and were still watching, hence the higher ratings. Exactly my point.

Except that you guessed wrong and UNC was the 8th seed vs a Cinderalla 15 seed (St Peter's). Texas was the fifth most popular Final Four pick in pools this year. Whoops!

Not gonna lie... I messed that up because I knew that Miami and Texas weren't an 8 and 15.
But how many people had UNC last year? If you can still find that data. They might not have been the 5th-most chosen (because millions of people DO pay attention and would not have taken an 8 seed that far), but it could still be the case that millions of people ("rookies" as I called them above, who paid no attention to performance during the year and just know the UNC name) had taken them in pools and were watching because of that. I have no idea though.

Still... I know you love to argue with me, but surely you can't believe that the TV ratings have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the 30 MILLION brackets (and that's only in the main 4 online sites, there may be more in-office paper versions) filled out, many of which are by people who otherwise would not be watching.

[WaveProf]

I think there is a LOT of truth in Pete's statement. For serious basketball fans, they want known brands (Kentucky et al), but that isn't the majority of the demographic. But it does lead to confirmation bias for the people who are hard core fans, especially the ones who get paid to write and think about college basketball, when they see lower ratings.

A bigger reality to my mind is that most people follow because of brackets. The more upsets, the more busted brackets, the more they don't care. I think a lot of casual or non fans look at Duke versus Kentucky and go "again? yawn."

my wife and I haven't watched the championship since 2017, the first time Gonzaga made it. Before that we hadn't watched since 2010 and 2011, the years Butler made it. I have vague memories of watching Memphis in 2008 as well.

[PeteRasche]

I think there is a LOT of truth in Pete's statement. For serious basketball fans, they want known brands (Kentucky et al), but that isn't the majority of the demographic. But it does lead to confirmation bias for the people who are hard core fans, especially the ones who get paid to write and think about college basketball, when they see lower ratings.

A bigger reality to my mind is that most people follow because of brackets. The more upsets, the more busted brackets, the more they don't care. I think a lot of casual or non fans look at Duke versus Kentucky and go "again? yawn."

my wife and I haven't watched the championship since 2017, the first time Gonzaga made it. Before that we hadn't watched since 2010 and 2011, the years Butler made it. I have vague memories of watching Memphis in 2008 as well.

Which goes back to my initial observation that real sports fans - the ones who will watch anything at any time, which likely describes many on this forum - have a hard time grasping that a LOT of Americans aren't that way any more. Twenty to thirty years ago it was much more common that adults (and let's be honest, in those days, if not still, it was predominantly males) were "watch whatever is on" sports fans. The ones who weren't were called nerds and even bullied. But it's changed dramatically in the past few decades (along with overall declining sports viewership). I have no idea of the numbers but there are way more people now who have better things to do (or are just too busy) than plopping down on the sofa every night and watching ESPN for several hours. For reasons I won't go into here (dealing with my home media system) I've spent about 15 years also on an AV/tech forum, and one of the pretty much known facts with the cord-cutting movement is that people had to be willing to let go of sports... Sports was that one last thing that you could not get any other (legal) way if you cut the cord. But the cord cutting numbers increase yearly, which goes to show how sports viewing (as a whole, maybe not allegiance to a specific team) are losing their importance to American households.

All of that simply going back to the idea that millions of Americans still fill out brackets for the social (or financial?) aspect of it, but aren't interested in watching unless their picks are still in the running.

[ml wave]

As for your bracket prediction theory, the Miami-Texas game on Sunday was down 16% from the ratings of last year's UNC-St. Peter's game (same round, same time window)...I'll let you guess which of those two games featured a Cinderella 15 seed against an 8 seed that struggled to get in the tournament, and which featured a 2 seed that was the 5th most popular Final Four selection.

So... you literally just proved my point. My whole point was that people stop watching when their pool teams are out, and that's why Cinderellas get poor ratings and Blue Bloods get good ratings. UNC was the fifth most popular pick in pools, millions more people still had that team alive in their pool and were still watching, hence the higher ratings. Exactly my point.

Except that you guessed wrong and UNC was the 8th seed vs a Cinderalla 15 seed (St Peter's). Texas was the fifth most popular Final Four pick in pools this year. Whoops!

Not gonna lie... I messed that up because I knew that Miami and Texas weren't an 8 and 15.
But how many people had UNC last year? If you can still find that data. They might not have been the 5th-most chosen (because millions of people DO pay attention and would not have taken an 8 seed that far), but it could still be the case that millions of people ("rookies" as I called them above, who paid no attention to performance during the year and just know the UNC name) had taken them in pools and were watching because of that. I have no idea though.

Still... I know you love to argue with me, but surely you can't believe that the TV ratings have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the 30 MILLION brackets (and that's only in the main 4 online sites, there may be more in-office paper versions) filled out, many of which are by people who otherwise would not be watching.

I think it's minimal at best. In every other sport, the popular teams drive ratings, I don't see why NCAA basketball needs brackets to be different. NYT has an article this year https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... table.html with a variety of different websites cumulative picks which is interesting. For last year, I googled the ESPN results ("ESPN who picked whom 2022" will get you there). UNC was picked in the final four by 1.1% of entries, just ahead of LSU for 19th highest.

Added on edit: I'm also not sure the 30MM online brackets submitted represent as many different people as you seem to think. They're free to fill out and basically impossible to be correct so I think there's a lot of duplication.

[ml wave]

I think there is a LOT of truth in Pete's statement. For serious basketball fans, they want known brands (Kentucky et al), but that isn't the majority of the demographic. But it does lead to confirmation bias for the people who are hard core fans, especially the ones who get paid to write and think about college basketball, when they see lower ratings.

A bigger reality to my mind is that most people follow because of brackets. The more upsets, the more busted brackets, the more they don't care. I think a lot of casual or non fans look at Duke versus Kentucky and go "again? yawn."

my wife and I haven't watched the championship since 2017, the first time Gonzaga made it. Before that we hadn't watched since 2010 and 2011, the years Butler made it. I have vague memories of watching Memphis in 2008 as well.

I would think the exact opposite, that the serious basketball fans are happy to watch SDSU/FAU but the casual/non fans are only interested in people/teams they're familiar with.

[tulaneoutlaw]

In the end a pretty disappointing March madness. Aac underperformed. Lsu was gifted a women's title after South Carolina got upset. Uconn gets a ridiculously easy draw with all the upsets and does the same. All the upsets were really fun but this was about the worst conclusion I could've imagined. Yuck

[ml wave]

In the end a pretty disappointing March madness. Aac underperformed. Lsu was gifted a women's title after South Carolina got upset. Uconn gets a ridiculously easy draw with all the upsets and does the same. All the upsets were really fun but this was about the worst conclusion I could've imagined. Yuck

Well said. Yuck indeed.