dimecres, de març 21, 2007
Women's College Basketball is a Huge Waste of Television
Why is women’s college basketball on television? Does anyone have an answer that doesn’t involve the words “Title IX” or “corporate sponsorships” in them? The only reason that women’s basketball games should be televised is because everything else has already been televised. Which, by the way, is a better reason to stop televising things altogether.
This is not a chauvinistic conclusion. This feeling is more a kin to my questioning the need for Krispy Kreme to produce a donut flavored smoothie. If you need to consume glazed flavored products sans chewing or if you are spending time watching women’s basketball on television then you should stop and find something else to do.
Am I justifying the act of actually attending a game? No, but I’m
not against it either. I figure there is some excitement involved in being present for any athletic feat. I don’t judge people who go watch mud wrestling, eating contests, curling, or those fabled ‘lumberjack’ games for that matter. The difference here is that neither of those events is as intrusive. I am required by gender law to watch 10 minutes of women’s college basketball highlights in order to find out if an NBA team won or not. An analogous example of this would be if you had to endure the story of how the person behind the cash register ended up at that job every time you bought something. You don’t care, you don’t want to care, and would feel ridiculous for caring.
My annoyance seems to have some objective support though as my anguish has led me to research how many people are actually interested in watching people only do 75% (super generous estimate here) of what other people can do, and are doing, and are as available to watch.
Finding attendance numbers for women college basketball games is as easy as baking a cake without the use of your extremities. In case you don’t retain information the way I do let me first inform you that Duke, Temple, Pittsburgh, and Tennessee have some of the most praised women basketball programs in the country. The first and latter especially have a recent history almost all other schools would trade for at the drop of the hat. Yet when you look up the attendance it is reported as N/A. Mind you that Duke played Temple in Raleigh, NC and Duke University is located within 25 miles of downtown Raleigh. Tennessee played Pittsburgh at the University of Pittsburgh. You would think that the attendance would be phenomenal to either one of these, worth taking note of at least.
Perhaps you are saying that I can’t come to a conclusion by means of an N/A. Well click on this link and watch the highlights in the right sidebar for yourself. What explanation is there for all those empty seats? Did everyone go buy hotdogs at the same exact time every time they chose to include a shot of the (anti-)crowd in the frame?
Here are some attendance numbers from last night’s games:
N.C. State vs Baylor – 5,225 (Played in Raleigh where N.C. State is located)
Connecticut vs. Baylor – 7,250 (Played in Hartford, CT; 30 miles from Univ of Conn)
Michigan State vs. Rutgers – 8,000 (Played in Michigan State’s own gym)
The only sporting event you can equate those numbers to is professional bowling, and that is televised at the same time as NFL games to tell you that you should not be watching this channel, football is on, what is wrong with you?
Since I try to contribute as well as destroy I will suggest an alternative, because I am sure someone reading this is asking, “Well, what should they put on instead then?” This is a very easy answer- Hockey. There were 8 games last night that could have been televised. Only two of which had attendance below 18,000 (15,000+ and 13,100).
Before you go nuts and claim that no one wants to watch hockey let me put the 1.3 Nielsen rating the average NCAA women’s basketball tournament game receives in perspective for you. That is 500,000 people lees than what watched a rerun of “The War At Home” on Fox this past Sunday.
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This is not a chauvinistic conclusion. This feeling is more a kin to my questioning the need for Krispy Kreme to produce a donut flavored smoothie. If you need to consume glazed flavored products sans chewing or if you are spending time watching women’s basketball on television then you should stop and find something else to do.
Am I justifying the act of actually attending a game? No, but I’m
not against it either. I figure there is some excitement involved in being present for any athletic feat. I don’t judge people who go watch mud wrestling, eating contests, curling, or those fabled ‘lumberjack’ games for that matter. The difference here is that neither of those events is as intrusive. I am required by gender law to watch 10 minutes of women’s college basketball highlights in order to find out if an NBA team won or not. An analogous example of this would be if you had to endure the story of how the person behind the cash register ended up at that job every time you bought something. You don’t care, you don’t want to care, and would feel ridiculous for caring.My annoyance seems to have some objective support though as my anguish has led me to research how many people are actually interested in watching people only do 75% (super generous estimate here) of what other people can do, and are doing, and are as available to watch.
Finding attendance numbers for women college basketball games is as easy as baking a cake without the use of your extremities. In case you don’t retain information the way I do let me first inform you that Duke, Temple, Pittsburgh, and Tennessee have some of the most praised women basketball programs in the country. The first and latter especially have a recent history almost all other schools would trade for at the drop of the hat. Yet when you look up the attendance it is reported as N/A. Mind you that Duke played Temple in Raleigh, NC and Duke University is located within 25 miles of downtown Raleigh. Tennessee played Pittsburgh at the University of Pittsburgh. You would think that the attendance would be phenomenal to either one of these, worth taking note of at least.
Perhaps you are saying that I can’t come to a conclusion by means of an N/A. Well click on this link and watch the highlights in the right sidebar for yourself. What explanation is there for all those empty seats? Did everyone go buy hotdogs at the same exact time every time they chose to include a shot of the (anti-)crowd in the frame?
Here are some attendance numbers from last night’s games:
N.C. State vs Baylor – 5,225 (Played in Raleigh where N.C. State is located)
Connecticut vs. Baylor – 7,250 (Played in Hartford, CT; 30 miles from Univ of Conn)
Michigan State vs. Rutgers – 8,000 (Played in Michigan State’s own gym)
The only sporting event you can equate those numbers to is professional bowling, and that is televised at the same time as NFL games to tell you that you should not be watching this channel, football is on, what is wrong with you?
Since I try to contribute as well as destroy I will suggest an alternative, because I am sure someone reading this is asking, “Well, what should they put on instead then?” This is a very easy answer- Hockey. There were 8 games last night that could have been televised. Only two of which had attendance below 18,000 (15,000+ and 13,100).
Before you go nuts and claim that no one wants to watch hockey let me put the 1.3 Nielsen rating the average NCAA women’s basketball tournament game receives in perspective for you. That is 500,000 people lees than what watched a rerun of “The War At Home” on Fox this past Sunday.
Publica un comentari a l'entrada