Frontpage Features

BY SPEED FREAKS' STATT MANN

There are as many people waiting in line for the next Rambo or Rocky movie as there are people standing in line to see an expanded NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.  Yet, the path to expansion appears to have been paved.  It makes no sense.

Sports promoters make so much these days about the entertainment value of athletic competition.  But they're missing the major point of successful entertainment promotions: leave them wanting more.  Expanding the tournament doesn't break that rule.  It shatters it then grinds it into powder.

The only people who'd want another Rambo or Rocky movie would be the movie makers looking for another pay day.  Same thing in the tournament.   The only people wanting this are the people looking for another pay day from the sidelines to the booth to the NCAA offices.

It's one of the worst sports business decisions I've ever witnessed.  They argue that the additional teams are nothing more than absorbing the NIT tournament.  But the reason the NIT has lost its luster is because the fans have decided the teams aren't worth watching once you leave their campus and alumni associations.

American business often catches itself believing that if one is good, then two is better.  In this case, if 64 is good, then 96 is automatically better.  Historically, the tournament has been expanded several times and each time traditionalists have complained.   But here's an instance where the threshold of too much has been reached.  Many of the last teams into the tournament are barely above .500 teams. Do teams that lose as much as they win deserve to be in a prestigious promotion?

It's like NASCAR races where drivers are guaranteed entry into the race because of past performance.  Faster drivers are sent home because guys with a glorious past are given preference.  All the empty seats at NASCAR races and declining TV ratings will tell you how well that's working out.  You can naively say the economy if the reason for NASCAR’s troubles but the fans are speaking with interests.  The economy will keep them from buying tickets, but fallen interest is keeping them from watching on free TV.

There are people waiting for the next Rambo or Rocky but are they enough to warrant the expense of making the films and, maybe, destroying the lucrative brands the films have built?  We can see what unearned entry has done to NASCAR.  We’ll see what unearned entry will do to the NCAA tournament.  What a risk.

Again, here's a case where the NCAA, a so-called entertainment giant, is ignoring the most obvious rule in entertainment promotion: leave them wanting more.  No one has ever lost and no brand has ever suffered by adhering to the concept of leaving them wanting more.  Watching this creep toward reality is like watching Rocky the Ocho. Painful...