Has NIL and the portal already ruined March Madness?

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die hard gopher said:
I find this line of thinking funny because in football, since we haven’t had a dynasty and same level of dominance that those Bama teams have, the conversation has recently been “the portal has created more parity in CFB as the top programs can’t retain their depth and everyone now can pay players.”

But since we haven’t had first round upsets it’s the opposite line of thinking in CBB. “NIL and the portal have hurt mid majors as the high majors can poach all their talent.”

If there were more upsets than normal, people would be saying the new rules have created parity in CBB and if the Saban dynasty still existed people would be saying NIL has consolidated all their talent in CFB etc. Whatever the situation is, people would be saying it’s all due to the new NIL and transfer portal rules.

Now I do tend to agree that the rules have hurt mid majors and they get the worse end of the deal, even if they do get some guys who drop down a level that otherwise wouldn’t. And basketball and football are very different sports of course.

I just find it funny how the talking points are complete opposites with the two sports.
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Football and basketball are really not comparable.

Football 100ish guys in the roster, 40ish see time. Basketball 15 with 7-9 seeing time.

Football has FCS and FBS split.

Quarterback is such a uniquely important spot.

Yah NIL is likely to balance Football way more due to playing time and the QB position. All the top FCS QBs leave to move up and all the backups at Bama UGA leave to get playing time. Meanwhile a guy can score 15-20 a game at a mid major but moves up to the P5 to be a role player.

I agree 1 year is too small to judge but I do think it's likely NIL continues to equalize FCS football but widens the High major vs mid major gap in basketball
 


MaxyJR1 said:
People think too many SEC teams got in and maybe true, but the replacements likely provide the same results.
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I agree but that statement is an argument for NOT taking so many from one conference. If those teams are just going to be fodder for better teams, why not spread the fodder teams around the conferences?
 

MaxyJR1 said:
People think too many SEC teams got in and maybe true, but the replacements likely provide the same results.
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Maybe, maybe not. I don't care how strong the conference is perceived to be, teams that go 6-12 in the conference should never make it. Neither should all 8-10 teams, but a couple of them is fine.

I would much rather see Boise St, UC Irvine, West Virginia, SMU etc over those teams.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Maybe, maybe not. I don't care how strong the conference is perceived to be, teams that go 6-12 in the conference should never make it. Neither should all 8-10 teams, but a couple of them is fine.

I would much rather see Boise St, UC Irvine, West Virginia, SMU etc over those teams.
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They need to find a way to rebalance like 6 of the top conferences back to some kind of regional alignment. Probably impossible with all the tv deals and whatnot, but having 18 team national super conferences is not sustainable.
 


GopherBlood777 said:
They need to find a way to rebalance like 6 of the top conferences back to some kind of regional alignment. Probably impossible with all the tv deals and whatnot, but having 18 team national super conferences is not sustainable.
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As long as we keep paying for tickets, cable and streaming services to watch, it will be sustainable for the mega conferences, if not for the industry and game as a whole.
 

Holy Man said:
As long as we keep paying for tickets, cable and streaming services to watch, it will be sustainable for the mega conferences, if not for the industry and game as a whole.
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See the NBA as an example of what happens when you put an inferior product on the floor for too long. Eventually interest wanes and people stop caring. Not saying it will fold completely, but it runs the risk of becoming a shell of itself.
 

GopherBlood777 said:
See the NBA as an example of what happens when you put an inferior product on the floor for too long. Eventually interest wanes and people stop caring. Not saying it will fold completely, but it runs the risk of becoming a shell of itself.
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Agreed. But as long as the product generates the revenue, the only ones who will care are on the Gopherhole! The mega conferences need to get the NFL mentality of rising tide lifts all boats and maintaining competitive balance maximizes interest across the whole product.
 






Holy Man said:
As long as we keep paying for tickets, cable and streaming services to watch, it will be sustainable for the mega conferences, if not for the industry and game as a whole.
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Exactly ! 💵 drives the decision making
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
I agree but that statement is an argument for NOT taking so many from one conference. If those teams are just going to be fodder for better teams, why not spread the fodder teams around the conferences?
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$$$ and ticket sales with larger fan bases.

I’d like regular season champs auto past conference tournaments in some mid major leagues that have high competition ratings.
 





bleedsmaroonandgold said:
Two things can be true. I think we are going to see the top programs in the big conferences lose their dominance, but also see the mid majors struggle even more to compete. It's now easier for big conference teams to grab surprisingly good players from mid majors, but also harder for the blue blood to horde talent on their bench. The non-blue blood major conference teams would be the beneficiary of both of those things.
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I agree and that is very similar to football. Harder for the bluebloods to horde the best talent in both leagues now which is good. Not so good for mid majors is their best players are transferring up a level and making the average major conference team better. That is similar to FCS and non-P4 FBS players in football moving up to P4. This should actually benefit the Gophers if they ever get their act together.
 

One lame tournament is not a trend, and they’ve happened before. We’re 2 years removed from a totally upside-down tournament and 1 year removed from Oakland, Yale, and James Madison taking down bigs. At the same time, NIL and the Portal are hollowing out mid majors, and I hate it. Today, no chance someone like Ja Morant or Steph Curry stay at their little no-NLI budget schools. No chance Butler’s big run happens, because Gordon Hayward and Shevlin Mack get bought by bigger programs once they become good.
 





I feel like it's a little misleading to talk about conference affiliation as BYU and Houston are now both in the Big 12. Two years ago this same field would have have had BYU out of the WCC and Houston out of the AAC. We were one shot away from adding a MWC team to that group as well three years ago there would have been 6 conference represented and very nearly 7.

I thought the first two days sucked with the lack of upsets and do think NIL plays a role as the two teams I mentioned having moved up also reportedly have big NIL donors.

For me I'll always be much more interested when the Gophers are good (please actually start being good) but I know that individual players making millions will continue to decrease my interest in the college version of the sport. It's not that the players don't deserve a share it's just that if I am watching guys paid like the top .2% of earners in the US, I will watch the actual elite players in the NBA. I am happy for the kids getting life changing money, but it's also a little stomach churning to read about a bidding war for a kid who averaged 14/5 for Central Connecticut because Kentucky and Texas think they need a better 7th man.
 


GopherBlood777 said:
Ratings down across the board
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The national ABC games are up 10% from last year.

Ratings for ABC, ESPN and TNT games are down just 1% from last year.

Most the hyperventilating about the state of the game was done around Christmas/New Years when the league was competing with the NFL.

Super Bowl week was dominated by NBA trade talk.
 

MilosRevenge said:
The national ABC games are up 10% from last year.

Ratings for ABC, ESPN and TNT games are down just 1% from last year.

Most the hyperventilating about the state of the game was done around Christmas/New Years when the league was competing with the NFL.

Super Bowl week was dominated by NBA trade talk.
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They have been declining at large since 2016-17, that was the peak of the league. I believe much hyperventilating also around all star weekend this year.
 

Bad Gopher said:
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This Tweet is factually incorrect as the Big East is not represented at all, while the Big 12 has multiple teams.

No Big East. No Gonzaga. That would have at least got it to 6 Conferences represented.
 
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die hard gopher said:
I find this line of thinking funny because in football, since we haven’t had a dynasty and same level of dominance that those Bama teams have, the conversation has recently been “the portal has created more parity in CFB as the top programs can’t retain their depth and everyone now can pay players.”

But since we haven’t had first round upsets it’s the opposite line of thinking in CBB. “NIL and the portal have hurt mid majors as the high majors can poach all their talent.”

If there were more upsets than normal, people would be saying the new rules have created parity in CBB and if the Saban dynasty still existed people would be saying NIL has consolidated all their talent in CFB etc. Whatever the situation is, people would be saying it’s all due to the new NIL and transfer portal rules.

Now I do tend to agree that the rules have hurt mid majors and they get the worse end of the deal, even if they do get some guys who drop down a level that otherwise wouldn’t. And basketball and football are very different sports of course.

I just find it funny how the talking points are complete opposites with the two sports.
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Part of that is roster size. There isn't enough playing time for all the players on every football team so players are more apt to move around to find a spot they can play ASAP. College Football is so popular you can become a star anywhere. College basketball has smaller rosters and March Madness is your best chance to make an impression so you would want to be on a team that has a good chance to go to the NCAAs. The wealth gets consolidated...

Plus there are less top level football teams than basketball. There is 136 FBS teams and 352 schools in D-1 basketball.

The parity in college football is a bit of a misnomer though in that, for the most part, the top teams are the same as they were. The difference is more teams have a chance to score the upset than before or be apart of the rung below the super elites. Its more like what basketball used to be...ure most likely Duke or North Carolina was going to win the title, but they could be (and were) upset all the time. Basketball has shifted more to what football used to be...players would rather be the 6th man on a top flight team than be the star of the Cinderella team.
 
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Dave H said:
Part of that is roster size. There isn't enough playing time for all the players on every football team so players are more apt to move around to find a spot they can play ASAP. College Football is so popular you can become a star anywhere. College basketball has smaller rosters and March Madness is your best chance to make an impression so you would want to be on a team that has a good chance to go to the NCAAs. The wealth gets consolidated...

Plus there are less top level football teams than basketball. There is 136 FBS teams and 352 schools in basketball. Parity is a bit tougher.

The parity in college football is a bit of a misnomer though in that, for the most part, the top teams are the same as they were. The difference is more teams have a chance to score the upset than before or be apart of the rung below the super elites. Its more like what basketball used to be...ure most likely Duke or North Carolina was going to win the title, but they could be (and were) upset all the time. Basketball has shifted more to what football used to be...players would rather be the 6th man on a top flight team than be the star of the Cinderella team.
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LOL.
There's more playing time available in basketball, with 5 starters, than in football, where there are 22?

Stop and give that some thought.
 

USAF said:
LOL.
There's more playing time available in basketball, with 5 starters, than in football, where there are 22?

Stop and give that some thought.
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Right but players want playing time in the games that matter. The best way to get seen is to make the tournament and you know it. And what do the players on mid-majors do when they get seen? They either declare for the draft or move up a level. Football is different. First of all they can't declare for the draft on a whim unless they are far enough away from HS but also college football's regular season is more popular than basketball in part because it has less games.

(look at the tweet above about the FAU players for example)

The calculus is different for a college basketball player. It isn't about playing time so much as playing time at the right time. Being a bench player on MSU is likely to get you seen more (i.e. have a chance to play pro ball) than being a stud at a smaller school in a one bid league unless you make the tournament. Now, the players at smaller schools that would normally lead their teams to being a Cinderella as a junior or senior spend the first year or two auditioning to get a shot to play at the bigger schools so they can go dancing quicker and get paid more.
 

drewhaus7 said:
Have to try and see the positives now. It is hard for many players to come right out of high school and compete and find playing time in the top conferences. Now there are opportunities for some to still have a chance to dance at the NCAA level as smaller conference winner, but also get playing time and experience knowing their hard work could later results in getting an opportunity at their bigger school which probably wouldn't have had the chance before and for some at this moment be a big payday.
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So minor leagues then...

That is what people are talking about. Develop at a smaller schools, then go chase the bag to play for the evils...
 

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