Brian D Helland wrote:
>
> TV Coverage of NCAA Div.I College Hockey is a total joke.  Unless you
> live in a College Hockey town that has a local station that carries it,
> you are out of luck.  ESPN gets most of the blame, and rightfully so!!!
> They will air garbage like the "Extreme Games", Professional Pool (I kid
> you not, I saw it once!!!), and Yaht Racing.  But put an exciting and
> addicting product like College Hockey in front of them, and they ignore
> it.  Maybe it didn't occur to these corporate suits that if you gave the
> viewing public a taste of College Hockey, at least SOME of them might
> get hooked?!?!  But, I believe that the Anti-Hockey NC$$ is also to
> blame.  They don't care about Hockey at all.  They do nothing to promote
> it, and they have a whole host of rules that hurt it (Major Juniors Rule
> tops the list, but that's a different post).  I believe that, if given
> the chance, that Div.I College Hockey could become a major money maker
> for the NC$$.  But, since most of the NC$$ suits played or were raised on
> Basketball and Football, and they probably think of hockey as an
> "Elitist Sport" (which it is not!), they don't want anything to do with
> promoting it.  I think that it is up to College Hockey supporters to
> organize a private network of local TV stations in order to promote
> College Hockey.  It would feature Series of the Week, studio and coaches
> shows, ect.  Each league could organize their own network.  Then, all of
> us fans could tell ESPN to take a long walk off a short pier!!!!  Just my
> opinion, of course.
 
You don't seem to understand.  ESPN wants "Elitist Sports".  The
'Extreme Games' make it on the air because there are a number of
commercial sponsors (foremost being Mountain Dew) that are trying to
hitch themselves to a very specific image that this event embodies.
 
Yachting tends to be on in the afternoon.  I'm sure that if college
hockey was played on Tuesday at 1:00 PM EST, it would be on TV more.  It
isn't played then, and won't be, so it's not a valid comparison.
Besides, the demographics on yachting are probably very desirable,
making each rating point more effective.
 
Pool I can't explain, but it may well have something similar.
 
Face it, folks, college hockey only has a regional interest, making it
unlikely that a national network is going to get all that excited.
Personally, I remain unconvinced that the geographic expansion of hockey
is going to be a long term success, but let's say that it is.  you don't
see college baseball on national TV much, either.  Other than the
College World Series, you only see it on regional cable networks, i.e.
just like hockey on MSC, PASS and NESN.
 
College basketball and football are unique in the sports pantheon.
There are no significant minor leagues in these sports to provide
dilution.  They developed national followings decades ago, before the
explosion of sports offerings now in front of us.  And they're played in
all of the markets.
 
There is no college hockey played in any of the top media markets in the
US.  Nothing in LA, nothing in Chicago, nothing in Houston, nothing in
Philadelphia, etc.  Nothing even in NYC; they seem to do their best to
ignore ANY goings on in Albany and parts north.
 
It's not a conspiracy.  It's not that all of the decision makers are
morons or biased.  If you aren't already a committed fan like we
are, college hockey just doesn't have anything that raises it up enough
to make the population at large take notice.  We are stuck in a
popularity backwater.  Thank goodness for the Internet.
 
J. Michael Neal
 
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