March Madness

[ArgoRavi]

Is anyone genuinely interested in March Madness? And no, I don't consider only being interested because you are in a pool to be "genuine" interest. It amuses me how the Canadian sports media try their darndest to get Canadians interested in this event although they certainly don't do much for CIS basketball.

[Will]

I've paid no attention to NCAA basketball this year. Often times, I find the NCAA tournament to be more exciting than NBA basketball. That being said, I've always found that my interest is retained throughout the first few rounds, but when they have a break in between the Elite 8 and Final 4, I never ended up watching the rest of the tournament.

[matchuk]

i watch a few games here and there....and as said before its a lot more exciting then the nba as most times

[ticatfan]

I am taking Thursday and Friday off work to watch. I have also been to Syracuse 4 times for the East Regionals.

[argonaut11xx]

Its better than the NBA...but that aint saying much.

Its fun to bet on ..thats about it...

[Deerkeeper]

I am like the other 99% of Canadians in that I couldn't give a rats fanny about about March Madness. The other 1% are the Canadian media. Well I suppose that's not quite true. I do recognize that there are fans in this country that do follow it, but are there enough of them to warrant the level of coverage that this thing gets here every year?

On the subject of University Basketball; I am not a big basketball fan by any means but every year around this time I do take a bit of an interest in the CIS men's championship. I googled it to find out the dates of the tournament and lo and behold, discovered that it was played last weekend. Who knew? Seriously, I mean "WHO KNEW?" I didn't. I didn't see any thing on the sports about it. No hi-lights. Nothing in the papers. Was it even televised? What a sorry state of affairs for university sports in this country; Crooning all over NCAA players with out so much as giving our own the time of day. Carleton won by the way. Their eighth national championship in ten years. Went the season undefeated. You would think that would earn them a headline or two.

[argofandave]

I don't follow basketball much but I do know that the CIS championship game was NOT televised. I think that the semi-finals were on the Score but that's it...My only interest in March Madness is Brady Heslip of Baylor. He's from Burlington and I went to school with his father (Tom Heslip) in Oakville. Tom was a basketball star at U. of Guelph in the late 1970's & early 1980's. Brady's uncle just happens to be Jay Triano.

[1argoholic]

I'll watch a minute here and a minute there. Not into the sport in the least but it's fun to watch the crazy crowds. To me it's like soccer, boring!!! At this age I don't get caught up in hype like I may have when I was young. I'm sure ESPN north that being TSN will be all over it.

[argofandave]

I remember several years ago when ESPN, which owns part of TSN, wanted TSN to change their name to ESPN Canada.

[argolio]

The Score, Sportsnet, and TSN have all had the rights to the NCAA tournament in the last decade. Not sure if that means it gets decent enough ratings to outbid the other networks, or if the first two networks lost interest.

[ArgoRavi]

The Score, Sportsnet, and TSN have all had the rights to the NCAA tournament in the last decade. Not sure if that means it gets decent enough ratings to outbid the other networks, or if the first two networks lost interest.

From what I can recall, the networks in Canada do not get great ratings for this. I seem to recall that the ratings are in the 70k-80k range but perhaps someone can find some hard numbers.

[argolio]

Maybe Canadian rights fees are cheap, and the NCAA went with TSN because it offers more exposure.

[Will]

A ton of upsets yesterday at the tournament with Duke and Missouri all falling to defeat. That's one thing that actually appeals to some about the tournament us the unpredictability factor and that anybody can beat anybody at any given moment.

[ticatfan]

I am like the other 99% of Canadians in that I couldn't give a rats fanny about about March Madness. The other 1% are the Canadian media. Well I suppose that's not quite true. I do recognize that there are fans in this country that do follow it, but are there enough of them to warrant the level of coverage that this thing gets here every year?

On the subject of University Basketball; I am not a big basketball fan by any means but every year around this time I do take a bit of an interest in the CIS men's championship. I googled it to find out the dates of the tournament and lo and behold, discovered that it was played last weekend. Who knew? Seriously, I mean "WHO KNEW?" I didn't. I didn't see any thing on the sports about it. No hi-lights. Nothing in the papers. Was it even televised? What a sorry state of affairs for university sports in this country; Crooning all over NCAA players with out so much as giving our own the time of day. Carleton won by the way. Their eighth national championship in ten years. Went the season undefeated. You would think that would earn them a headline or two.

Carleton has been good for so long. I was surprised to see that Lakehead was in the final though