Even if you know who Gary Bettman is, you’re probably confused by the headline. But if you think about it, the NHL commissioner may very well have ensured more Division III basketball coverage on ESPN next season.
Blame the NHL players, blame the owners — it doesn’t matter. There was no hockey this past season and the lockout depressed the television contract’s value so much that ESPN not only didn’t pick up its $60 million broadcast contract option for 2005-06, it ended negotiations on a new contract altogether, according to Toronto’s The Globe and Mail newspaper.
“If the NHL decides it wants to come back with us, and propose a new offer, given our history, we’ll listen,” ESPN’s executive vice president of programming and production, Mark Shaprio, told the newspaper. “But anything in the neighborhood of $60 million is a conversation we’re not willing to have.”
Without hockey in the way, you can expect ESPN to add more college basketball, and the cable network should consider a WIAC game or a CCIW game for next year’s schedule.
If that happens, you know who to thank.
Gotta believe they would consider the Hope/Calvin game, given the response they received in the fan poll about rivalries.
Oh, indeed. But I figure that is already on their radar, since ESPNU sent a film crew out there this past year. I was meaning to introduce them to other things but should have mentioned Hope/Calvin as a natural choice.
Randolph Macon vs. Hampden-Sydney is a good rivalry to show.
As much as I’d like to see Hope/Calvin or Sydney/Macon on national TV, I’m not convinced that the “D3 Game of the Week” would be good for D3. I had a long talk about this with diehardfan, and I think I’ve come around to her way of thinking. It’s nice to assume that lots of ESPN viewers would be captiviated and fall in love with our pure game, but that’s not what likely would happen. Instead of bringing our game to ESPN, I’m afraid ESPN would bring THEIR game to us. I shudder to think of Dick Vitale or Bill Raftery doing a Hope/Calvin game (“he’s a diaper Dutch dandy, bay-bee!”). D3 hoops is about the game and the student-athlete; ESPN is about entertainment (it is, after all, what the ‘E’ stands for.) I don’t want them ESPN’ing up our game. If it becomes “showtime, bay-bee,” who knows what havoc that will wreak in D3, especially at some schools that are already perilously close to “win-at-all-costs” status.
Besides, there’s nothing worse than the TV timeout! 🙂
Well, I can see that in theory although I cannot see Dick Vitale doing a D-III game.
Maybe one in Michigan… I guess… but still.
I would hope that an occasional game, not a game of the week, would not fall prey to such trappings.
Dick Vitale’s done at least one D3 game already, Pat. He did the 1980 D3 national championship game between North Park and Upsala for ESPN, back when the network was in its infancy.
I’ve only seen snippets of footage from that ESPN telecast (I was at the game, and this was in the pre-VCR era), but what I saw of Vitale in that footage was pretty subdued by his current standards. I think that he’s increasingly exaggerated his style over the intervening years because all that “diaper dandy, PTPer, bay-bee!” baloney has become his trademark shtick and thus his meal ticket.
Dennis Prikkel has seen the entire telecast of the ’80 title game, and he swears that Vitale spent most of the game talking about Upsala, in spite of the fact that North Park led the whole way and was gunning for a third straight national title, because the Upsala coach and Vitale were buddies. However, this is Prikkel talking, so take his reminiscence for what it’s worth. 🙂
Yeah, Gregory, I know this… But as you say, there’s a difference between Vitale ’80 and Vitale ’05.
I would love to see a D3 Game of the Week, even if it’s not a WIAC game every week! 🙂
But, for this to happen and to satisfy the D3 public, I really think ESPN needs to improve their converage. When ESPN came to Darby for the Grinnell/Beloit game, I didn’t see the game until the last minute or so. But after reading a lot of posts on the MWC page, it sounded like ESPN not only didn’t do their homework, but refused to even open up the book. You’d think you’d want to know a little background on the teams, players, coaches, records, conferences etc, but from what I read, they didn’t expand on those subjects much at all. If you’re gonna have converage on a little known entity like D3, shouldn’t you teach the general public?
I thought the guys from last year’s D3 championship game on FOX and this year’s game on CSTV did a fine job. I don’t like Vitale in the first place and I’d hate for him to do a D3 game.
Vitale: “Look at that passing BABY! He’s a PTP-Prime Time Passer!”
Vitale is an acquired taste, and there are any number of us for whom he grates on our nerves and mars the game. But let’s look at the other side of the coin — Vitale is a sportscaster superstar, and his presence draws attention to whatever game he’s calling. While I suspect that any D3 game ESPN covers would be called by somebody well down the network’s pecking order of sportscasters, and that said B-teamer would probably be more palatable to a lot of our ears than would Vitale, it might be worth suffering through a Vitale-called game just for the added visibility it would give to the D3 teams involved (not to mention the division as a whole).
But it is that visibility that I don’t think we really want. Isn’t it the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle that says that observing something changes it? That’s what I think would happen with the powerful force that is ESPN. They wouldn’t emphasize the aspects of the game that we know and love, such as the dedication of the student-athletes and coaches, the unselfish style of play, etc. They’d search out the ‘sexiest’ players and teams and emphasize them. And some coaches would court that attention in ways that I don’t think would benefit the game.
If Playboy did a “Girls of the CCIW” feature, that would draw a lot of attention to D3 too. But not the right kind of attention. Our game is a beautiful game, and I don’t want to risk it.
As much as I dislike Vitale (and Mr. Obvious, John Madden), I’d still watch a D-III came with him announcing because it’s D-III, just like I’d watch a MNF game, even if Madden annoys the heck out of me. In the same line of thinking, I don’t think a D-I basketball fan will watch a D-III basketball game, involving two teams he’s never heard of, simply because Vitale is doing the game. It’s amazing what television has done to sports across the board and how people like Vitale, Madden and others have influenced how those sports are presented. I would’ve liked to have known how many of those viewers that watched the Beloit/Grinnell game were actual Beloit/Grinnell or D3 fans…
I guess I’m more sanguine about national exposure to D3 hoops than you, David. I don’t see it being that big of a deal in terms of how coaches run their programs; I suspect that the small-potatoes budgets of D3 athletics are enough of a brake to curb any excess ambitions in this area. And anything that exposes the wider world of basketball fandom to our brand is a good thing, in my opinion.
It would actually be pretty funny if *Playboy* had a “Girls Of The CCIW” feature. When I was in school, we used to joke that if Hef did try to run such a feature he’d only be able to get Augie girls to pose. The consensus was that a six-pack apiece of Miller Lite would be sufficient to get them to cooperate. 🙂