Women’s Final Four
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James Joyner | Tuesday, April 3, 2007 |
Does anyone have a clue why the marketing genuises at the NCAA continue to schedule the Women’s Final after the men’s championship has been decided? Isn’t that rather anti-climactic?
Then again, as Mister Biggs points out, simulcasting the game on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN HD, ESPN2 HD, ESPNU, ESPN360, ESPN International, ESPNNEWS, ESPN Radio, and ESPN.com is rather odd as well.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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Maybe because they are marketing geniuses and figure this is a way to help rid the woman's game of its second-rank reputation - y'know, the sense that leads you to characterize it as anti-climactic.
a way to help rid the woman’s game of its second-rank reputation
If only it were actually second-rank. After all, there's the NIT. And Division II. And Division III. And NAIA. Streetball. Indiana high school ball...
I'm rather sure the first-round losers in the Men's NIT would easily handle the winner of tonight's women's finals.
I’m rather sure the first-round losers in the Men’s NIT would easily handle the winner of tonight’s women’s finals.
Considering that the men that practice against the Tennessee women routinely beat them, yep (and, IIRC, the 1992 US women's olympic team had a losing record against high school AAU teams in a series of exhibitions leading up to the olympics).
If you are at home with cable or at a sport's bar, avoiding the game may be difficult.
I remember years ago when the WNBA had a contract with NBC(?) They plastered those games on the network all times of the day. It just did not create that much interest.
Does ESPN have some kind of long term contract with women's college basketball? If so, do they think that broadcast saturation will get enough interest to keep people watching on a continuing basis?
I think that the women's championship was in this slot the last couple of years, but my memory could be faulty.
As to why: perhaps it is because Tuesday night isn't a normal Big Sports Night and hence is a safer place to put a lower-ratings event.
I think you're right that the women's finals have come after the men's the last couple years, if not longer. It's just something that continues to strike me as odd.
The Tuesday thing makes sense but it would have made more sense--to me, anyway--to have it LAST Tuesday. They could easily run the women's tourney around the men's in such a way as to determine the women's Final Four during the week before the men's quarter finals and then do the women's final the week before the men's Final Four.
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