Truck drivers because its such a dangerous job.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

The interest wanes as the talent wanes. If you remove the top 40-50 players every year then the interest diminishes tremendously. The reason that people pay attention to Alabama football is because everyone knows that they have a plethora of pro prospects on the roster. The reason that CBS and ESPN pays top dollar is because they know that each and every year Duke and Kentucky will have marketable players.

People went to Duke games to see Grant Hill and Christian Laettner play basketball. They didn't go to see the WoJOs of the world play.

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Only 4 Mill? He's a disaster, let me know when he can finish over .500

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Lovie beat Wisconsin. That was his Super Bowl.

It's Illinois. He made a bowl game. That's fucking miracles in action right there.

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Alabama fans give zero fucks about the NFL prospects of their players. They care about winning the SEC and the National Championship.

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Its the NFL prospects which allow them to constantly compete for SEC titles and National Championships. They aren't competing
for either with NIU level talent.

If they had NIU level talent then no one would give a damn about them. Just like no one gives a damn about NIU.

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By Chicago standards, it was a beautiful, balmy day for January 10. Classes at UIC had yet to resume after the holidays, but the 6-10 Flames men’s basketball team hosted Horizon League foe Green Bay.

Not surprisingly, fans didn’t pack the 8,000-seat UIC Pavilion. The Flames’ eventual 84-73 win over the Phoenix would be their second in a row, at the front end of what would become a 12-2 record through the next six weeks. But only 1,531 turned out for what seemed then like a relatively meaningless game.

The scene was hardly new for UIC. Having hosted plenty of sparsely attended games, it was a familiar story for a program whose operating expenses surpassed operating revenues by $731,411 in 2017, according to public records obtained by Medill Reports.

The athletic department has reasons to hope for a turnaround.


“We have hundreds of thousands of alumni living in this area,” said Ryan Ptak, UIC’s assistant athletic director of marketing and tickets. “We’ve never given them a reason to want to support our athletic program here.”

Market difficulties

Across college basketball, attendance has been declining for a decade. Data from NCAA.com show per-game Division I attendance hasn’t increased year-over-year since 2006-07.




This is the case at a lot of Universities. You remove 40-50 NBA prospects from the mix every year and it gets much worse for a lot of schools.

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This is absolutely not true. Peruse Alabama message boards and fan sites during the draft or when underclassmen declare, there is always a ton of support for players moving on to the pros. This goes for pretty much every fanbase, too.

People sure like to believe things that simply aren't true when it comes to this made-up "issue" of college athletics.

The talent already waned when players started going from high school and the one and dones. It didn't matter. College sports are still huge.

You are just wrong and you don't understand college sports. It's ok. Go enjoy NBA summer league.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Attendance is going down in most sports both college and professional.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Most college fans are happy for players that came to their school to go get paid and "win the lottery" by getting millions of dollars.

If the players all instead went to work as bankers they would however be fine.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Spend sometime on a Kentucky basketball message board. They do not care about who goes in the lottery. They care about winning first. It is easy to wish players good luck when you win. If they spend a few years on the outside of the playoff while losing a bunch of kids to the draft, you will no longer see "support".

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Again you're just making things up. I have not seen this attitude on display in a long time. Clearly you want to believe college athletics is amoral so badly you're willing to deny reality or make-up your own fantasies to support that misguided belief. You're hardly the only one, half the media is the same way.

Most of these kids get a lifetime invitation to come back to town and work for the local car dealership or sell insurance.

As long as they are placing 4-5 players in the first round every year that isn't going to happen. Its silly to believe that the two are mutually exclusive. They aren't. Alabama and Kentucky's ability to compete for championships is predicated upon their ability to recruit pro prospects.


If you do not think that it is tied to that you are wrong. When Syracuse had Derrick Coleman, Rony Seikaly, Billy Owens, and Sherman Douglas they avg 8-9,0000 more fans than they avg today.

Same goes for schools like UNLV.

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In the NBA it ain't. You know the NBA don't you? the Sport you repeatedly claim that no one cares about. Attendance has actually been on an uptick. Even the Knicks routinely sell out.


Schools that have high end talent haven't really experienced much of a drop off. Check the numbers. As much as you like to pontificate about College sports selling themselves the facts tell a different story.

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You are the one making shit up. I do not care about the NCAA model of business and would have no problem if it got blown up. Kentucky fans care about Final Fours and titles a lot more than who Cal gets in the lottery. The number one complaint about him is he cares too much about who goes to the NBA and not their team.

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NBA attendance is down this year. Its slight, but its still down.

Obviously much has been made of the league's cratering ratings and rapidly dwindling place in the public consciousness.

NBA has been pretty constant since the early 2000s. That doesn't refute my point.

The big conferences do well still with or without one and dones. Duke didn't need Zion to sell out.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

But they do need guys like Cam Reddish. Cameron INdoor ain't Cameroon INdoor if they only have 3 star athletes. Plus its a small gym anyway. Not hard to sell out.

Why has there been a 9-10000 person decline at the Carrier Dome? 8,000 at Thomas and Mack? Explain that for me.

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I think the return of one-and-done's has done more to hurt the college game than help it. Now that we are on the eve of them just going straight to the NBA again I would not be surprised if MANY who stopped paying attention to the NCAA came back. Especially people following second or third rate schools that feel like beating the likes of Duke or Kentucky with their rosters full of NBA-ready nineteen year-olds is an insurmountable task.

I know you're gonna have a cow over this ltg, I was very apprehensive about engaging you about it because you utterly lack the ability to see an argument from both sides. Try to acknowledge that guys like Cam Reddish actually do more to drive the average fan away from the game than towards it. College sports are like major league baseball, its very provincial. If people feel their their team does not stand a chance they want show up or even watch.

Very few (including yourself) have the ability to see anything from both sides. Just another of the pernicious myths which float on around here. Just like admitting when they are wrong. Check the Bears thread if you think i'm lying.

As far as College Basketball goes just check into the mid major conferences. Great deal of parity and a lot of basketball played in rather empty gyms. Very few pro prospects and no one gives a shit.

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Yea that's my point. People perceive a competitive imbalance that makes it feel like you're either "in" or "out" , and if you're "out" there is really no hope of ever clawing your way out of the hole. Its the same reason why the NBA is suddenly in crisis and baseball has become nearly unwatchable. Though at least with baseball there is at least somewhat of a competitive cycle for most teams, it just takes nearly a decade (which is insane).

Parity is a euphemistic way of calling something mediocre. Very people want to see that. There is a reason that guys like Zion and Trae were the most discussed players the past two years. In fact when was the last time that a Non Pro Prospect was hyped in College Basketball?

I doubt seriously that people will become more interested once the talent level diminishes. And as far as Provincial goes Programs like Duke and Kentucky are National Programs. The reason that people are interested in them is because they know that year in and year out they will have the very best players that college basketball has to offer. If that player happens to be ranked No. 75 in the high school class then few people will be interested.

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Duke has sold out every game since 1990.

For UNLV, I have no idea.

For Syracuse, the answer is in this article.
https://www.syracuse.com/orangebasketball/2016/02/syracuse_basketball_attendance_dips_to_7-year_low_kentucky_will_lead_ncaa_in_201.html

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

It depends on your definition of pro prospect. Here are the last 6 Naismith players of the year.
Zion - Freshman
Jalen Brunson - Junior
Frank Mason - Senior
Buddy Hield - Senior
Frank Kaminsky - Senior
Doug McDermott - Senior

Now, maybe they were pro prospects but there were clearly far better pro prospects than most of them in the same season.

This is where you destroy your own argument.

The best players are gone so fast now and these programs still do very well and did through the high school to NBA era too. Fans don't care that LaMelo Ball is playing in some gym with his dad somewhere. No one cares he didn't go to college. Everyone has already moved on from Wiseman besides Memphis fans. I know I don't care even a little that he quit on Memphis.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Most college basketball fans support their alma mater and the overwhelming vast majority of people did not go to Kentucky, Duke, Louisville, UNC etc.

And parity is not a euphemistic way of calling something mediocre. I dont know where you got that idea in your head, it could not be more wrong or nonsensical. People want competition. They want to feel like there is something at stake when the games are being played. They dont like it when everything is meaningless.

I clearly said "most discussed" players in college. You are merely projecting with what people don't care about and as far as hype goes I have read more about Lamelo Ball and his pro prospects than I have any person currently playing in college. James Wiseman is more discussed than any guy currently playing in college.

You aren't a Memphis fan so obviously you didn't care much. In fact you only seem to care about Purdue. Wouldn't exactly say that you are the best gauge of what truly interests people with that being the case.

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Kentucky basketball is bigger than Lexington Kentucky. Duke basketball is bigger than Durham N.C. the reason that they are is because of the talent they happen to bring in. If Duke magically becomes N.C. State tomorrow then just about everyone cares a whole lot less about them. If they were as "provincial" as you suggest then Nike wouldn't provide Coach K with the sort of contract that it has provided over the years.

Do you think they are doing that solely because of the Shirtless guys with paint covered all over their body? Duke basketball is a National Brand at this point. So is Kentucky and So is Kansas.

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