Women’s College Basketball And Men’s College Basketball

I am not one who is easily offended.  However, I was offended by something in USA Today late last week.  Here is the online headline for a piece written by Lindsay Schnell:

• “Women’s basketball needs faces of the future to be Black.  Enter JuJu Watkins and Hannah Hidalgo”

The headline is not the problem – – but it hints at the problem that is coming.  Here are quotes from the article:

“With Caitlin Clark headed to the 2024 WNBA draft, where she’s projected No. 1 overall, Watkins, the nation’s second leading scorer this season behind Clark, is positioned to become the face of women’s basketball. She’ll be joined by Notre Dame point guard Hannah Hidalgo, the other favorite for freshman of the year.”

And …

“Not lost on any of the powerbrokers in the game: Both of these players are Black. And in a game built by Black women, it matters that the faces of the future look like the faces of the past.”

Let me be very clear; Caitlin Clark has probably gotten more exposure and coverage over the past year or so than all the rest of the women’s college basketball players combined.  That is a fact as is the fact that Cailin Clark is Caucasian.  And the recognition of those two facts does not justify the ridiculous conclusion drawn here that the “faces of the future” must be Black.

Do not take these next statements out of context.  I mean to say these things to demonstrate how outrageous Ms. Schnell’s assertion is here:

• The sport of golf was built by men such as Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus.  For a while, Tiger Woods was the “face of golf” and it’s a good thing that his stardom has faced so that the new faces of golf look like the past.

Or how about this one …

• Women’s tennis grew in popularity on the shoulders of women such as Margaret Court Smith, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf.  Now that Venus Williams and Serena Williams have reached the twilight of their careers, women’s tennis can get back to its roots and have a white woman as the face of the sport.

If I offered either of those statements seriously – – or some others I might concoct as outrageous examples – – I would expect lots of readers here to jump to the comments section to call me out either as a racist or as someone who is absolutely out of touch with US society in 2024.  And yet, I have heard almost nothing about Lindsay Schnell’s assertions and comments.

I am offended this morning by her assertion(s) and by the lack of outrage that her comments evoked.  As I said, I am not one who is easily offended, but this one is over the edge.

Moving on …  Let me switch from women’s college basketball to men’s college basketball with the hope that no one will take that change as some sort of fealty to the patriarchy.  There is talk of expanding March Madness from the current 68 teams to 76 teams.  In the past, there have been suggestions to expand it to even larger fields.  I understand that more teams mean more games; and up to some unknown point: more games mean significantly increased revenues.  I also understand that “increased revenue” is the golden calf to be worshiped by every college athletic director.  So, I am resigned to the fact that March Madness will be expanded sooner rather than later.

However, just as paying college athletes with Name, Image, and Likeness money arrived with unanticipated consequences, so will NCAA tournament expansion.  I think the most immediate consequence will be the final death blow to the college basketball regular season which has been rendered almost meaningless by gross overexposure on TV and by the football-driven conference realignments.  The Tournament in March remains hugely popular but to accommodate a field of 76 teams, there will need to be 12 play-in games instead of the 4 play-in games we have today.

The fact is that play-in games do not draw TV audiences nearly to the extent that the main tournament games do; so expanding the tournament by 8 more of the low-drawing games is not going to increase revenues in direct proportion to the number of games on the air.

Moreover, increasing the number of teams and games in the tournament is going to exacerbate an existing problem.  The big conferences get the big money, and the little guys get less money.  Please do not delude yourself that the TV execs who bid for and buy the TV rights are going to pay top dollar to see the second or third place team from the Ohio Valley Conference duke it out with the champion of the America East Conference to see which one will get to be the 16^th seed in the bracket of 64.  [Aside:  Without peeking or Googling, name three teams from either the America East Conference or the Ohio Valley Conference.]

Expanding the tournament will require some sort of recognized names for those play-in games and “recognition” will be greater for the 8^th place finisher in the Big-10 than for the second-place finisher in the Patriot League.  You can file that under “Reality Bites”.

Finally, I’ll close today with this observation by George Bernard Shaw:

“The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………