As another NCAA tournament draws to a close, so do the careers of many of the starring players. While some will be moving on to the biggest stage of them all, most will be not be able to make the NBA. But with the deep imprints they have left on our memories, one can’t help but wonder where the less fortunate will end up.
The National Basketball Developmental League (NBDL) rosters are a good place to start. A quick browse through the players that currently make up the NBA’s minor leagues yields well-known names such as Cedric Bozeman of UCLA, JamesOn Curry of Oklahoma State, DeMarcus Nelson of Duke, and Russell Robinson of Kansas. Whether they were never heralded enough to be drafted in the first place or were not good enough to crack NBA rotations the first time around and are fighting to make it back, many of college basketball’s finest are seen honing their craft for teams such as the Sioux Falls Skyforce and Iowa Energy.
It is admirable that these players are willing to toil in relative anonymity for the love of the game and a shot at the big leagues. Yet with many big names on the rosters, one wonders if the NBA’s B-teams are at least competitive with the NCAA’s best teams. I suspect that they are, but you hardly hear anyone talking about how the Utah Flash and Idaho Stampede are embroiled in a fight for first in the D-League West Division.
Which brings to discuss a very philosophical question: What makes fans gravitate towards certain leagues and sports? Is it the product on the field, the access they can have to the players, or the tradition of the teams involved? Is it merely inertia, that what is popular today was popular in the past and will stay popular in the future?
A pure inertia argument is appealing, but does not provide a complete answer. College sports did not sprout into a billion-dollar industry overnight—the popularity had to have been built up over time somehow. And many sports popular in the past are no longer in vogue today. Minor league baseball was the spectator sport of choice for Americans in smaller cities in the past. Horse racing used to be followed even when there was no Triple Crown contender in a given year.
Could it be the tradition of the teams with an inherent fan base built from years of alumni graduating from the schools? This could be a possibility, but a pure alumni fan base could not support an enterprise of the NCAA’s scale. Duke and UNC are not nearly big enough to have a sufficient number of graduates to explain the number of fans. Southeastern Conference football teams captivate the attention of their entire states.
So what could be the reason? I suspect that a major part of college basketball and football’s popularity comes from a yearning for authenticity in a sports landscape that sorely lacks it. For many sports fans looking for a new, natural fan experience, college sports may be one of the only options. While a game between two expansion NBA teams will feature vastly superior talent, it’s merely a glorified pickup game if there is no emotional attachment. Most college teams are playing in stadiums and arenas with decades of history and have years of bad blood with rivals as well as organic cheers from the student section. The person sitting next to you in the crowd isn’t just another ticket holder—he is family.
Of course, as with any product, its popularity may be its downfall. With more money than ever going into the college game, smaller schools are finding it harder and harder to compete. The chalk that held up in this year’s tournament may be the norm going forward, stifling one of the best reasons to watch March Madness. We don’t know what the future of college sports will be. I, for one, hope that it remains one of America’s favored sports—it would be a sad day if our posterity looked back at our time and asked why anyone would watch athletes who may not be the best at their craft, likening the experience to watching horses race.
Charles Young is a senior in the School of Engineering and Applied Science majoring in applied math. Sports@columbiaspectator.com">Sports@columbiaspectator.com
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