NJRedman wrote:Who gives a shit what the ratings were? Of course the ACC had much better ratings, thats where casual viewers tune into to. We had the better atmosphere and better crowds at our tournament compared to the ACC and AAC. Our fans show up for games while theirs sit in their double wides watching on TV.
I love playing the tournament at the Garden... it's the best venue for a basketball tournament... but I'm not going to kid myself and say our tournment is the best anymore - its way different as are the other ones!
The TV ratings were bad and according to the Big East website, the championship game drew only 13,471 fans to the Garden -- that's almost 6,000 empty seats, we NEVER would have had that in the old days.
The Championship game for the American had better tv ratings and comparable attendance numbers (with 13,365 fans in the smaller XL Center), but definitely lacked the excitement of the Garden for us!
The ACC Championship game blew the Wildcats win out of the water on tv and had 22,026 lifeless fans, as a shell-shocked crowd at the Greensboro Coliseum sat fairly quiet down the stretch as Notre Dame easily held off their tobacco row fan favorites UNC.
Realignment has changed everything -- and its quite possible fans are the actual losers, and not any particular conference... as things have changed everywhere at the expense of the familiar and traditional rivalries!