ESPN's 24-Hour Coverage Deprives Fans

Today is supposed to be one of those special days on the calendar for Georgetown fans. After a particularly long offseason of debating how this year’s Georgetown men’s basketball team will fare, Opening Day is finally here.

Of course, as you are hopefully aware of by now, today is literally Opening Day, with tip-off against Temple set for the unusual time of 4 p.m.

At least it is 4 p.m.

As part of ESPN’s 24 hours of basketball promotion, the network is showing 19 college games from all across the country today, including Georgetown’s. The marathon began with Cal State-Fullerton vs. UCLA at midnight and concludes with a Preseason-NIT game at 11:30 p.m. Among the other games, Monmouth and St. Peter’s (N.J.) had the supreme honor of having their game nationally televised at the inglorious hour of 6 a.m. At least Niagara fans got to sleep in a little for their game against Drexel. It did not start until 8 a.m.

Clearly this is an attempt by ESPN to drum-up support for the start of the NCAA basketball season. While many of the oddly timed games will inconvenience fans — including students who must decide if they will skip class and attend their team’s opening game — these schools only agreed to participate because they thought the national television exposure could benefit their programs, both for recruiting and marketing.

And while it can be debated whether Georgetown should participate in this obvious made-for-TV event and play on a Tuesday afternoon, the real question is why this gimmick is even necessary?

Unlike most other sports, NCAA basketball lacks a celebrated Opening Day. While the start of the Major League Baseball and National Football League seasons are greatly anticipated and are treated as quasi-national holidays, fans pay little attention to the start of the college basketball season.

As Seth Davis pointed out in a recent SI.com article, part of the problem is when the season actually begins.

“College basketball has the unfortunate task of beginning its season at a time when the World Series has just ended and all the other major sports are well underway,” Davis said. “It’s a sad commentary that the start of practice, Midnight Madness, attracts so much more attention than the commencement of actual games.”

But besides when the season starts, fans also recognize just how irrelevant early-season games are. While the first game of the season can be exciting regardless of the opponent, the early season often resembles an exhibition schedule, with fans counting down the days until conference play starts in late December or early January.

To address the problem, along with other NCAA basketball issues, the late NCAA President Myles Brand created the College Basketball Partnership in 2004. Comprised of top coaches, including Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, Michigan State’s Tom Izzo and Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim, along with conference commissioners and television executives group aimed to develop an Opening Day that put the start of the season on the national radar. But as Davis notes, the CBP has not met since 2006 and much of the momentum for the proposal has been lost.

Even with that being the case, NCAA Senior Vice President for Basketball and Business Strategies Greg Shaheen believes something should be done to enhance the start of the season.

“There’s a consensus that we need to explore the best ways to try to unify around an opening day or opening weekend in a way that paints a clearer picture for college basketball,” Shaheen told Davis.

The only question now is how to do this.

The first thing the NCAA should do is push back the start of the basketball season — which can start as early as the second Friday in November — to the Monday after Thanksgiving. As much as teams want to play as many games as possible before the start of the conference schedule, these mid-November games are hidden by the NFL and college football seasons. And by playing preseason tournaments in early December, the NCAA would be able to create a stronger buzz for the upcoming regular season, which would begin only a few weeks later.

Second, instead of creating an Opening Day, the NCAA should develop a Showcase Day, which would feature top matchups from across the country and get the country buzzing about college basketball. Imagine how much excitement there would be for marquee games such as Michigan State vs. Duke, Georgetown vs. Kentucky and North Carolina vs. Kansas if they were all played on the same day. Mid-major schools could also get involved by playing traditional or local rivals, stirring up interest among all college hoops fans.

The second Saturday in December — the week following the NCAA football conference championship games — would be the perfect day for this promotion. Not only would it fill the void on the sports calendar before the start of college bowl season, but it would also give fans the opportunity to cheer on their team in a rare big game early on in the season.

A number of considerations would have to be looked at before this could happen, including which networks would carry the showcase and which schools would play.

But knowing more people would watch Connecticut play UCLA on a Saturday in December than see Monmouth take on St. Peter’s on a Tuesday morning in November, the NCAA could come up with something better to begin the season in earnest.

Nick Macri is a junior in the College. The Big Picture appears in every other Tuesday issue of Hoya Sports.