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Originally posted by Rich Fronheiser
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Originally posted by rainmaker
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Originally posted by Snaqwells
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Originally posted by rainmaker
And, you know, now that I think about it, this is ONLY about male refs on the men's side of the NCAA. Not a word about women. Hmmm...
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Juulie, as harsh as it may sound. I think the answer to why this is is simple. The men's game generates the most scrutiny from the press. I don't think it really has anything to do with a higher quality of officiating in the women's game. I think that's what Trigger was getting at.
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I hope that's what Trigger was getting at.
Harsh? No, but probably an accurate assessment of the situation. I'm not saying it has to do with the quality of officiating -- refs on the women's side are probably "just as bad" in this writer's eyes. Perhaps worse. It's just incredible to me that such a huge piece of college basketball as the entire women's side can be so completely ignored. It adds to his lack of credibility, I think.
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Let's look at relative attendance numbers:
The average women's D-I game in 2003-04 attracted an average of 1617 fans and the average women's game in the NCAA tournament averaged only 7587 fans.
The average men's D-I home game had 5154 butts in the seat and the average game in the NCAA tournament had 20483.
The average attendance in women's D-III is 212., less than half the attendance at a typical D-III men's game. (Frankly, both of these stats are pitiful and we get more at high school games, easily).
The average WNBA game draws 8,000 fans. The lowest average NBA attendance last season was 13798.
There's a reason the men's game gets more attention -- more people watch.
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Everything you say is true, but it's a circular reasoning situation. If more media paid more attention to the women's side, attendance and tv viewership would go up. Three years ago, there were no women's college bball games on network tv. It was all on cable. Two years ago, CBS took a gamble, by showing some of the last games, and it paid off. Last year, they showed abot 15 games, and they got a higher level of advertisements which I think shows that viewership rose. So I think the potential is there.
But even so, in an article about officiating in college basketball, why not at least mention how things are on the women's side? Including them both together in one article could only increase the interest in the guy's rantings.