Thoughts On Badger Basketball And Pro Hockey » Brats & Beer

November 3, 2006
posted under: Badgers basketball, Hockey, NHL

The Wisconsin men’s basketball squad opens their 2006-07 campaign with a pre-season game against the Blue Devils of UW-Stout tonight. I am very impressed that the pre-season coaches poll has the Badgers ranked No. 9, while CBS Sportsline ranks them fourth behind Florida, Kansas, and North Carolina. Of course that sets the bar pretty high, I hope they can live up to it.

Seeing that college hoops is about to get underway gets me to thinking the relationship between NCAA and pro sports. I’m probably stating the obvious here, but it seems to me that one of the reasons pro football and basketball are so popular is that we get to see so many of these kids play in college. With all that TV exposure, fans can get wrapped up in a player’s career because they’ve watched him come up through the ranks, get drafted and develop into a pro.

If that’s all true, or partially true, I think that might be what is holding back pro hockey from really becoming a national sport. There’s almost no college hockey on TV, except in markets where those teams play, so if you live outside Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Boston, you’re really left in the dark as to who these players are. (Unless you’re already a hockey fan and have the time to scour the Internet for news.)

I just wonder if it would help the NHL to put some cash behind a college hockey channel. If there are enough viewers out there to warrant channels devoted to bow hunting and golf, surely there’s enough interest out there in hockey to get something going. The owners could partner up with FOX Sports or CBS (which owns CSTV) and put on a channel that carries the bigger games plus news and features and all that good stuff.

Hockey in the US probably will never rival the other three major sports in terms of popularity, but I think if they tried to get those younger players exposed earlier in their careers, it would at least help grow the sport. And the NHL definitely needs to expand the fan base if it is going to survive.