2015 NCAA Tournament thread

Inside the borders of the state of Connecticut, Geno is not obscure. For reasons a combination sociologist/sportswriter should explore (Jeff Jacobs told me once most of the women's team's fans were senior citizens), UConn basketball is as close to gender equity in terms of public support as there is in the U.S. Geno gets bummed when he passes Greenwich headed west on the Conn Turnpike and realizes that he's living in a bubble, not reality itself.

 

It's a start, Starman, and you're more right than wrong, but 13 would match the men's scholarship limit, which would ease a difficult sell. I know some would scream that it's hurting the game at first, but they should look no further than at what trimming roster sizes has done for football.

 

Where does the money come from for the women to play in Europe?

Do they draw big crowds? TV money?

Billionaire owners?

I don't get it.

 

Billionaire owners, mostly. It's a hobby. I don't think it's any coincidence that the biggest stars wind up in Russia, which might be the best place in the world to amass that kind of disposable income.

 

The mentions of Russia was why I wondered if it was just billionaire owners.

But, women's basketball? I guess all the hockey and men's basketball teams must already be owned by richer billionaires.

 

Due to the club structure of European sports, a lot of those women's teams are part of a sports conglomerate including men's soccer and basketball teams. Loading up the women's hoop team is thus financially viable and a good way to win SOMETHING if your other teams suck.

 

It can be weird seeing Real Madrid or CSKA as the name of teams in multiple sports. It would be confusing if say, Stan Kroenke, had teams in the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLS all called the Nuggets.

 

There was a good article in The New York Times last month about Diana Taurasi playing in Russia and talking about why she's skipping the WNBA season this year.
http://nyti.ms/1Fv9Ela

 

Well, for many years there were NFL and MLB teams with duplicate names, although it was almost never due to common ownership but (to be brutal) bad copyright protection. (The Pittsburgh Pirates allowed Art Rooney's football team to use the name for one year and then more or less told them to come up with one of their own, hence Steelers.)

By the time the NBA got rolling in the 1960s the established franchises weren't going to put up with nickname-mooching any more, thus the one-time Rochester and Cincinnati Royals were forced to give up their nickname when they moved to Kansas City.

You might think somewhere along the line some real successful franchises would have come up with the idea of making the "brand" a year-round athletic enterprise.

 

The Steelers were called the Pirates for most, if not all, the 1930s, not just one year. There was also an NHL team called the Pirates in the 1920s.

Tim Mara named the Giants after the baseball team because he rented the Polo Grounds from them. There was also a Brooklyn Dodgers NFL franchise, and also a minor league Continental League team in the 60s (so much for copyrighting). The Redskins were originally the Boston Braves. There also were brief NFL franchises called the Cleveland Indians, Washington Senators, and Cincinnati Reds.

Must have been real fun for 1920s fans in the early fall to figure out what sport was being played.

 

It would be interesting to go back into the history of the old NFL franchises with shared names with baseball teams and see if any of them were partially owned by the baseball owners.

I do know from reading some things about pro franchises in the early 20th century that keeping the stadium busy on a year-round basis was a big idea for many of the MLB owners. But I believe both the NFL and the major leagues passed rules fairly early on banning ownership in more than one sport.

OTOH, common ownership between the NHL and NBA was quite common for a fairly long time.

 

No, Dick, this year's team was loaded and probably underachieved by losing once.

That year I'm talking about they had Diana Taurasi and a bunch of nobodies. They weren't the best team in that particular year. That's all I said.