Running 2023-24 NCAA Basketball Thread

Stranger Things!

 

These SIPs -- special interest publications -- typically are the hot topic at the moment that is expected to last for a while, or something evergreen.

I saw one last year, I think, published by a group that does food and lifestyle pubs. It was something like "Cast Iron Southern Favorites" or something like that. Biscuits, cobbler, fried chicken, typical stuff, but also other recipes and info. I think the rack price was $16.99 or $19.99. Gorgeous photography, writing was good, recipes and tips were on point. Very well done.

Production costs for an SIP typically are not high. I know one group that publishes an SIP and does it for less than $5,000. Payments for stories are decent. They use their own photography or stock, or what a writer submits. They sell the crap out of advertising and make, relatively speaking, a quite nice windfall. Another group I deal with does 8-10 of these a year with the same process and windfall.

ESPN should do this more often, IMO, without going full saturation.

 

The way I knew Covid was about to dominate the news for the foreseeable future in March 2020 was when the one-off Coronavirus Survival Guide mag got shelved in front of the likes of Cowboys & Indians and Combat Handguns at the neighborhood supermarket.

 

I work right across the street from the TD Garden, the site of regional semifinals and finals this weekend. Yesterday at work I mentioned this to a few colleagues and they didn’t even know about it. One guy asked if it was the hockey tournament.
I get a sense that there’s not a real buzz this tournament being here.
How can an event that is so huge nationally be no big deal locally?

 

Yesterday all the Boston TV stations had stories on the tournament on their evening news programs. Short stories. Globe has had stories on it, but hardly bannering it. Two sports talk radio stations have not discussed it at all.
I should add that the hockey tournament has received even less attention, although BC and BU are the first and second ranked teams in the country.

 

I saw this magazine on the newsstand earlier this week at Hy-Vee, which has an endorsement deal with Clark (maybe why they got it first/early?)

 

Its not meant to be "news" - its meant for people to buy and then stash away - maybe get signed. That's it. They will sell a couple hundred thousand copies. I wonder what Clark's cut is.

 

Is Arizona still stuck on the 405 or something?

 

I get the feeling, listening to their games, that SVG really likes talking ball with Dan Bonner off air. Just seems like they would chop it up in the hotel bar afterward.

Like, I bet they write plays on cocktail napkins and use salt shakers as players and shit.

 

If she got a cut, that would be quite a thing even for the WWL

 

How many 6-for-19 nights in the G League will it take before people decide Caleb Love isn’t going to happen?

 

Elite Eight for Clemson, elite Lenten discipline by @doctorquant not to hop on here and celebrate.