If I'm being a jackass about the SECNetwork's softball coverage...

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Originally Posted by maroonmania

I don't think talking to a random 10 people means much for judging interest in anything across the country. Not a lot of people watching college baseball or college softball to be honest but I certainly personally know a lot more interested in baseball. For one thing males, who are the predominant sports watchers, are going to prefer to watch men's sports over women's sports in general unless they have a personal interest in the game (or school playing). That's just a fact.

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Agree with you on all those points. It is hard to judge interest based on just asking a few people thats whey i dug into the numbers on the NCAA site. Neither sport is the draw that Football or basketball is, however baseball in the Southeast is very well attended and watched.

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Originally Posted by dickiedawg

I think it's because only one team in each game was an SEC team. I mean, what if they put this weekends series on the Pac 10 network and none of us get it? That may be a false equivalence because SECN is more widely distributed but even if it weren't we'd all be screaming bias.
Now, if SECN had done its own sort of bases loaded coverage at certain times I think that would have been awesome.

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Just speculation on my part, but I wonder, because the regionals are organized under the NCAA umbrella, if that's why they weren't on the SECN. In regular season football and baseball, the SECN has the rights, but the regionals are not technically SEC home games.

The idea of bases loaded SECN coverage sounds great.

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Originally Posted by AusTexDawg

Just speculation on my part, but I wonder, because the regionals are organized under the NCAA umbrella, if that's why they weren't on the SECN. In regular season football and baseball, the SECN has the rights, but the regionals are not technically SEC home games.

The idea of bases loaded SECN coverage sounds great.

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The Friday Night before the Season started the SEC Network did like a baseball tonight show and I thought this is going to be an ongoing thing, GREAT! They never did it again lol! An SEC baseball tonight on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday would be well watched and would be awesome!

Found some numbers for comparing. The 2014 CWS Omaha games:

ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU’s 17 College World Series telecasts averaged 1,123,000 viewers and a 0.7 US HH rating, making it the most-viewed College World Series since 2011 with increases of 18 percent (vs. 949,000 viewers) and 17 percent (vs. 0.6 US HH rating), respectively, over 14 telecasts in 2013.

The 2015 WCWS OKC games:

ESPN’s entire presentation of the 2015 Women’s College World Series bracket round (Thursday, May 28, through Sunday, May 31) averaged 1,055,000 viewers (12 games), the second most-viewed WCWS bracket round on ESPN networks –which started in 1997 -- topped only by the 2011 WCWS bracket round (1,114,000 average viewers).

I think the numbers are continuing to get very close to each other. At least the finals are it seems.

You know its really not a baseball vs softball thing so much as it is the crappy coverage. I think that is what is getting people pissed off, is ESPN and SECN has just done a really bad job of covering baseball. I believe, especially here in the South that the college baseball is a big deal and they would do just fine if they showed more great games and had some type of Baseball Tonight Show on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. There's way more baseball games to watch on the PAC12 Network and college baseball aint nearly as popular. From what was said in the beginning I was expecting the SECN to do a ton of coverage on college baseball and it just hasn't happened. Disappointed to say the least.

I dunno if it's a left wing conspiracy, a fad, or just coincidental... but I do know this:

if there was a lot more money to be made on baseball coverage vs softball coverage, we'd see more baseball than softball.

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Originally Posted by TUSK

I dunno if it's a left wing conspiracy, a fad, or just coincidental... but I do know this:

if there was a lot more money to be made on baseball coverage vs softball coverage, we'd see more baseball than softball.

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I agree that neither one is a money maker but the coverage has been crappy and lackluster. I mean they've been showing replays of spring football games instead of live SEC games. Can't tell me more people wouldn't be watching those baseball games than those replays, with the acception of Bama of course lol

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Originally Posted by Commercecomet24

I agree that neither one is a money maker but the coverage has been crappy and lackluster. I mean they've been showing replays of spring football games instead of live SEC games. Can't tell me more people wouldn't be watching those baseball games than those replays, with the acception of Bama of course lol

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that's pretty funny.... nice...

I think the continual Spring Game Replays are ridiculous, but I suppose it's just priming people for football (which is the big money maker)...

Hell, I don't even watch Bammer's Nationally televised spring game (in front of 80,000), and it has more talent than most bowl games*



*I'm boning up on my passive-aggressive-arrogant trolling skills for the fall.

I'm pretty sure that ESPN is not allowing market preference to dictate its programming. It is top-down promotion at beat, not a natural swell of viewer interest.