<p>It was hyperbole, barrons. There are some that care. I feel that there are basically three tiers in college sports, tier one are the major sports-football/basketball. The second tier includes sports like baseball, hockey, and lacrosse, that are a little big in certain regional areas and gets some TV coverage, but overall, it’s not big at all, and only die hard sports fans can name the champions in those sports. The 3rd tier are sports like water polo and cross country that no one besides the athletes and their parents care about. </p>
<p>That said, the 2nd tier is definitely closer to the 3rd than the 1st.</p>
That’s pretty inaccurate - there’s a reason why they have the MLB and NHL. You can’t say that about those two, or at least hockey. At a majority of the 60 NCAA D1 hockey schools, season tickets are available. In the Midwest and Northeast, hockey is huge. It’s not a social event like football - the fans actually want to be at the games, which are sold out every home game, and they ****ing love the sport. At Michigan especially, some even say the experience at Yost is greater than at the Big House (I’ll let you know later on in the year). If anything, you need to separate it into four tiers imo.</p>
<p>1st being FB, BB
HUGEEEEE GAP
2nd hockey, (maybe baseball? I don’t know)
3rd Lacrosse, M/W Soccer, Volleyball, possibly baseball
4th all other sports</p>
<p>Big Ten hockey soon to be on TV every weekend on the BTN!! Michigan won most of its championships back when their were few teams. Since 1970 they have won just 2 vs vs 6 for UW. But UM has a fine hockey program today with a strong following.</p>
<p>After football and basketball, the third most watched college sport may be women’s basketball, either that or baseball.</p>
<p>I’d put college hockey pretty far down at the bottom, at least nationally. I’m sure it’s following is bigger in some regions.</p>
<p>Hockey is mostly a huge cost-center for colleges, which is a major reason why it’s not more abundant.</p>
<p>I live in PGH, and hockey is HUGE here…but even with Robert Morris here right in town (which I here is a very good program), college hockey still gets zero attention.</p>
<p>I’m not a hockey fan, but I’m starting to appreciate the sport more.</p>
<p>Yes, winning in a bunch of sports that people don’t care about is just great. No one cares about fencing or women’s golf. Props to Jim Harbaugh though, he has made Stanford a Pac 10 contender in football. Stanford basketball has sucked since the Lopez brothers left. </p>
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<p>They actually show quite a bit of college hockey on ESPNU. </p>
<p>And college hockey isn’t that bad, it just doesn’t get a lof of coverage. I remember when ND was in the Frozen Four a couple of years ago and upset Michigan and played BC pretty tough in the championship game. Those games were actually very exciting to watch. College hockey needs the Notre Dames, Minnesotas, Michigans, Ohio States, Michigan States, and Wisconsins to be in the hunt for a national title because they draw in more fans. No one wants to see RIT play Yale.</p>
<p>I’m just waiting for those elitist Ivy Leaguers to claim that Princeton and Yale are top sports schools because they excell in rowing, equestrian, or something like that.</p>
<p>Out=teams you could drop. UCLA football-bad. Bama basketball–bad-ND football and basketball–mediocre, UNC football bad and going on major probation soon just as they got good–see going on probation soon. LSU maybe–basketball slipped</p>
<p>I think it is a bit premature to say UNC football is facing “major probation.” It is also erronius to call our team “bad” right now after we’re coming off of back-to-back 8 win seasons and within 6 seconds of knocking off LSU sans 13 players. As someone who has been following the NCAA football issue from the beginnind, i’d say that major sanctions are looking highly unlikely at this point. Not saying that there won’t be punishment, just saying it is far too early to speculate about any serious consequences.</p>
ESPNU covers all sorts of college sports. I’m talking about ESPN/ESPN2. I don’t have a gripe against college hockey by any means but baseball, in terms of media coverage, is the bigger revenue-generator without a question.</p>
I would certainly hope a sport with twice as many D1 teams (this is a conservative guess, i don’t feel like googling the exact number) generates more money than hockey. But actually no, you’re wrong again, the only time they televise college baseball is when the CWS starts. The Frozen Four gets played on ESPN/ESPN2 also, so I’m not sure what you’re talking about…</p>
<p>Edit: Sorry there are 211 D1 Baseball teams - almost 3 and a half times more as hockey…</p>