We attended the new “First Four” NCAA basketball games at UD arena the past two nights. Two of the four games were worthwhile watching, while the other two (comparable to the old “play-in” games) felt more like experiencing division II basketball (teams with RPIs over 150!).
We are typically loyal college basketball fans that attend 20 games a year at UD Arena and the Nutter Center. We love the action and intensity, as well as the fact that the games are usually completed in less than 2 hours.
Well, leave it to the NCAA “institution” to find a way to destroy that experience. Evidently, they’ve decided to extend these games so they can insert even more TV commercials. The official timeouts often took more than 4 minutes and the halftime was extended to more than 20 minutes. Many fans around us were grumbling about spending more time looking at an empty basketball court than watching live action. The notion of spending nearly 6 hours to watch 2 games is galling. Perhaps the NCAA will get other suckers to pay for their fan-unfriendly product, but you can count us out.