Collective Fan Experiences Tarnished by TV-Driven Scheduling?

On New Year’s Day I used to be in awe of the ability to switch between three or four GREAT college football games — each one vying for my attention. No matter what, as a viewer, I knew there would be at least a few watchable games during a specific time frame in the day. I could count on it. So many games at one time created a national event that I was extensively interested in participating in as a fan.

On the first two days of the NCAA Basketball Tournament — the REAL first found — a Thursday and Friday in March turned into a basketball fan’s dream. A week of no games and all analysis and breakdown crescendo into a flurry of games, scores, last-minute shots, and 16 do-or-die games in a single day.

And after the first of April, in Cincinnati, the first pitch on the new season would be thrown out followed by similar scenes of a collective at-the-game fan experience across the baseball universe. Everyone knew what “Opening Day” meant. It was the all-at-once kickoff to a sports season and an actual Season (Summer) that a country had been waiting for all winter long.

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With television-influenced decisions in all three sports spreading the collective sporting experiences of college football bowl games, the NCAA Basketball Tournament, and Major League baseball Opening Day out, one is left to wonder how collective fan experiences have changed.

In the days of DVR and TiVo, live sports remains just about the most profitable thing a television station can air. In order to have more live sports, these collective events that used to happen over the course of one day or hour have been spread out to span days, or even weeks.

The “Bowl Season” now spans about a month from December through mid-January.

The NCAA Basketball Tournament, while retaining some of its luster in comparison, has added but a few “first round” (play-in?) games during the week of what used to be anticipation-riddled off-time.

And now Major League Baseball continues to spread out its “Opening Day” games. After playing its actual first game of the season over a week ago, there was one game on Wednesday night, only seven games on Thursday, and only nine games on the first real Friday of the season. We won’t really get into a “full weekend” of games until a week from today, when there will be the usual 15 simultaneous weekend series.

Some would argue that fans can still have a collective experience via technology – tweeting, blogging, and posting about the games all along the way. Call me old-school, but knowing that on Opening Day, there are 15 stadiums full of people and also (more importantly) with anticipation, positive outlooks, statements of, “this is our year!,” and everything that goes along with Opening Day baseball is a collective experience that I miss.

In the mean time, baseball has virtually tiptoed into the collective consciousness of sports fans, the buzz about the first weekend of NCAA Tournament was as quiet as any in recent memory, and I wonder if you can remember who won (or even played in) bowl games like the Fiesta or Sugar Bowl?

I guess fans have more access to watch EVERY game and I guess the leagues are pulling in greater television revenue, but at what cost?