Queens Quiet Skies
Member
I'm watching the catastrophe Duke game and listening to Bob Wischusen and Dick Vitale talk about the Big East in the past tense. I heard Wischusen say something like: "Ya know, Dick, at one time the Big East was a big draw in NYC". As if that has changed. Wischusen used to regularly profess his admiration for the Big East and SJU when under the tutelage of Francesca. What happened?
Moments later Vitale is on a tangent about the SAT scores of Cameron attendees. "It's 1540, on average". He never mentions that the Duke basketball team has been an NBA farm team for decades where student athletes rarely graduate, regardless of SAT scores. As if it was the SAT scores that attracted people like Zion to Duke. He's there because the NBA won't let players in straight from high school anymore. The announcers don't even hide this fact. They openly wonder if he'll land on the Knicks next year, as if staying at school and graduating like many of our players do isn't even an option.
They never discuss the billions in revenue that the ACC/ESPN brand generates, based almost entirely on free labor of "student athletes" on a pipeline to the NBA. I'm sure the 1540 SAT scores were the major selling point for Williamson to attend the "school". Really, the players are attending ESPN.
Listening to the (formerly) respectable Wischusen and the always awful Vitale during SJU/Duke game is like watching a 2 hour long commercial for ESPN/ACC. It's like the old 'taste test' commercials: "Here's our amazing brand, and here is our irrelevant competitor". It's endless self promotion and platforming of the ACC teams they want to win.
Point is: This isn't amateur sport anymore. It's like the Olympics when Russia would place professionals against our amateurs. Many of our players choose SJU because it keeps them close to family, etc. Players choose Duke because the NBA no longer allows first year entrance, and it gets them on ESPN all week long.
How can any of this be considered school sport anymore? Amateur athletics?
Moments later Vitale is on a tangent about the SAT scores of Cameron attendees. "It's 1540, on average". He never mentions that the Duke basketball team has been an NBA farm team for decades where student athletes rarely graduate, regardless of SAT scores. As if it was the SAT scores that attracted people like Zion to Duke. He's there because the NBA won't let players in straight from high school anymore. The announcers don't even hide this fact. They openly wonder if he'll land on the Knicks next year, as if staying at school and graduating like many of our players do isn't even an option.
They never discuss the billions in revenue that the ACC/ESPN brand generates, based almost entirely on free labor of "student athletes" on a pipeline to the NBA. I'm sure the 1540 SAT scores were the major selling point for Williamson to attend the "school". Really, the players are attending ESPN.
Listening to the (formerly) respectable Wischusen and the always awful Vitale during SJU/Duke game is like watching a 2 hour long commercial for ESPN/ACC. It's like the old 'taste test' commercials: "Here's our amazing brand, and here is our irrelevant competitor". It's endless self promotion and platforming of the ACC teams they want to win.
Point is: This isn't amateur sport anymore. It's like the Olympics when Russia would place professionals against our amateurs. Many of our players choose SJU because it keeps them close to family, etc. Players choose Duke because the NBA no longer allows first year entrance, and it gets them on ESPN all week long.
How can any of this be considered school sport anymore? Amateur athletics?
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