I’m likely in the minority on this opinion, but to me Blue Bloods are boring. I don’t just feel that way for College basketball, I really feel that way about all sports. But for some reason it’s even worse in College Basketball. For some reason there’s the perpetual question if you’re a Duke or a North Carolina fan – I’m not a fan of either. All everyone who is a fan of these schools seems to be a poser – they’re the fans that can’t handle a losing season. Or if they do, they can’t handle it for multiple seasons at a time. They’re the obnoxious fans that have never been to North Carolina, or would never step foot in Kansas. Yet these fans have been fans for their entire life – for no reason other than money. It’s the marketing money that’s associated with Blue Bloods that is the worst. It corrupts the game, it makes recruiting a sure thing for these schools. Lets them get slaps on the wrist or no punishment at all when they break NCAA rules. Rules don’t apply for these teams, and for some reason the fans are ok turning a blind eye while being some of the most obnoxious crybabies sports fandom.
Since it is the Final Four, let’s skip out on the other Blue Bloods that could qualify for this conversation – namely UCLA and Kentucky. Let’s just focus on the 4 teams that remain – Villanova, Kansas, Duke, and North Carolina. Of these teams Villanova is probably the most on the fringe of earning the Blue Blood title. Though they have as many National Titles as Kansas – and the most of these four teams in the past decade. They’re still a Philadelphia team and that city gets too much credit in College Basketball.
The biggest thing that determines a Blue Blood is the money that flows into the program. I couldn’t find the exact numbers, but I’m pretty sure all 4 of these teams make more money from Basketball than they do in Football – which is hard to do, considering the NCAA pretty much only makes money from March Madness. (Note: North Carolina might make more from Football since they’ve had a halfway decent program lately). There’s no hiding how much money flows into each of these programs. ESPN had hours of pre and post game coverage for Coach K’s final game at Cameron Indoor Stadium. It wasn’t his final game even, just his final game in the home arena nearly a month ago. There were still plenty of other games going on they could have showed. But the media steers where money goes in sports (and to a slightly lesser degree the gear deal). The money comes in fast and heavy from Disney/ESPN, Nike, Adidas, and sometimes CBS. Duke, North Carolina, and Kansas demand the national dollars. Villanova demands the northeast dollars. It doesn’t mean they’re the best programs, sure they’ve had success but it hasn’t always come honestly.
Every team in the Final Four has been found violating NCAA rules in the past decade. It’s not hard to find. Just search “(team name) men’s basketball scandal” and you’ll find hoards of articles for each of these teams about rules violations. Kansas and Villanova fell into the Adidas scandal before there was NIL in place. North Carolina basically had fake classes for their student athletes and dodged it by embracing the fact that these fake classes were available for other students – basically throwing away their integrity when it comes to higher education. Duke even has had their share of scandals, though they’re paltry in comparison to these other issues and usually they will self report them. The problem with these rules violations – however arbitrary those rules may be – the NCAA doesn’t have a consistent punishment. Basically if you have money you can avoid punishment – that’s really what North Carolina did. If it were practically any other team – say a middle of the pack major conference team or a mid-major they would have gotten some severe sanctions – banned from post season play for several years, firing a coach, and reduction of scholarships. North Carolina basically escaped all of those. For the Adidas scandal that hit Villanova and Kansas – that was avoided because of NIL. Something every team that was caught in the middle should have been hit with – and also every Nike program should have been heavily investigated for as well. That violation seemed more like a corporate attack to take more market share than anything geared towards a specific program violating rules. The point it is, these schools seem to avoid sanctions and penalties. And when they are penalized it seems like it isn’t even an effective punishment. But all the fans will dust this off, because they’re a soulless brainwashed cult of fandom.
OK, calling the fans a brainwashed cult might be a bit of an exaggeration. But they are soulless. Kansas, Duke, Villanova, and North Carolina all have enrollments under 30,000 students. Duke and Villanova have under 17,000. Yet somehow everywhere you go there are diehard fans. They have no attachment to these programs. The Nova connection is basically anyone from Philadelphia. The other 3 though it’s just been kids glued to ESPN since they were kids and picked their favorite team. The Jordan diehards went with North Carolina, the rest chose their favorite mascot between Duke and Kansas. Most of these fans haven’t even been to North Carolina or Kansas, and certainly more of them would have been rejected from Duke on their college entrance exam. It’s just like the Braves fans from the 90s – they just picked them because they were on tv 2 or 3 times a week. The point is these fans are bandwagon jumpers. If any of these teams suffers from a lull for more than 5 years the fans disappear. They don’t believe in loyalty, they don’t believe in tradition. To them tradition begins in 1980 when Coach K arrives at Duke. Put a team on tv enough and then you’ll create a fan base – not a good fan base, but you’ll have one. And that’s what all these teams have.
That tv cultivated audience is what really turns me off from these teams. They’re basically Applebees – no matter what city you’re in you’ll have a fan from one of these teams, and they’re all the same. They have no real connection, just form the tv viewership. They’ve been fed a watered down experience to these teams. College basketball has over 300 teams at the D1 level. There’s more than a small handful of teams you can follow – there’s likely one just a short drive away from you. But, the marketing machine pushes forward telling everyone you have to be a fan of one of these teams. It’s not for me, I’ll follow the other 300 teams and enjoy a more authentic product.