The NIT—a few numbers to consider on viewership:

BYU v So Miss NIT quarters 2013 <200k
BYU v Baylor NIT semis 2013 ~450k

Average NIT final 1-1.2M viewers

NCAA first 4 average 1.2m
These are play-in games on obscure channels. Low seeds. I watch them.

It’s hard to get actual eyeball numbers #s on first round games because all the channels lump them together to make it look better for advertising and also don’t include streaming numbers. They’ll quote 9M for all 4 channels but per game...probably between First Four and the 32. LOTS of streamers tho. Lots.

Next round (32) games though, individually, are likely between 3-5M ov TV not including streams. Utah Georgetown a few years back got 5M. That’s some serious viewership and if I’m a player, — yeah, man! I want eyeballs seein’ my skills.

Point is...NIT really sucks for players. You want to play with the big boys. Even your home fan are pretty...meh...about it.

I know you all know that and I know we all feel NIT is better than nothing. But barely. Winning it is probably a shade better than losing a first four out game. Maybe. But if the players aren’t too jacked about it I can’t blame them.

I suppose that this big push to end up second in the league is important because the odds of us winning three games in a row is pretty slim. But if we can go into the Gonzaga game a little more fresh. Maybe? We want to find a way to get into the NCAAs. Period. We need to beat Gonzaga. Everything else is just seeding in a worthless tournament. NIT= Famous Potato Bowl.
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