The latest television ratings are out for the NCAA Championships and they are amazing.
I know I’m been on your backs about what I believe you’re not doing, or should be doing; I’m sorry.
This mea culpa is in direct reflection to the sport of wrestling attracting the smallest viewing audience ever!
You see, if you can say that all is well, in essence, procrastinate. Then I can do the same by apologizing.
It reminds me off how badly you’ve been failing our sport, and how negligent I’ve been not to point it out more often. Again, that’s my fault and I am sorry.
So, let’s take a look at where we are, and if we can, look into our crystal ball to see where we’re headed. In 2013, we had 860,000 television viewers watching the NCAA championships. Then, over the next two years we lost 165,000 spectators to re-runs of Sanford and Sons.
By 2021, we were down to 571,000 viewers.
Then, a month ago, we had a total of 410,000 spectators positioning themselves in front of their television sets. And, as a note, these numbers are for the finals Saturday night!
Let me help those who struggle with numbers. That’s over a 50% decline in just a decade.
If you want to compare that with the ladies in basketball, which weren’t very popular 10 years ago, they had 13.8 million sets of eyes watching their NCAA finals a few weeks ago.
Okay guys, let’s assume for kicks and giggles that those wrestling numbers were dollars you personally had invested in the stock market.
Question; when would your wives have hit you over the head with a rolling pin for not watching the family’s investments closer? Would it have been when you lost 10% of your nest egg? Or, after you lost 30% or 40%, or maybe it was when you lost 50% of what you previously had? Try explaining those losses to the lady of the house, or in our case, the wrestling community.
Wrestling is in trouble and everyone seems to be marveling at the great success that Penn State is enjoying, and the crowds they’re attracting. It’s true, they are, but behind the curtain with the rest of the nation, the scene is completely different.
Numbers don’t lie, and someone has to be if leadership feels all is well.
