Viewpoint: We need more of our own madness

By Nathan Bragg

March Madness is upon us. The annual NCAA Basketball Tournament has casual and diehard sports fans from around the world filling out brackets and tuning into the spectacle.

One of those top U.S. college teams featured a Centretown connection in Marial Shayok, who grew up playing basketball at the YMCA on Argyle Avenue. Shayok’s University of Virginia Cavaliers lost its second-round game to the fourth-seeded University of Florida Gators on March 18.

The fanfare and hype surrounding the tournament is in stark contrast with what happens at the U Sports Final 8, the Canadian version of March Madness, which recently caught the eye of David Waldstein of The New York Times. While Waldstein made some excellent points about how Canadian schools devote far less money to athletics than NCAA schools, the lack of attention and spectacle at the Final 8 is about far more than money.

U Sports rebranded itself from Canadian Interuniversity Sport in October with the goal of generating more attention and attracting sponsors, but television viewership of Canadian university sport is down this year in comparison to the past two years under the CIS brand.

With the rebrand, U Sports announced it would take a different approach to promoting Canadian university athletics on social media, but so far it’s failed on that front.

The social media accounts for both the men’s and women’s Final 8 were very active during the four-day event, but were quiet beforehand, and failed to present human stories through its media channels during the tourney.

Part of what makes the NCAA tournament so captivating are the small features that give us a glimpse into the players lives. These pieces give causal fans an opportunity to connect with a team or an athlete.

Sportsnet’s coverage did include a feature on former Carleton player Phill Scrubb, but the Canadian tournament was otherwise lacking in terms of profiles or exposing fans to compelling off-court narratives.

For U Sports to create something that even faintly resembles the American sports culture, it should encourage more schools to take an approach similar to that of the Ottawa universities, who might not sell out every game, but know how to promote and use their rivalry to generate exposure, revenue and school spirit.

The Capital Hoops Classic on the court and the annual Panda Game on the gridiron have both been among Canada’s best-attended university sporting events in recent years.

Another way to drive interest in Canadian university sport is to cover the pre-season games between Canadian schools and their NCAA counterparts. Both Carleton and Queen’s men’s teams defeated American schools this past pre-season.

Waldstein is right that the Final 8 was muted compared to the hoopla south of the order. But the ball is now in U Sports’ court, and there is an opportunity to turn up the volume.

In the meantime, Canadian basketball fans will keep filling out their brackets and immersing themselves in the madness south of the border.