Poll: Where are you as a fan for current college sports?

[teamplayer]

Somewhere between "quickly losing interest" and "done".

All the things I loved about CFB - all the things that made it different than every other major sport - are gone now. It's just a bunch of mediocre professionals playing football for the highest bidder.

I agree. I selected "Done", but I would really be option 3.5- Hanging by a thread. My issues are as much with the game, replay, and terrible rules as they are with transfer portals and money. I just find it difficult to give a crap. It's like B.B. King sang, the thrill is gone.

 

[tusks_n_raider]

I’m as about as close to done as possible without being ‘done’.

I love Alabama enough to watch this coming season and I’m curious to see if CKDs 2nd season will be better.

But I absolutely have lost a majority of my interest in CFB as a whole.


I use to buy all the pre-season magazines that covered every team with preview articles and I would read about every team and know who their players were and COs and their Offense and Defense systems etc.

I would get up early on Saturday and watch the entirety of Gameday and watch every game I could all weekend.


I DVR’d every single major game and as many SEC games as I could that weren’t vs cupcakes.

I wanted to know as much as I could about the competition.

Now I do not care about CFB as a whole at all.


Everyone from the Coaches to the Players exude GREED.

They make Millions to put out a vastly inferior product and there is no loyalty being displayed except for a few small instances.

I only care about a few players on our own team and I feel awful that I feel that way.

If some kind of structure and rules aren’t created and enforced the whole sports is going to implode and possibly never come back and for sure never go back to what it was.

I hate what has happened to what use to be my absolute favorite pastime.

 

[Ledsteplin]

Ain't holdin' my breath, but I'm waitin' for the BIG and the SEC to break away from the NZAA.

 

[mlh]

I'm still hanging in there, but losing interest at the same time. I guess this will show my age, but it's not just NIL and the transfer portal/free agency that is affecting my attitude. It's also the lack of class, poor sportsmanship, taunting, showboating. All of those things diminish my enjoyment.

I also hate to see the undisciplined play and kids who don't seem to even understand the fundamentals. In every game I see mistakes made that I knew not to make when I was playing pee-wee ball. The players today just don't seem to have much respect for the game. And that bothers me. I still think it's important to "do it the right way."

I guess that's all I have to say. Now, get off my lawn!

 

[mrusso]

I keep up, but rarely watch games anymore. This kind of started with the 2023 season. Saturdays are WAY less stressful now.

 

[TideEngineer08]

Quickly losing interest, but closer to "Done" than not.

I quit YouTube TV 2 years ago.

I did not watch a single basketball game last year.

I do not know who 95% of Alabama's football roster even is. Don't even know names. Don't care to know.

And it is 100% because of what NIL/Portal has become.

Once I leave completely, I do not think I will ever come back.

 

[tusks_n_raider]

Quickly losing interest, but closer to "Done" than not.

I quit YouTube TV 2 years ago.

I did not watch a single basketball game last year.

I do not know who 95% of Alabama's football roster even is. Don't even know names. Don't care to know.

And it is 100% because of what NIL/Portal has become.

Once I leave completely, I do not think I will ever come back.

I’m the same way wrt the bolded and it bothers me.

I use to know the entire 3-Deep on both sides of the ball.

I knew their numbers and what state we recruited them from and their Rivals ratings etc etc.

Now I just don’t care to waste the time when they come and go year to year.

You use to have guys come in and they were here and least 3-5 years and you got invested in them and rooting for them.

Now it’s all about

 

[CrimsonBloodn62]

Besides the transfer portal and NIL and how the LANK situation was handled, the last two years have soured my taste for college sports for a long time, if not forever. Kudos to TN for handling their QB situation the way Saban/DeBoer should have handled the Milroe ordeal.

 

[CB4]

Somewhere between "quickly losing interest" and "done".

All the things I loved about CFB - all the things that made it different than every other major sport - are gone now. It's just a bunch of mediocre professionals playing football for the highest bidder.

Ten years ago I lived and died with all things Alabama athletics. And losing would bother me for days and even weeks on end. The past few years I’m over a victory or a loss in about 30 minutes (or less).

If players can dampen their “emotional” connection to the university enough to sell their services to the highest bidder, then I can dampen my “emotional” connection to the services they provide to the university by disengaging from viewership and support.

 

[RollTide_HTTR]

I still like sports too much to be losing too much interest. For now I'm still invested. But the roster turnover in both football and basketball could ultimately make me lose some interest.

I used to find it fun getting to root for new players so often but the current turnover is excessive.

The money part doesn't bother me as much until people handle it as Nico did

 

[Slowpoke Catracho]

It still takes me a week or so to get over a loss. I'm still sore about losing to Miss. State 6-3 in 1980.

 

[22Musso22]

Quickly losing interest!

 

[Tideflyer]

I think it might be interesting to see if there is any correlation between age and how folks vote in this poll.

 

[mlh]

I think it might be interesting to see if there is any correlation between age and how folks vote in this poll.

I'm sure there is a direct correlation.

 

[TideEngineer08]

I think it might be interesting to see if there is any correlation between age and how folks vote in this poll.

Yes. I'm 42 this year. Child of the 80s, really the 90s (last great era in American history - sorry, not sorry).

I know I'm officially "old" now. I've got these young punks meeting me in halls at work and other places, elevators, etc., calling me "sir." The music I grew up with has been being played on "classic rock" stations for a decade now. Whatever.

Anyway, you would not have found a more dedicated fan than I was when I was growing up. I knew Alabama's history backwards and forwards. I knew the roster each season, where they went to high school, etc. I had a subscription to Kirk McNair's BAMA magazine and newsletter and I've probably still got all of those in the attic somewhere.

You could say I lived and died with Alabama football, college football, and sports in general. One by one, they've left me behind. I used to love the NBA, NASCAR, MLB. I will say I do still have some interest in the NFL, and I can still watch with some of those games being broadcast on over the air stations. But all of the surrounding drama of the NFL has turned me off of truly following it like I used to.

 

[Bamabuzzard]

Feeling personal connections to the players Alabama recruited was a big driver of fan interest. You get to see a kid signed out of HS, become a member of the Bama "family," and you see him play for at least three years. You get to know their stories, family stuff, personal struggles, etc. That type of stuff is what opens the pocketbooks of fans to pour into the product once called CFB. But now, that element is gone, and make no mistake, the fans' money will begin to dwindle as well. NFL players stay at their teams longer than CFB players do. So why not just watch the NFL more? I think that's what going to happen.

CFB will always be around, I just think it's headed down a path where the financial bubble is going to bust and the fans will be what start the popping of it.

 

[denver]

I'd say I'm rapidly losing interest...player movement and motivation are the main reasons....the other being legendary coaches leaving the sport...I've always admired and rooted for coaches who have given their careers to a program for a large number of years and built successful teams. It seems those are disappearing each season in both CFB and CBB, and I don't know if they will be replaced. It remains to be seen if this all gets sorted out and calms down into some new order....then maybe coaches will stick around a program since they have security...if not...the highest bidder will win not just the players but also the best coaches. It will be a while until we see which way this shakes out

 

[bamaslammer]

There's a reason I followed college football and not so much the NFL, aside from the fact there was no NFL near me, The distinction between the two is fading away. But it's actually worse than that. At least in the NFL a player signs a contract. Sure sometimes they don't fulfill the contract or get traded but most of the time the core of the team is the same from one year to the next unless they just suck.

Even now we have no clue who will be on the fall roster. For those that will be the program is trying to hide what they have so we, the fans know nothing about these players until they start playing. Watching interviews by the coaches they reveal nothing. The YouTube guys know nothing. There's no way to learn about these guys, to mentally and emotionally invest. This was a 12 month love affair that just culminated in the season. Now we've been served divorce papers via text message. The season will come. I mill certainly keep up with how they do, but there is so much competing for my time its hard to justify when you aren't emotionally invested in the players.

Aside from my fan experience I have to question at this point why so many colleges have a football team. It was already a money loser for most, but it added to the campus experience, but now I'm not sure how they justify it. These were supposed to be college kids.

 

[BamaNation]

I have great hope that once the lawsuit(s) are finally and officially settled, that there will begin to be a structure put in place that gets us to a point that we can at least tolerate. It won't be the same as the system we want it to revert back to, but it will eliminate the ridiculous pay-for-play and infinite transfers and portals opening in times that make absolutely no sense whatsoever. You could put a guy high on crack in charge of some of this stuff and he would make better decisions than what we've been living with since the covid season. That has to change ... right?

 

[CrimSonami]

I have great hope that once the lawsuit(s) are finally and officially settled, that there will begin to be a structure put in place that gets us to a point that we can at least tolerate. It won't be the same as the system we want it to revert back to, but it will eliminate the ridiculous pay-for-play and infinite transfers and portals opening in times that make absolutely no sense whatsoever. You could put a guy high on crack in charge of some of this stuff and he would make better decisions than what we've been living with since the covid season. That has to change ... right?

THIS is the primary reason I'm still loitering here.