Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski says the NCAA can’t cancel March Madness again.
The 2020 March Madness tournament was canceled because of coronavirus, and the NCAA lost out on somewhere around $375 million. That’s not even including lost TV revenue or the lost economic impact on local communities. The man running the Blue Devils thinks the tournament has to happen in 2021. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)
Coach K said the following during a Tuesday appearance on ESPN Radio, according to Front Office Sports:
I think this is a time for our sport to move forward and have a different structure. We’re the thing that the NCAA is most concerned about because men’s college basketball and the tournament produces 98% or more of the money for the NCAA, not college football or any other sport. We need to have the tournament. We can’t have it where two years in a row you do not have the NCAA tournament.
As much as I hate Duke, I couldn’t agree more with Coach K. We simply can’t cancel March Madness two seasons in a row.
If we do, the NCAA is going to lose another gigantic chunk of money. Can the NCAA stomach more losses because of March Madness not happening?
I highly doubt it. There’s no chance they’re in a financial position to take that blow.
Furthermore, fans need something to cheer about. We’ve been battling coronavirus as a nation since March 2020. We’ve been told that we’re eventually going to return to normal.
Playing sports is a big part of that and March Madness is about as big as it gets. When you start canceling stuff like that, people lose confidence.
Trust me, you don’t want to be in a situation where college basketball and football get derailed. People are going to go insane.
Coach K and all other coaches need to get as vocal as possible to make sure the games happen.