Paul Finebaum blunt about struggling popularity of SEC basketball: 'There's just not enough air'

Paul Finebaum was pretty blunt about the popularity of college basketball in the SEC compared to football and it could be as simple as a scheduling issue.

Basketball is a long two-semester sport, starting in November and ending in late-March, early-April with the national championship. It’s an issue a lot of winter sports face when they stretch across two semesters and have elongated seasons up against an ever-expanding college football calendar.

A prime example was Finebaum trying to get into the promotion of this year’s basketball campaign when there were massive college football games on the docket.

“I remember sitting at SEC basketball media days, I mean, literally, sitting there three days before the Alabama–Tennessee game in Knoxville and the Georgia–Texas Game in Austin,” Finebaum said on McElroy and Cubelic. “It was the biggest weekend of the college football season, and on Tuesday and Wednesday of that week, we were trying to promote basketball, and doing it rather unsuccessfully, because the second the guest would go off the set, whether it was Calipari or or Kim Mulkey or Dawn Staley, ‘Hey, Paul can Alabama go up to Knoxville and win?’ There’s nothing you can do about that.”

Paul Finebaum explains why SEC, college basketball is buried

The calendar for basketball, when it comes to the early season slate, is a double edged sword. Finebaum noted the SEC-ACC showdown or some other big out of conference games involving the top SEC teams being buried.

But because of SEC football, SEC basketball, and college basketball for that matter, take a back seat to the biggest money making sport.

“The worst part of it is in November, when very meaningful games are being played, and December, when you had the ACC-SEC clash, it barely showed up on the radar screen,” Finebaum said, “I mean, there’s just not enough air. I mean, we’re all involved in football, and you can’t stop to build up for the Iron Bowl or the SEC championship game or the first round of the playoff to say, ‘Okay, let’s, let’s stop for a couple of hours and talk about how great the SEC is in basketball.’ 

“So just now, you’re getting the attention. And I’m not saying it’s too late, because basketball is always tilted toward the end, but we’ve already missed two, two and a half months of real estate that is the highest quality basketball.”