A Live-Action Game.

Neil D. Isaac, author of All the Moves (1975), a history of college basketball, argues that basketball is the most popular sport in the United States, but that it is more successful as a live action spectator sport and as a participation sport than on television. While baseball fans might question that claim, there is an undeniable attraction to basketball, particularly at the college level. The continuous action and high scoring of the game make it exciting to watch, even if it does not televise well. The roughly one thousand college basketball teams in the United States attracted fifteen million fans in 1960.

A National Audience.

College basketball became a national game at the major-college level in the 1960s. Before that time college coaches recruited locally and promoted what might be called regional game styles. But television and the rise in...