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Burwick coming back?

I've been doing audience and consumer research for about 30 years. Cord cutting is definitely a factor in Nielsen's viewing estimates, which both do and do not streaming content depending on the source and how we're calculating audience data. But, neither would account for this large of a year over year audience drop. IMO, stars and stories mattered more. Do not underestimate the lack of crossover stars in this year's tournament. Yianni D. is not Gable Steveson, and four titles may be really cool to we wrestlers but is not as unique as it was for either Dake or Cael. Plus, don't underestimate the impact of other programming on this year's audience ratings. The first weekend of the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament was absolutely wild - ironic that all of those upsets led to lower ratings for the Final 4 and championship game given the lack of blue bloods at the end - or the impact of a generational talent (Caitlin Clark) playing in the women's tournament. At the end of the day, casual fans had a lot of intriguing viewing options that weekend. Moving the tournament to April - I'm intrigued by the unique place the Frozen Four has between March Madness and the start of the NBA and NHL Playoffs - may be helpful for audience ratings. As for me, I was at my son's district swimming championships and didn't watch a match either Day 2 or 3 of the tournament. Life gets in the way. Dan McDonald (sometimes known as "Voice of the Quakers") Vice President, Research, National Association of Broadcasters

Wrestling community in a nutshell. Proposal: Hey maybe we should do similar things to the organizations that have made their sports Uber successful and popular… Wrestling people… “ahhhhh!!! Nooooo!! change is scary. Let’s keep doing same things and watch sport keep shrinking.. and just blame it on “da kids these days” and um to the person saying without riding time people will just stall on bottom… no

I remembered that I have looked at NCAA tournament bonus points in the past, so I dug it up and updated for 2023. They have been down the past two years.

(Effectively) Taking away riding time just encourages stalling on bottom.

Iowa + Nagao + 3 Ferraris can beat Penn State

With all this talk of NIL deals, I started wondering which wrestlers offered value in terms of social media presence. To that end, here are the Instagram numbers for a handful of prominent NCAA wrestlers: Starocci - 159k Carr - 113k Bartlett - 101k Fix - 89.7k Brooks - 35.9k Woods - 33.3k Lewis - 23.2k Ramos - 22.9k KOT - 22.7k Cassioppi - 22.5k Arujau - 22.4k Sasso - 21.1k

Having a large following doesn't mean a lot if a wrestler doesn't post much content or if people don't react, though. To get a fuller picture of a wrestler's Share of Voice (and maybe NIL potential), we should not only look at volume (followers), but also their reach (impressions) and engagement (likes, comments, shares, clickthroughs, etc.), among other analytics. Here's what the list looks like with those Instagram metrics added: Starocci - 61 posts ... 159k followers ... 5.98% AER Carr - 120 ... 113k ... 7.60% Bartlett - 178 ... 101k ... 5.80% Fix - 160 ... 89.7k ... 5.82% Brooks - 43 ... 35.9k ... 0.14% Woods - 95 ... 33.3k ... 12.54% Lewis - 61 ... 23.2k ... 16.75% Ramos - 63 ... 22.9k ... 11.55% KOT - 54 ... 22.7k ... 15.46% Cass - 49 ... 22.5k ... 22.65% Arujau - 86 ... 22.4k ... 14.83% Sasso - 131 ... 21.1k ... 15.84% (AER = Average Engagement Rate, defined as the % of followers who interact with the wrestler's posts. Higher is better, but note that a small percentage of a huge following is often better than a large percentage of a tiny # of followers) Just eyeballing it, Starocci has a lot of untapped influence and is not maximizing his NIL potential. He should post more to take advantage of what he has going and extend his reach, like Bartlett and Carr might be trying to do. Woods and Cass are undervalued based on volume alone and appear to have a very strong though small following, maybe good local or niche NIL potential. Brooks' IG clout is abysmal... doesn't post much and when he does, it's probably boring and no one cares. Not good material for a promotional NIL deal. For comparison, here are the basic IG influence metrics for some other popular wrestlers. Check out Gable's numbers. It's a little surprising to see mediocre numbers from Dake and Oliver after they did so much finger wagging about wrestlers needing to put in the work to build their online brand: Burroughs - 2099 ... 889k ... 1.81% Dake - 907 ... 250k ... 2.01% Taylor - 1753 ... 457k ... 1.92% JO - 79 ... 67.6k ... 0.97% Nolf - 408 ... 104k ... 5.41% Snyder - 672 ... 311k ... 1.00% Spencer - 114 ... 180k ... 12.87% Steveson - 94 ... 656k ... 16.34%

State College is not the easiest place to get to by air. I wish we'd stop doing that.

Mendez bumping up from 61 to 65 kg. Precursor to him being the one at 141 next year (Bouzakis at 133 and D'Emilio and Sasso bumping up)

I think therapy would be more beneficial for his character development than spending time in the Iowa wrestling room, but that's just one guy's take.

He has Minnesota also listed in his top 5 I believe

As a Wisconsin alum, I would love to get Hopke. But why wouldn't he go to Heavyweight U?

It will be interesting to see how a really good (but not dominant) D3 guy does in the BG10.

In regards to that rokfin article, they basically said they've backed off on recruiting AJ. They seem to believe he's going to Penn State.

Think the match pace has more to with the wrestlers and the matchup than it does the rules. There's 15 minute mma fights with little or no action sometimes

This is the internet. Bags of cash in a dark alley while evil-laughing about getting one over on the comp must be the answer.

I hate to sound like a Debbie Downer here, but you guys know this is my life … I will watch every level, every style and it’s to the point where if there’s a college hockey game on, I’ll watch that over most duals except the big ones. As a consumer on my own time, I want to also be entertained. I’m not actively reporting on things as they happen anymore so what am I watching in my free time? It’s becoming increasingly hard to just have wrestling on and be engaged in a lot of the product. Most of it now is just scanning results and going back to watch specific bouts that were eye-catching … when given a more exciting sports option, wrestling is going to have to do more things. And I love wrestling.

I certainly do. He’s on here as well (under a different username). And yes, he can probably recall every Mizzou wrestler’s state of origin & HS record over the last 25 yrs

Not at all. It's just one particular member of that forum who will even take genuinely GOOD recruits and trash them. The ONLY way Bono should keep his job is if he gets Davino, Hopke and Ferrari from that '24 class. He's said other stupid things as well. Someone posted the new facilities at OSU(which are incredible) and he said athletes don't care about that, nobody goes to Iowa to Wrestle at CHA...which is insane to me. That place is incredible and seems like it'd be most kids dreams if they grew up Iowa fans. But no, we're on the same page. BadgerOne used to Wrestle for the Badgers, doesn't now and is less than sincere.

Forrest is overrated. If Amit drops, which I doubt, she'll crush Forrest. Watch Glaude or Piearcey. I don't see Grote dropping and I don't see any chance even if she does. Technique is not her strong suit.

Worse than that, if you put the best 10 non PSU wrestlers on one tournament team could they even beat Penn State?

Finally something good happening for those guys.

OTTs in Vegas. Or better yet, Seattle!! As you probably know, Seattle is just starving for wrestling action. mspart

Is it impossible for you to make this comment on an existing Thread that is already covering the Mesenbrink transfer?

Yes and that only took a minute to figure out who that is . Yes you are correct some people are never pleased and Yes like I said it's great for Liegel family and wisconsin fans, so certainly hope you were not referring to me when talking about shitting on his family by diminishing his addition. As far as what Bono should say. That's a Bono thing. I thought we were on same page. Go Badgers.

Yes would be a huge pick up but do not think we're going to see that happen. Best of luck to him wherever he chooses to go.

Central

4 point shot would be from half court or something? As far as going to 3 point takedowns, I'm not sure I like that. The riding time change is good in my opinion. 3 point near fall is also a good change. I don't like the 4 point near fall. But I'm a codger and like the old ways. I'm still not sure how I feel about 2 point takedown for freestyle. I also don't like unlimited ankle lace scoring. But there you go. mspart

This would be hilarious.

Packaging is a major?

Yes

For AJ or for those around him?

backward two handed free throws worth 2pt each

Good grief man, wrestling hasn't worked, he need something different. Same with #2 apparently.

Does Hopke train at Pinacle? Where does Minnesota fit in this recruitment war.? I also hope we land him. If by chance we do land him who does he roll with in the wrestling room at Wisconsin to make sure he continues to improve

even the entire bball tourney was down 7% from last year...

change for change's sake is bad. things like that get you the 'ball grab' if you have numbers to back up your proposals fine. lets do it. but we aren't seeing these numbers... i mean is it really broke? the numbers went down for viewership one year... does that mean the sky is falling?

No Wisconsin fan was tricked by that tweet. That is what Bono says for all the signings.

Or Iowa State cancelled his visit

Good thing he got some rest there. mspart

He ate a fist

Just thought I would check in for my bi-monthly register of disgust.

AJ Ferrari is now considered an undersized 197 pounder? In what universe?

hmmm, we had a navy ride, where you had a turk and the guy rolls away... so you pick up the other leg and elbow him in the ribs to keep his back exposed...

I'm pretty sure I dated that girl, but she was from Texas.

I'm really taken aback by how significant some of these changes are. I think they are almost all very good. But I am just surprised that so much progress is being attempted all at once. Not opposed to it - just didn't expect it.

corrected previous post to state, "lost challenge"

Young Alan Alda