Where’s the Media Love for College Baseball

For the first time in a longtime, maybe ever, there was quite a bit of media buzz surrounding this year’s MLB Draft.

The story, of course, centered on San Diego State RHP Stephen Strasburg who recently completed one of the most dominating college seasons ever.

His 100 MPH fastball, 13-1 record (in 15 starts), 1.32 ERA and 16.1 strikeouts per nine innings this season made the 6-foot-4, 200-pound pitcher the most highly anticipated MLB prospect since Ken Griffey Jr. was drafted in 1987.

What makes the story so much more interesting is “The Angel of Death” to MLB owners, agent Scott Boras, has been serving as a consultant to Strasburg the last few months and will represent him in negotiations with the Washington Nationals, who picked the pitcher first overall on Wednesday.

Strasburg and the 2009 MLB Draft has been a media story, really, since April 2008 when the right-hander struck out an unbelievable 23 batters in a complete-game one-hit shutout against conference foe University of Utah.

So the buzz leading up to this year’s MLB draft was understandably large. Strasburg’s pre-draft hype is reminiscent of other college superstar athletes like Greg Oden, Shaquille O’Neal, Patrick Ewing, Reggie Bush, Peyton Manning and John Elway.

But what separates Strasburg’s pre draft hype from all the others is that the featured athlete is a baseball player. Amateur basketball and football players are routinely hyped and scrutinized by the media leading up to their respective drafts. But you rarely hear a peep from the media during the MLB Draft.

Why is that?

Professional baseball in America is certainly as big and popular as the NBA and NFL. So how come the collective media world offers little coverage every June when the top high school and college baseball players are drafted by Major League teams?

The answer: Exposure

Major college basketball and football in America draw as big an audience as the pros. When you turn on any Saturday football game from September – November you’re likely to see a stadium packed with more than one hundred thousand people.

College hoop games, especially during March Madness, are overrun with screaming maniacs numbering in the 12-20 thousand range, similar to NBA games.

But have you ever turned on a college baseball game? Probably not.

But if you have, the handful of college baseball games aired nationally every season are usually aired in the afternoons (drawing a very small TV audience) with only a few thousand fans in attendance – nothing close to an average MLB game.

Also, the top draft picks from college basketball and football go right to the big club and many crack the starting lineups their rookie years.

College baseball players who are drafted, even in the first round, are assigned to lower-level minor league teams and take anywhere from 2-5 years to advance to the Majors – if they even make it that far, which, statistically, most don’t.

So, essentially, the NCAA is a “minor league” system for the NBA and NFL. By the time elite players from college basketball and football are ready to be drafted they’re already established household names with big fan followings and a tremendous media presence.

College hockey players draw even less media attention than their baseball counterparts and follow a similar path in the minors once they’re drafted.

Perhaps the fourth of the “Big Four” of American sports, the NHL is a very popular game that draws solid TV ratings and large arena crowds.

College hockey games, however, are never on national television except for the Frozen Four, which earns very little media attention.

As a result, most fans have no idea who the top amateur American hockey players are.

Strasburg’s draft attention by the media is certainly an aberration.

The kid only had to post arguably the greatest collegiate season-ever for a pitcher to get any publicity. While every year, 10-20 college basketball and football players, with nowhere near the accomplishments of Strasburg, are drooled over by every sports media outlet in the country.

Hopefully Strasburg's success and subsequent media attention will jumpstart a push to start slicing off some of the publicity hype, so easily dished out to college basketball and football players, to some of the deserving amateur baseball and hockey athletes.