Fans listen, but can't seem to read between the lines

Writing in the Wall Street Journal this week, Jeff Pearlman offered his theory on what keeps today's sports fans passionately engaged.

"Watching sports is mostly boring," he wrote. "Talking and speculating about sports is riveting."

He's got a point.

As sports are reported and debated, it's the endless palaver about hirings, firings, retirements, comebacks, trades, overpaid athletes, recruiting, mock drafts and at-large tournament bids that commands most of the interest.

We've been conditioned to believe that offseason, off-the-field (and court) developments are more intriguing than what takes place between the lines.

And all that really matters is what controversy the blogs are stirring up.

Or what the latest tweet will bring.

Or what kind of spectacle the n ext big free agent is willing to create.

Pearlman's story didn't touch on college basketball bracketology, but it could have.

It's a prime example of sports as talk and speculation.

The bracketologists who endlessly entertain themselves by predicting the at-large field for the NCAA tournament aren't without an audience.

If chatter and speculation trump game interest for most fans, bracket-speak is just what the doctor ordered in the walk up to Selection Sunday.

You could argue that the endless debate about RPI and strength of schedule is all that keeps many fans interested this time of year.

It pains me, though, to say that. When I hear or read the word "bracketologists" I still think of guys with ladders who hang shelves for a living.

Sorry, but I can't get worked up over Wichita State probably not making it to the dance. Or that Colorado State will be among the first four out.

Am I supposed to care about a couple of teams I've never seen play? Apparently, I am.

One of college basketball's biggest conceits is that the entirety of the tournament field matters to everyone who calls himself a fan.

But my relative indifference over at-large speculation comes from the understanding that, in due time, the NCAA will reveal the brackets to everyone.

I'm not disinterested, just patient.

Soon, the least-savvy among us will know as much as ESPN's high-priest of bracketology Joe Lunardi.

So why waste energy on speculation? The answers are promised to those who wait.

I'm not speaking for most basketball fans - certainly not for the generations of ESPN viewers who have been brought up in a world where both informed and idle speculation resonate more than all those boring games.

Project this notion on the entire landscape of sports and it's easy to see how innocuous developments can be elevated to the level of actual news.

The bracketologists already are on the clock. Soon, they'll be shoved aside by that other staple of the talk-and-speculate industry - NFL draftniks.

The lead-in to pro football's livestock lottery - all those mock drafts - is the perfect vehicle for a sports culture that would just as well talk a good game as watch one.

We're never going back, either, to a place where games rule the stage, and offseason news is subordinate to the action in the arena.

Used to be, the media's job was to cut through the static.

That's changed.

Now the static often is the story.

Bob Molinaro, (757) 446-2373, bob.molinaro@pilotonline.com