NCAA can bite me

Universities don't charge a cent during the regular season, nor do NBA teams. But in the NCAAs ... wham, pay up, newspapers.

 

Free at every school on the planet.
Free at the conference tournaments.
$16.50 if the NCAA failed to send you an e-mail reminding you about the discount for pre-registering.
Which they did.

 

$9.50 a day is cheap, word is they are charging photogs $350 for internet usage. Not sure how that works out for the same connection, but whatever

 

Deep in the bowels of the arena and Verizon Wireless works just fine, thank you very much.

Did I remember to tell the NCAA to bite me?

 

Yes, I just found this out the hard way. Tried using my Sprint CrackBerry to connect, and it did - but it was slooooooow.
So I caved. $16.50 a day. Woo-hoo.

 

Oh, and did I mention that for our $16.50 in NO the wireless knocks you off, on average, about every 17 minutes.
And is too slow to support March Madness on Demand?
Great stuff.

 

At least it's working there. Here in Buffalo, it's not working at all courtside.
Fuck you, NCAA.

 

It took three hours for them to get the wireless in Louisville at the women's tourney working. But we're up.

 

Interesting. The WaPost's Kathy Orton reports that per NCAA rules, they're not allowed to show men's games on TV at women's tournament sites. I'm at a women's site, and the games have been on TV in the press room all day.

 

Sexist pigs.

 

I have this image in my head of F-Bat and a dozen other writers together in a janitor's closet somewhere in a subbasement of the arena, huddled together around a couple of wireless cards like crack addicts in need of a fix. One guy mans the door and keeps an eye out for the NCAA fuzz while the rest of them send their stories and get a quick update on scores.