The NCAA is an amazing game. It’s an amateur sport and the emotion that players and fans alike put into their teams. It’s worth watching for a number of reasons – tactical innovation, the age-old history and traditions of the sport, real emotion as guys really play for the colors of their team (which gave them a college education and a path to life), their friends and family, their fans in the stadium (with whom they study together!), and each other.
Interestingly, there was a time in the last century when the college league (NCAA) was more popular than the professional league (NFL). But support at college games hasn’t gotten any smaller since then; on the contrary, more and more companies are offering both financial support and special interest for fans, because you can bet on your favorites. One such company is TonyBet. There you can find a wide line of bets and payouts, and sometimes even special TonyBet promotions.
Let’s have a little look today at the history of the sport and what kind of bets can be placed.
The 1892 Oberlin College team
The very first college soccer game was played on November 6, 1869, between rivals Rutgers and Princeton. Rutgers won 6-4 in front of about 100 enthusiastic spectators. Since then, the game’s popularity has grown by leaps and bounds and continues to grow. Here are some interesting numbers about college soccer:
- 56 percent of adults say they are fans of college soccer – more than professional baseball, hockey, basketball, and soccer, and second only to professional soccer.
- In the 2017 season, 47.6 million fans attended college soccer games.
- Nearly 5,000 fans attended the 2017 NCAA Division III national championship game in which the Mount Union University of Ohio defeated Mary Hardin-Baylor.
Ohio State’s First Soccer Team 1890
For some of us, such as myself, college soccer games are a family tradition passed down through generations from family members who attended my college alma mater. For others, college soccer is about the pride of place, like the Ohio fans who cheer for the Buckeyes but never went to school. For others, college soccer represents the game at its best – kids take the field and play from the heart, proud of their school and themselves. The game has survived and continues to thrive.
Betting in the NCAA
The NCAA is a specific league with its own peculiarities. The NCAA is very much on the bookmakers’ lines, so in the absence of the NFL, the second most popular American soccer tournament on the bookmakers’ lines is the NCAA.
Matches of American college teams are characterized by very high totals. Often the final scores of matches are around 100 points. The total for the game, which is offered by bookmakers for the match, is rarely more than 66 points. If the teams start from the very beginning of the match to show a hurricane pace and make a lot of skids – you can safely bet on the TB match, especially if it was not initially too high and if one or both teams play weakly in defense. Especially relevant bets on TB, when the two productive teams meet.
