Just because people don’t remember doesn’t mean it’s not what’s considered the true conference champion. And the original argument was that the conference tournament was a bigger deal than regular season titles. By your argument, nothing matters. People don’t remember who won the NCAA tournament in 2011, so even ncaa championships don’t matter.
My argument isn’t based on remembering, but your contention was, given it’s rooted in the myth of more social capital gained. If no one can even remember results from a year ago, you’re largely overstating the advantage a regular season title has in that regard over tournament title.
You went to the “grand scheme” of things route, but in the grand scheme of things they’re both largely irrelevant. Well, unless you’re 2012 Washington. In the grand scheme of things, the main point of the regular season success is measured by how it sets a team up for the NCAA tournament. Anything else is just a nice footnote. Didn’t win the regular season at 16-2 because you dropped a random Tuesday night game in January? BFD. You’re going to get a great seed and had a better season than winning the conference at 12-6 and getting a 5 seed.
If you want to delineate the small difference between the two, you don’t broaden the lense to the “grand scheme”, you narrow the focus. For example, Iowans think there’s a relevant difference between Ames and Iowa City, but in the grand scheme of things, to someone in DC they’re the same.
