The growth of the internet really cut into 1 and 2. One year, one of my law school buddies and I decided to each learn everything we could about one mid major league. At one point in the season, he was 35-7 in game involving teams from the Big West and I was 40-5 in games from the MAC. The problem with the internet is that, now, you don't have to keep up to figure out who's awful. You can just pull up someone's results in 5 seconds. Still, not that many people are concerned about Dartmouth-Princeton on a Friday night in January. Research will still pay off in the long run.