|
Post by Commissioner on Dec 9, 2015 14:18:58 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Commissioner on Jan 23, 2016 11:34:05 GMT -5
If this is going to work, the Horizon is going to have to make some major changes, I think.
How can they expect to sell many all-tournament packages? If you're from out of town, and you're looking now at the standings and think you might be in the top 2, why come for Saturday games when your team won't play until Monday? And if you're not in the top two, do you want to commit to staying around until Tuesday (or waste money on unused tickets) when your team might be done by 2:00 p.m. Saturday? Why would anyone buy those tickets in advance, especially knowing that it is a virtual certainty that tickets will be available the morning of the game, given the size of "the Joe"?
The Olympia people seem to have figured this out--they're now offering a "flex package" of 10 tickets with each ticket good for any session. This will help, but probably doesn't solve the problem.
Unfortunately, the Horizon ain't the Big East, or even the MVC or A10. People might go to an A10 tournament knowing that even if their team is knocked out, they're going to see great basketball, top 25 teams in the final, etc. Horizon teams simply lack that cache. I mean, I follow other teams in our league pretty closely, but even I'm not that interested in the costs of hanging around Detroit to watch Milwaukee play Wright State in the final.
Then the Saturday-Tuesday format is a disaster. With a 7;00 p.m. start time for the final, a person has to commit to missing three days of work if they want to attend the semis and finals. Few out of towners, at least from the 4 western schools, will be able to be at the office on Wednesday morningA Thursday-Sunday schedule, with an afternoon final, would allow people who did want to attend the whole tournament to cut the missed work time to two days.
But what the Conference probably should do is change the tournament format. For 14 years now the Horizon has dedicated itself to protecting the top seeds, first by allowing them to play at home, and then with the double bye format. I'm not sure this has worked. Yes, if you are a one bid league, it makes it more likely you send your best team. But assuming that regular season champ wins, note that it actually hurts that team's seeding a bit--it loses a couple chances for wins, and it gets less credit in RPI and from the selection committee for home wins rather than neutral site wins in the tournament. Further, the best chance the Horizon does have for at large bids is having the regular season champ upset in the tournament. Since the modern MCC/Horizon emerged 20 years ago from the quasi merger of the bottom of the MCC with the top of the Summit, only twice has the Horizon gotten an at-large bid for a team that was not the #1 seed in the tournament -- 1998 when co-champs and #1 an #2 seeds Detroit and UIC each got at-large bids after Butler won the tournament, and in 2007, when Wright State and Butler tied for the regular season title and second seeded (and more highly ranked) Butler got an at-large bid after losing to Wright in the final). In other words, our best chance of two bids is having the champion lose in the tournament. Of course, there are also benefits to having the regular season be more meaningful--it adds a lot of interest to late season conference games--but for conference NCAA success, I'm not sure it works.
Thus the conference could and should strongly consider doing away with the double bye. That would guarantee that the best teams will be in action on the first day of the tournament in Detroit. The league should also shorten the event to three days by having the league's bottom 4 teams square off at campus sites on, say, Tuesday before the tournament. The winners of those two games, and the top 6 teams, would then advance to Detroit to play on Friday/Saturday/Sunday. With action starting Friday afternoon and wrapping up late Sunday afternoon, I could see quite a few more fans from around the league deciding to make the trip. The direct cost is lower with fewer days on the road, and the opportunity cost is lower with having to take just 1 vacation day.
With the current format, however, and with OU and Detroit looking like clubs that aren't going to be playing in the finals, and without the new arena this year, attendance this March is likely to be disastrously low, and that will make it harder, I think, to generate enthusiasm down the road.
|
|