Re: Attendance at Regionals
This statement seems unfair. In the last 10 years the six most attended regionals were in Grand Forks (22,645 in 2006), Denver (22,388 in 2007), St. Paul (20,360 in 2012), Madison (19,784 in 2008), Minneapolis (19,176 in 2003), and Minneapolis (18,637 in 2005). The most attended eastern regional was Manchester (18,543 in 2004). The problems stem from having the regionals in places like Toledo, Grand Rapids, Fort Wayne, and Green Bay. I personally don't think the NCAA should have gone away from on campus regionals. I'd rotate between St. Paul/Minneapolis, Omaha, Denver, Madison, Grand Forks, and Ann Arbour for the western regionals. (Other locations could evolve.) I'm confident those regionals would be very well-attended compared to the eastern regionals. Attendance issues would be solved for western regionals. Drawing the best that the eastern regionals have drawn would be a disappointment in those places--except Ann Arbour (which drew over 13,000 in 2003). It's also kind of absurd to say we can't have on campus regionals (eliminating several good locations from hosting)--yet we have regionals that are literally minutes from a campus that are considered neutral sites. I'm not against that. I'm all for on campus regionals, but let's get rid of the hypocrisy. Replacing Toledo, Grand Rapids, Fort Wayne, and Green Bay with Madison, Omaha, Grand Forks, and Ann Arbour and replacing Albany with an eastern on campus site would take care of any attendance issues. No other changes would be necessary. I'm not sure it will happen, but more years of regional attendance = 5,000 might change the NCAA's minds.
http://inchwriters.files.wordpress.c.../04/attend.pdf
Originally posted by CLS
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http://inchwriters.files.wordpress.c.../04/attend.pdf
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