What's new
By:
USCHO Fan Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • The USCHO Fan Forum has migrated to a new plaform, xenForo. Most of the function of the forum should work in familiar ways. Please note that you can switch between light and dark modes by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right of the main menu bar. We are hoping that this new platform will prove to be faster and more reliable. Please feel free to explore its features.

Annual thread in which the absurdity of the current regional system is discussed

Re: Annual thread in which the absurdity of the current regional system is discussed

Obviously one of the more popular country stars is probably going to outdraw a college hockey event. It won’t even be close.

Even when these regionals are in huge cities, they top out at 11,000 people.
 
Re: Annual thread in which the absurdity of the current regional system is discussed

Kill the hosts. Ship the 4's. If all else fails, sh-tcan the regional and go back to 1R and QF best of 3 at campus site.
 
Kepler said:
Kill the hosts. Ship the 4's. If all else fails, sh-tcan the regional and go back to 1R and QF best of 3 at campus site.
Click to expand...

Easy to say that but the coaches don't want it and the NCAA makes way too much money in the current format. It cleared an estimated $2.1 million from the regionals this year - the lion's share from Providence. Eliminate the bid-to-host scheme and you're eliminating a guaranteed $600,000 from the NCAA's coffers.
 
Re: Annual thread in which the absurdity of the current regional system is discussed

It’s not like alternative formats for the first round and quarterfinals wouldn’t also bring in money, but I’d agree that there are many unknowns and hidden costs to doing top-seed hosting in the playoffs.

All the griping about the regionals… I don’t know, it feels like people complaining about their games in the NFL. Even if I could agree that there’s a serious problem (which, to differing extents, I don’t), the ideas being thrown out to forcefully solve the issue aren’t very good.

Attendance in regionals won’t be very good unless the sport grows in popularity. And for now, it’s stagnant.
 
Re: Annual thread in which the absurdity of the current regional system is discussed

ticapnews said:
Easy to say that but the coaches don't want it and the NCAA makes way too much money in the current format. It cleared an estimated $2.1 million from the regionals this year - the lion's share from Providence. Eliminate the bid-to-host scheme and you're eliminating a guaranteed $600,000 from the NCAA's coffers.
Click to expand...

The NCAA could make up for the lack if the guarantee from the host by controlling the tickets and resulting revenue. After all, the tournament is their event. Home playoff games would almost certainly draw big crowds, sellouts in a lot of places. Charge 45 bucks a ticket, draw 5022 to a game at Notre Dame, for one example, and that's $225,000. Multiply that or a similar number at 8 schools. Even if you then pay the schools/arenas for their actual costs to run the game you are still left with a sizeable profit from each school's game. And that's with a single elimination. A best 2 of three would potentially be even better.
 
Re: Annual thread in which the absurdity of the current regional system is discussed

ExileOnDaytonStreet said:
Attendance in regionals won’t be very good unless the sport grows in popularity. And for now, it’s stagnant.
Click to expand...

This is likely true. At this stage I don't think even drastically reducing ticket prices would do much good. And the reduced prices would simply reduce revenue unless and until the venue hit the tipping point for selling more tickets to make up for the reduction in per-ticket revenue. My guess is the NCAA's marketing gurus have already crunched those possibilities and that's why the prices are where they are. I think absent multiple local teams (which differs somewhat between the East and Northeast regionals and the Midwest and West ones) you are going to see attendance relatively the same every year.
 
Re: Annual thread in which the absurdity of the current regional system is discussed

WeAreNDHockey said:
The NCAA could make up for the lack if the guarantee from the host by controlling the tickets and resulting revenue. After all, the tournament is their event. Home playoff games would almost certainly draw big crowds, sellouts in a lot of places. Charge 45 bucks a ticket, draw 5022 to a game at Notre Dame, for one example, and that's $225,000. Multiply that or a similar number at 8 schools. Even if you then pay the schools/arenas for their actual costs to run the game you are still left with a sizeable profit from each school's game. And that's with a single elimination. A best 2 of three would potentially be even better.
Click to expand...

11 out of 60 teams have arenas that seat 5000+. It may be nice to use ND (or similar schools) as an example, but what happens when one of the 18 schools who's arenas seat less than 3000 are hosting? What if ASU earns hosting rights in their 800 seat barn? What if the arena is booked? The need for contingency plans, and the off-chance of financial disaster is much greater in this scenario. The current situation is viable, even profitable, which is the Mother Ship's ultimate goal.

r
 
Re: Annual thread in which the absurdity of the current regional system is discussed

cetihcra said:
11 out of 60 teams have arenas that seat 5000+. It may be nice to use ND (or similar schools) as an example, but what happens when one of the 18 schools who's arenas seat less than 3000 are hosting? What if ASU earns hosting rights in their 800 seat barn? What if the arena is booked? The need for contingency plans, and the off-chance of financial disaster is much greater in this scenario. The current situation is viable, even profitable, which is the Mother Ship's ultimate goal.

r
Click to expand...

I'm mostly in agreement with you about it. I think if maximizing profits are what the NCAA wants, other systems MAY be viable too. After witnessing disastrous regionals in toledo and South Bend I was really on the home-ice bandwagon, but after a few years in a row now of enjoying them on TV, I have drifted back away from that. I think the modest attendance is driven by so many variables we probably won't see it fixed without just simply completely geographically regionalizing the whole tournament, and eviscerating any notion of bracket integrity. That WON'T happen. As it is, I'm OK with it mostly because I enjoy it from a distance as a fan watching the games on TV so much, which is what I suspect the vast majority of us did over the weekend. A different format with home ice for higher seeds means a very different TV experience. One I'm not willing to give up. At the end of the day the games are important whether there are butts in every seat, or butts in a third of them.
 
Re: Annual thread in which the absurdity of the current regional system is discussed

WeAreNDHockey said:
After witnessing disastrous regionals in toledo and South Bend I was really on the home-ice bandwagon, but after a few years in a row now of enjoying them on TV, I have drifted back away from that.
Click to expand...

Do we know if the Toledo or SB Regionals were disastrous for the NCAA? Or just for the hosts? While obviously leaving a sour taste in the hosts' mouth, a disastrous Regional probably doesn't matter too much to the NCAA...they're getting their guarantee regardless. If it's returned to campus sites for the first couple rounds, does the NCAA require their guaranteed cut as well? That could suck for smaller rinks.

r
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top