Attendance at Regionals

[chickod]

Re: Attendance at Regionals

Did you ever see the "Broad Street Bullies" play? Remember bench clearing brawls? When Slap Shot was made, though it was a bit exaggerated, it wasn't that far off, especially in the minor leagues.

Of course...and I remember Bill Friday ("Friday is a bum") making the "diving" motion whenever Bill Barber would fall on his face! And toothless "Booby Clarke." And Bernie Parent. And Dave Schultz. And Kate Smith. They beat the Bruins in the finals and I hated them. But that's my point...you have a somewhat "fixed" group of fans who love the game the way it was then. We are talking about (not that I think you necessarily can) "growing" the sport, and in this PC society, where violence is akin to terrorists with guns and school shootings, it just seems like an anachronism. I don't think you'll see the sport gain any popularity if they continue to go down that road. It doesn't matter what "we" like, because we're already fans and have been for a long time.

EDIT: Did you know that someone in the Rhode Island state legislature (or whatever they call it there) filed a bill to BAN high school football? This is where we are headed. If a sport (or anybody else) can't police itself, the government will step in. I don't see any way that fighting survives in hockey - and it certainly isn't endearing any "new" fans because of it.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Attendance at Regionals

Of course...and I remember Bill Friday ("Friday is a bum") making the "diving" motion whenever Bill Barber would fall on his face! And toothless "Booby Clarke." And Bernie Parent. And Dave Schultz. And Kate Smith. They beat the Bruins in the finals and I hated them. But that's my point...you have a somewhat "fixed" group of fans who love the game the way it was then. We are talking about (not that I think you necessarily can) "growing" the sport, and in this PC society, where violence is akin to terrorists with guns and school shootings, it just seems like an anachronism. I don't think you'll see the sport gain any popularity if they continue to go down that road. It doesn't matter what "we" like, because we're already fans and have been for a long time.

EDIT: Did you know that someone in the Rhode Island state legislature (or whatever they call it there) filed a bill to BAN high school football? This is where we are headed. If a sport (or anybody else) can't police itself, the government will step in. I don't see any way that fighting survives in hockey - and it certainly isn't endearing any "new" fans because of it.

Contact sports was one of the things made illegal in the Demolition Man-ifesto.

 

[Osorojo]

Re: Attendance at Regionals

Cities assume the risk and reap the profits from hosting playoff tournaments. The less cities must spend to host a tournament determines profit. NCAA profits from DI tournament gates (all sports) are insignificant compared to media revenues [and exposure].
If the NCAA wants DI college hockey to remain a niche sport it should definitely negotiate for playoffs with cities with the worst April weather, the lowest percentage of income from tourism, and the closest proximity to micro hotbeds of college hockey fanatics.

 

[SCSU BlackandRed]

Re: Attendance at Regionals

This has been a pretty entertaining thread overall. My opinion focuses on getting more people to see this great sport, particularly live. That being said, seems pretty clear the NCAA doesn't care about the sport much at all as it just doesn't drive revenues for them. Guess I'm just naive to think they should try to figure out a solution for each sport rather than just go cookie cutter and only really work at those that drive tons of revenue. I think/hope we'd all agree that playing the national tournament in front of crowds of 10,000 plus (or thereabouts) would deliver a better experience for the student-athletes first and foremost than what we currently have. I'm for whatever helps make that happen.

Related but not completely important question, so why is it that some events with NCAA affiliation (conference tournaments and for another example, football games at the University of Minnesota which is an on campus stadium) can have alcohol and others (like the whole freakin' national tourney) can't? Seems like the rules are pretty unclear. Anybody have the explanation on this one?

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Attendance at Regionals

This has been a pretty entertaining thread overall. My opinion focuses on getting more people to see this great sport, particularly live. That being said, seems pretty clear the NCAA doesn't care about the sport much at all as it just doesn't drive revenues for them. Guess I'm just naive to think they should try to figure out a solution for each sport rather than just go cookie cutter and only really work at those that drive tons of revenue. I think/hope we'd all agree that playing the national tournament in front of crowds of 10,000 plus (or thereabouts) would deliver a better experience for the student-athletes first and foremost than what we currently have. I'm for whatever helps make that happen.

Related but not completely important question, so why is it that some events with NCAA affiliation (conference tournaments and for another example, football games at the University of Minnesota which is an on campus stadium) can have alcohol and others (like the whole freakin' national tourney) can't? Seems like the rules are pretty unclear. Anybody have the explanation on this one?

One is sponsored by the host school, and one is sponsored by the NCAA. In the regular season, the school makes the decision. In the playoffs, the NCAA (or the league) makes the decision.

 

[FredDavenport]

Re: Attendance at Regionals

Time to really think about home ice to the high seeds, they earned it over the long season and this will guarantee good crowds, good atmosphere, good revenue and less expenses with only half the teams traveling.

Also this is what is done in Men's Lacrosse, and many other NCAA Sports.

Will be interesting to see and compare the attendance and formats of this year's NCAA Men's Lacrosse and Men's Ice Hockey Regionals.

Something has to change before the NCAA does something silly like reduce the size of the field.

 

[Jim]

Re: Attendance at Regionals

doesn't it really make sense to have the regionals truly regional...Eastern teams in the east, western ones in the west? And it also doesn't help when the local teams have bad years as Michigan and Michigan State did, which really hurt attendance in Grand Rapids I suspect. Tournament Finals are an event. As such they attract general fans, sports fans and even folks just attracted to the event nature of the thing. Early round tournament games in most sports are just that...they attract hardcore fans and fans of the teams involved. The problem with putting early round games on campus sites is twofold. First is timing. You'd almost have to schedule them weekly or something like Tuesday Saturday to allow for travel. Then you have the issue of facilities which are going be variable. While I suppose that is in part the luck of the draw, do you really want to play two games at Merrimack's bandbox with its 2500 capacity? Yeah, you'd have a full house most likely, but really do you want that? Then how long before someone gets the idea to play around with the seeding to insure better home venues? I'm not sure that their is really a great solution to the regional attendance problem other than to A. try to schedule the games in appropriate sized arenas (8000 as opposed to 12,000), B. locate them in areas that support college hockey (New England, Minnesota, etc) and stay away from "new" markets that haven't proven themselves, and C. Make every effort to keep local teams in local venues (don't send Yale to Michigan and Wisconsin to New England) regardless of seeding. maybe its time to take a page from the basketball playbook and for the first round use something of a pod system. Finally when you have upsets, like Yale playing far from home it is absolutely going to hurt attendance, however good it is for the game. Because they won't have a large fan base, nor will they draw a large fan base locally.

 

[TigerFan86-87]

Re: Attendance at Regionals

... do you really want to play two games at Merrimack's bandbox with its 2500 capacity? Yeah, you'd have a full house most likely, but really do you want that?...

Yes and Yes.
It'd be far preferrable to play in front of a 2500 seat house packed with a boisterous crowd than in front of 2500 people in a 10,000 seat arena where it sounds deathly quiet most of the time.

 

[matt]

Re: Attendance at Regionals

Time to really think about home ice to the high seeds, they earned it over the long season and this will guarantee good crowds, good atmosphere, good revenue and less expenses with only half the teams traveling.

Also this is what is done in Men's Lacrosse, and many other NCAA Sports.

Will be interesting to see and compare the attendance and formats of this year's NCAA Men's Lacrosse and Men's Ice Hockey Regionals.

Something has to change before the NCAA does something silly like reduce the size of the field.

Lacrosse only ensures home teams for the first round.
I saw some attendance figures for the first round lacrosse games, they were unimpressive.
For next week's second round, for example, Yale will be playing #1 Syracuse at College Park, Md.

Also, consider that at least one #1 hockey seed has lost its first game in each of the past 8 tournaments. Why give them extra advantages?
I'm happier keeping them on neutral ice.

 

[matt]

Re: Attendance at Regionals

doesn't it really make sense to have the regionals truly regional...Eastern teams in the east, western ones in the west? And it also doesn't help when the local teams have bad years as Michigan and Michigan State did, which really hurt attendance in Grand Rapids I suspect. Tournament Finals are an event. As such they attract general fans, sports fans and even folks just attracted to the event nature of the thing. Early round tournament games in most sports are just that...they attract hardcore fans and fans of the teams involved. The problem with putting early round games on campus sites is twofold. First is timing. You'd almost have to schedule them weekly or something like Tuesday Saturday to allow for travel. Then you have the issue of facilities which are going be variable. While I suppose that is in part the luck of the draw, do you really want to play two games at Merrimack's bandbox with its 2500 capacity? Yeah, you'd have a full house most likely, but really do you want that? Then how long before someone gets the idea to play around with the seeding to insure better home venues? I'm not sure that their is really a great solution to the regional attendance problem other than to A. try to schedule the games in appropriate sized arenas (8000 as opposed to 12,000), B. locate them in areas that support college hockey (New England, Minnesota, etc) and stay away from "new" markets that haven't proven themselves, and C. Make every effort to keep local teams in local venues (don't send Yale to Michigan and Wisconsin to New England) regardless of seeding. maybe its time to take a page from the basketball playbook and for the first round use something of a pod system. Finally when you have upsets, like Yale playing far from home it is absolutely going to hurt attendance, however good it is for the game. Because they won't have a large fan base, nor will they draw a large fan base locally.

They could do a better job of aligning schools to venues, certainly. For example, the West Regional was at Grand Rapids and hosted by UofM. But UofM is 100 miles away. Meanwhile, Western wasn't involved as a host, even though they are much closer, so had Western made the tournament they might still have been forced to travel. There must be better choices for UofM to be host, than Grand Rapids (and I *like* Van Andel Arena).

Upsets CAN hurt attendance, but that's a risk anywhere. In NCAA Women's Basketball, I recall Harvard winning at Stanford in the first round one year; Maples Pavilion was mostly empty for the 2nd round game... Yale beating Minnesota didn't really hurt anything in terms of attendance, as there weren't enough Minnesota fans there to make much of a difference anyway. I'm not even sure that Minnesota fans outnumbered Yale fans in the stands; if they did it wasn't by much.

I agree that many teams have tiny rinks -- smaller than 2500, even -- and would have a very difficult time hosting an NCAA game on campus on short notice. To me, that's a non-starter.

 

[Jim]

Re: Attendance at Regionals

I also think you need to look at the facilities. I do think that 2500 or so is just too small. You can disagree, but for an NCAA game in my view it is. But I don't think there is nay question that a 18000 plus seat arena like St Louis is far too large. Moderate sized facilities, ideally under 10,000 seats make sense to me. And if you look at where attendance is pretty good for regionals over time, Bridgeport, Manchester, Minneapolis, are all in that range. And even if a decent number of folks show up in St Paul, with 1lmost 20,000 seats they seem like nobody. Put the same 9000 in Minneapolis and its pretty packed. The other thing I'd do is I'd be less worried about who is the overall #1 and overall #16 and just worry about trying to get the best regional mix. So this year I would probably have only left the Providence group as it was. I'd have kept Yale and Niagara in the East and Wisconsin and Denver in the west. Though admittedly Niagara and Canisius are sort of flex teams that could go either direction and don't have huge fan bases so it might not matter so much. The other possibility, to insure smaller facilities, but not too small, would be to do something like the NCAA does in the first round of the baseball tournament where the sites are chosen at the last minute. Now that would likely rule out the various sites like the Dunk, but maybe not, too. The make arrangements for playoff games at pretty short notice. But it might let you still play at neutral sites while maintaining reasonable regions. You could play at Conte and Whitmore maybe. Or Agganis and Mullins. In the west play at Yost and Marriucci, essentially campus sites but don't use Yost if Michigan is in it, and don't use Conte if BC's there.

 

[TigerFan86-87]

Re: Attendance at Regionals

In the west play at Yost and Marriucci, essentially campus sites but don't use Yost if Michigan is in it, and don't use Conte if BC's there.

But then you'd almost never get to use Yost or Conte (or Mariucci, for that matter). How often are those three teams not in the tournament?

 

[FredDavenport]

Re: Attendance at Regionals

Yes and Yes.
It'd be far preferrable to play in front of a 2500 seat house packed with a boisterous crowd than in front of 2500 people in a 10,000 seat arena where it sounds deathly quiet most of the time.

Totally agree!

 

[joecct]

Re: Attendance at Regionals

They could do a better job of aligning schools to venues, certainly. For example, the West Regional was at Grand Rapids and hosted by UofM. But UofM is 100 miles away. Meanwhile, Western wasn't involved as a host, even though they are much closer, so had Western made the tournament they might still have been forced to travel. There must be better choices for UofM to be host, than Grand Rapids (and I *like* Van Andel Arena).

Upsets CAN hurt attendance, but that's a risk anywhere. In NCAA Women's Basketball, I recall Harvard winning at Stanford in the first round one year; Maples Pavilion was mostly empty for the 2nd round game... Yale beating Minnesota didn't really hurt anything in terms of attendance, as there weren't enough Minnesota fans there to make much of a difference anyway. I'm not even sure that Minnesota fans outnumbered Yale fans in the stands; if they did it wasn't by much.

I agree that many teams have tiny rinks -- smaller than 2500, even -- and would have a very difficult time hosting an NCAA game on campus on short notice. To me, that's a non-starter.

You could do it like certain NCAA women's sports, where the top teams host 2 rounds of the tournament on a weekend.

So we would have had:
@ Qunnipiac: Quinny/Canisius & BC/Union
@ Notre Dame: ND/SCSU & Miami/Mankato
@ Lowell (Tsongas): UML/Wisconsin & UNH/Denver
@ Minnesota: Minny/Yale & UND/Niagara

It gets rid of the 2/3 quandry that is not part of any other NCAA tournament (except baseball) and keeps a home ice advantage.

 

[scoreboard]

You could do it like certain NCAA women's sports, where the top teams host 2 rounds of the tournament on a weekend.

So we would have had:
@ Qunnipiac: Quinny/Canisius & BC/Union
@ Notre Dame: ND/SCSU & Miami/Mankato
@ Lowell (Tsongas): UML/Wisconsin & UNH/Denver
@ Minnesota: Minny/Yale & UND/Niagara

It gets rid of the 2/3 quandry that is not part of any other NCAA tournament (except baseball) and keeps a home ice advantage.

The problem with the top seeds hosting is that many arenas seat less than 5000 people. If you get a bracket that has schools that are relatively close by tickets will actually become a problem. Do you really want a school that has 3000 seats hosting a regional? Creates a problem. Tickets will have to be allotted to visiting teams so season ticket holders of the home team may well get shut out. Plus, a lot of people complain about the TV coverage as it now exists. Without set locations it would only get worse.

 

[matt]

Re: Attendance at Regionals

You could do it like certain NCAA women's sports, where the top teams host 2 rounds of the tournament on a weekend.

So we would have had:
@ Qunnipiac: Quinny/Canisius & BC/Union
@ Notre Dame: ND/SCSU & Miami/Mankato
@ Lowell (Tsongas): UML/Wisconsin & UNH/Denver
@ Minnesota: Minny/Yale & UND/Niagara

It gets rid of the 2/3 quandry that is not part of any other NCAA tournament (except baseball) and keeps a home ice advantage.

OK, now imagine that the seedings are flipped and Yale, SCSU and Canisius are hosting regionals.

Not so attractive now, is it?

 

[joecct]

Re: Attendance at Regionals

OK, now imagine that the seedings are flipped and Yale, SCSU and Canisius are hosting regionals.

Not so attractive now, is it?

If they are in the top 4, then Thit happens. Yale would sell out the Whale, SCSU would sell out the National Sports Center, and Buff State would make a ton of cash on the facilty rental!

 

[Netman]

Re: Attendance at Regionals

How about cheaper tickets, so the casual fan might do it.

 

[FredDavenport]

Re: Attendance at Regionals

Not sure who has the data. What was the attendance at the four regionals this past March/April?

I would think that the attendance would be better at the four #1 seeds, than it was at Providence, Manchester, Grand Rapids and Toledo.

 

[brassbonanza]

Re: Attendance at Regionals

Not sure who has the data. What was the attendance at the four regionals this past March/April?

I would think that the attendance would be better at the four #1 seeds, than it was at Providence, Manchester, Grand Rapids and Toledo.

Definitely not the case in Manchester and Providence. Manchester drew over Lowell's ~6,300 capacity both nights, and Providence drew drew well over QU's ~3,000 both nights.