(03-11-2013 04:42 AM)cnyrocketfan Wrote: I understand the finances for the so-called major conferences: conference tournaments undoubtedly make huge money for the ACC, Big Ten, and Big East, maybe a few of the other conferences. But while I'll openly admit that I haven't bothered to try find the financial numbers for the Big South, I can't imagine that a conference like that makes much money from a conference tournament. According to the box score from the Liberty-Charleston Southern championship game, the attendance there was 2,532.
In my world the best thing for some conferences is to drop the conference tournaments and give the regular season champion the bid. In my opinion, these conferences are best served by the best team going to the NCAA tournament (this isn't meant to be a complete list)
America East
Big South
MEAC
Northeast
SWAC
While I'm living in my idealistic (if not naive) world, as far as the MAC bid is concerned, have the winner of the East meet the winner of the West for the automatic bid. If there's a tie for a divisional lead at the end of the regular season, have the two teams play a game like the Central Michigan-UT game in 1979 to break the tie and determine who plays for the bid. Don't ask me what would happen if there's a 3-way tie (or more) for a divisional lead: I haven't thought it through that far.
I took your original post to mean conference tournaments in general, but with your clarification I see your point. However, having a single playoff game between the winners of the East and West divisions IS still a conference tournament, albeit a one game tournament, but a tournament nevertheless.
It is still all about money (and publicity) but the smaller conferences are almost always all one-bid conferences, so the question becomes: "is it more profitable to make sure your top team is in the tournament with a potential to pick up an extra NCAA payout "unit" or two, or to have your conference tournament and hope your best team is not upset?" as Rocket Pirate indicates happened to the women of MTSU and SUNY-Stony Brook.
In terms of the men's 2012 NCAA tournament their were 31 automatic qualifiers and 37 at large bids. Of the 37 at large bids, the top ten BIG conferences got 32 of those bids and the 21 Lesser conferences split the remaining 5 with 3 of those remaining 5 going to lesser conferences who had their conference commissioner (or associate commissioner) on the selection committee. The Big East with 8 teams in the 2012 tourney appeared in a total of 20 games which, over the 6 year total payout, will come to about $30,000,000. Ohio by playing 3 games earned a total 6 year payout of about $4,500,000 for the MAC. A conference with only one team that lost it first game will earn about $1,500,000 over the 6 year for it 2012 effort.
With those profits, I suspect that most of the "lesser" conferences will still opt for the conference tournament, because of the "I wanna be like Mike, syndrome" if for no other reason, and unfortunately just as buying a pair of way overpriced "Air Jordan's" is not going to make the average kid an NBA superstar, neither will it work for the "lesser" conferences.
As also pointed out by Rocket Pirate----the Ivy League is one of the very few Division I basketball programs who does not conduct a post season conference tournament. That is because the Ivy League teams are secure enough with their academic reputation, their elite clientele market, and their huge endowments that they do not feel any compulsion to chase the TV $$$$ or try to establish their "brand name" thru a sports team.
Finally, kudos to sterling1man for sniffing out the likely motive behind your original post at this specific time. I have to admit that connection never dawned on me. I will say that while nothing is guaranteed, I sense that the Lady Rockets are on a mission and will not be denied and I did NOT have that sense about the UT men's team that won the regular season back in 2006-2007 (?) but lost in the MAC tournament.