(03-13-2015 11:49 PM)T-Dog Wrote:  The Sun Belt is not a conference that can go to 10 neutral different cities and draw well. New Orleans is too big for the tournament as the vast majority of people don't care. The SoCon figured that out with Asheville after being away for 15 years. SoCon also benefitted that despite membership changes, the footprint of the league stayed the same.

Hot Springs was good in the old Sun Belt, probably not the new Sun Belt. But if there are any good alternatives, name em, besides Asheville.

The locals do not care, regardless of the size of the community. Pretty clear that the schools fans for the most part do not care. I doubt that we get five hundred between the first and second seed excluding their band.

We would have done a lot better if ULMost had lost. No doubt USA brings a more energized fan base.

Local venues. Well that would leave UL out of most tournaments. Mardi Gras , state championships have blocked us from hosting many of the tournaments we had in the past before the major split-up.

(03-14-2015 12:27 AM)Dracorex Wrote:  If you go read the C-USA board, most of the WKU, LA Tech, and UTEP fans are overly butthurt that they were sent home from Birmingham. In reality it works out better for attendance than playing neutral site. That is, until the host team wins games that it might not on a truly neutral floor.

Near campus venues work really well in all honesty. It doesn't have to be at the on campus site. One of the GA schools host it in the Hawk's arena or the city of Mobile hosts it in Mobile Civic Center.

The Civic Center is being closed by the city next year and even if it was open, the Mardi Gras organizations would have it booked.

What made the ACC tournament so well attended before expansion was the proximity of the schools to Greensboro & Charlotte. GT and Maryland were still only around 300 miles away. By comparison, only 4 of 11 SB schools are within 300 miles of NOLA. The conference is so spread out locals are going to have to support the tournament.

(03-14-2015 10:59 AM)AppManDG Wrote:  What made the ACC tournament so well attended before expansion was the proximity of the schools to Greensboro & Charlotte. GT and Maryland were still only around 300 miles away. By comparison, only 4 of 11 SB schools are within 300 miles of NOLA. The conference is so spread out locals are going to have to support the tournament.

What made the ACC so good is that they were a great basketball programs in a conference for multiple decades, and decades of rivals at the highest level. To compare them to us in anyway is utter insanity.

(03-14-2015 12:19 AM)chiefsfan Wrote:  

(03-13-2015 11:45 PM)CrazyCajun Wrote:  

(03-13-2015 11:34 PM)chiefsfan Wrote:  

(03-13-2015 09:42 PM)T-Dog Wrote:  What made Asheville work for the SoCon was that the city wasn't that much bigger than the tournament. The city embraced the tournament and the arena was right in the middle of downtown. Not to mention it's a solid neutral court that's about as central as you're gonna get in the conference's footprint.

Screw it, can we just move the Sun Belt Tournament to Asheville? The SoCon is done by Monday.

Yeah, Hot Springs was the only site we've had that embraced the tournament. But there were a lot of people who insisted the tourney be moved to a destination town, so more fans could go. Hot Springs had the distinct disadvantage of being a small vacation town, which is famous for a lot of New Englanders moving their for theiir retirement years. A lot of fans insisted we could draw better in a bigger city and more people would be interested.

So far, attendance is far worse than anything Hot Springs ever put up..

Different time and different conference. You recently admitted Ark. State fans won't buy more season tickets until a new coach wins and somehow we are supposed to believe your fan base will come watch a tournament again in the same numbers because it is located in Hot Springs again? Not buying it!

We'd have several hundred in Hot Springs to watch the Women alone. The Women's final this year would have 3500 people at it by itself, perhaps even more if it was in Hot Springs. We might have 500 tomorrow night for it.

The issue is, where are the Cajun and Jaguar fans who were supposed to make up the large portion of the attendance for this one. By many reports, there were less than a thousand people there tonight to watch the Four closest teams to New Orleans by Geography in the league. That's awful. At least we knew there would be local interest in the Hot Springs event, but this thing is empty, and its embarrassing.

Its not up to Cajun or Jaguar fans to support the tournament alone in New Orleans. The two top seeds are Gstate and Georgia Southern, where are their fans? Will they be there today to support their teams with an easy flight from Atlanta? Its a weekend, Cajun fans will have no excuse today for not attending a semi-final game. They did so last season with no problems.

I believe you are reaching on women's basketball, I don't see how 3,000 would show up to Hot Springs because you are passionate for WBB. But how would that look on television for the conference, with a much smaller crowd for MBB? I just see no evidence from you current crowds that Hot Springs would be ideal for this conference today.

Here's and idea that someone mentioned previously in this thread, how about you guys improve your program first before complaining about the tournament venue. That would be the first step in improving SBC Basketball.

Troy lost Wednesday night. I'm just leaving New Orleans. I hate to lose, but there is a lot of fun to be had there. I can't say the same for Hot Springs and many of the towns of Sun Belt schools. Pittcon conference and expo seemed to drive up the hotel prices this week.


I'm not a Troy fan because of wins and losses.

(03-14-2015 11:08 AM)CajunExpress Wrote:  

(03-14-2015 10:59 AM)AppManDG Wrote:  What made the ACC tournament so well attended before expansion was the proximity of the schools to Greensboro & Charlotte. GT and Maryland were still only around 300 miles away. By comparison, only 4 of 11 SB schools are within 300 miles of NOLA. The conference is so spread out locals are going to have to support the tournament.

What made the ACC so good is that they were a great basketball programs in a conference for multiple decades, and decades of rivals at the highest level. To compare them to us in anyway is utter insanity.

Do what? I think a better example of utter insanity is you coming to the conclusion I was comparing the SB to the ACC. Having lived my entire life (I'm 60) in the heart of ACC country I've got a fairly good grasp on this subject.

Let's try this again. S-L-O-W-L-Y read the first sentence again. Here, I'll make it easier for you by highlighting the part that is central to my point.

"What made the ACC tournament so well attended before expansion was the proximity of the schools to Greensboro & Charlotte." Just to make sure you got it, I wrote NOTHING about how "good" the ACC is.

The closeness of conference members to tournament sites made it easier for their fans to attend. It was selling out all sessions long before interstate highways crisscrossed the landscape and before flying was so affordable. Even the 2PM Thursday sessions were a tough ticket regardless of who was playing. Fans would go to a session just to cheer against someone. These days the fans that do show up leave after their game. I just don't understand that mentality.

Lots of conferences have successful teams and great rivals, but they don't share the same geography. No other major conference had their entire membership within 600 miles of one another, not to mention three of the most bitter rivals within 25 miles of each other a 4th within 100 miles.

If you want to see a huge, energized crowd in New Orleans, join me in my "good thoughts" of USA vs either of the Louisiana schools in an afternoon or early evening conference championship. USA didn't travel well because we sucked this year and expected them to beat UALR and lose badly in the next round no matter who it might have been. Then again I may be wrong. I frequently am.

(03-14-2015 10:26 AM)GEAGLESJAG Wrote:  

(03-14-2015 12:27 AM)Dracorex Wrote:  If you go read the C-USA board, most of the WKU, LA Tech, and UTEP fans are overly butthurt that they were sent home from Birmingham. In reality it works out better for attendance than playing neutral site. That is, until the host team wins games that it might not on a truly neutral floor.

Near campus venues work really well in all honesty. It doesn't have to be at the on campus site. One of the GA schools host it in the Hawk's arena or the city of Mobile hosts it in Mobile Civic Center.

The Civic Center is being closed by the city next year and even if it was open, the Mardi Gras organizations would have it booked.

For renovations or permanently? I mean if it is just for renovations, you can always bid for it in 2017 or 18.

Ok here is my long considered opinion.

If you do neutral site you are stating that you want the most fair possible way to determine the champ rather than the most dollars. Even if you have teams nearby (Cajuns and Jags in NOLA or UALR, AState, ULM in Hot Springs) they won't have a home size crowd and they won't be on their home court, won't be in their dressing room or their dorm room at night).

But unless you are a power conference or a really strongly supported hoops league you are going to make less money than a campus site.

When you go neutral site the meat of your ticket buying crowd is retirees and empty nesters who have jobs they can take several days off from. You can make a few local sales but you can make more in a place like Hot Springs where the tournament is an event and there is a big retiree population than in New Orleans where the tournament is far from event status.

New Orleans wasn't the wild success many expected because hotel rooms aren't cheap and parking at hotels isn't cheap. Bourbon Street and the Quarter isn't the draw for the 50+ crowd is it for younger fans. Lakefront isn't near the hotels and restaurants. New Orleans isn't that RV friendly either. Many of the older fans our leery of having to drive much there.

The only serious bid competition Hot Springs faced was Huntsville and what tipped the scale was Hot Springs could host two games in one venue.

An all-team format is going to sell better at a neutral site because who wants to block time off and their team not make it?

But all-team doesn't work unless you can replicate the Hot Springs two games at a time and very few places can do that unless you are willing to piss people off and do something like use a high school gym. For example in North Little Rock the local high school arena could handle any game not featuring an Arkansas team and is super nice but it is 1.8 miles from Verizon and not on the trolley route so you'd have to run constant shuttles or do the convention center setup in Little Rock just across the river which is walkable and both served by trolley. Plus there is a city owned RV park on the river within walking distance. Do something like that and it opens up a lot more cities.

To me neutral site is better because when the host wins people discount it and neutral site sends an aspirational message about who we want to be as league rather than a message about who we are which is what campus sites does.

If we are going to stay neutral site we need a smaller market and bite the bullet and accept that we will need a secondary venue in the city that people will not like if we go back to all-comers.

(03-15-2015 03:53 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Ok here is my long considered opinion.

If you do neutral site you are stating that you want the most fair possible way to determine the champ rather than the most dollars. Even if you have teams nearby (Cajuns and Jags in NOLA or UALR, AState, ULM in Hot Springs) they won't have a home size crowd and they won't be on their home court, won't be in their dressing room or their dorm room at night).

But unless you are a power conference or a really strongly supported hoops league you are going to make less money than a campus site.

When you go neutral site the meat of your ticket buying crowd is retirees and empty nesters who have jobs they can take several days off from. You can make a few local sales but you can make more in a place like Hot Springs where the tournament is an event and there is a big retiree population than in New Orleans where the tournament is far from event status.

New Orleans wasn't the wild success many expected because hotel rooms aren't cheap and parking at hotels isn't cheap. Bourbon Street and the Quarter isn't the draw for the 50+ crowd is it for younger fans. Lakefront isn't near the hotels and restaurants. New Orleans isn't that RV friendly either. Many of the older fans our leery of having to drive much there.

The only serious bid competition Hot Springs faced was Huntsville and what tipped the scale was Hot Springs could host two games in one venue.

An all-team format is going to sell better at a neutral site because who wants to block time off and their team not make it?

But all-team doesn't work unless you can replicate the Hot Springs two games at a time and very few places can do that unless you are willing to piss people off and do something like use a high school gym. For example in North Little Rock the local high school arena could handle any game not featuring an Arkansas team and is super nice but it is 1.8 miles from Verizon and not on the trolley route so you'd have to run constant shuttles or do the convention center setup in Little Rock just across the river which is walkable and both served by trolley. Plus there is a city owned RV park on the river within walking distance. Do something like that and it opens up a lot more cities.

To me neutral site is better because when the host wins people discount it and neutral site sends an aspirational message about who we want to be as league rather than a message about who we are which is what campus sites does.

If we are going to stay neutral site we need a smaller market and bite the bullet and accept that we will need a secondary venue in the city that people will not like if we go back to all-comers.

Exactly, even though we aren't a real conference, with a real commissioner, let's pretend we are, and have our tourney at a neutral site like the other real conferences do.

It may take a while to build up casual fan viewership. For example, the Southland Conference moved to Katy, Texas (west Houston) in 2008. Attendance for the championship game the first year was only 1,006. Attendance has gone up each year. This year it was up to 5,016. (The women's semi-final games yesterday drew 1,569.) While those aren't numbers some of the other conferences pull, it is also not as bad as some either and is still growing. It's convenient for me since it is a 15 minute drive.

The arena is a little smaller than Lakefront for basketball (7,200 vs 8,933), but it makes a nice venue.

On the otherhand, the SLC held its tournaments in the Shreveport/Bossier area for several years with a history of poor attendance so it may just be finding the right place.

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New Orleans seems like a good place to me for the Sun Belt tournament. We used to love to drive over from Lafayette on Sunday afternoons. Nothing better than Beignets and Coffee at Cafe du Monde mixed in with some good basketball.

(03-15-2015 09:36 AM)LUSportsFan Wrote:  It may take a while to build up casual fan viewership. For example, the Southland Conference moved to Katy, Texas (west Houston) in 2008. Attendance for the championship game the first year was only 1,006. Attendance has gone up each year. This year it was up to 5,016. (The women's semi-final games yesterday drew 1,569.) While those aren't numbers some of the other conferences pull, it is also not as bad as some either and is still growing. It's convenient for me since it is a 15 minute drive.

The arena is a little smaller than Lakefront for basketball (7,200 vs 8,933), but it makes a nice venue.

On the otherhand, the SLC held its tournaments in the Shreveport/Bossier area for several years with a history of poor attendance so it may just be finding the right place.

-------

New Orleans seems like a good place to me for the Sun Belt tournament. We used to love to drive over from Lafayette on Sunday afternoons. Nothing better than Beignets and Coffee at Cafe du Monde mixed in with some good basketball.

I'd take a 2 hr drive to the tournament too.

Then disadvantage of being at Lakefront, we are playing on NOLA, without actually getting all the benefit of playing in NOLA. We might as well play in Biloxi when you compare the two. NOLA is about as centered as your going to get for the conference, hopefully things change, we all start playing better, and attendance and attention go up.

(03-18-2015 06:21 PM)Usajags Wrote:  Then disadvantage of being at Lakefront, we are playing on NOLA, without actually getting all the benefit of playing in NOLA. We might as well play in Biloxi when you compare the two. NOLA is about as centered as your going to get for the conference, hopefully things change, we all start playing better, and attendance and attention go up.

Stay downtown and take a cab or the shuttle to the arena.


I'm not a Troy fan because of wins and losses.