Men's Final 5,633
Women's Final 1,656

Not very impressive. When Kent or Akron, or both, were in the finals there were some big crowds for the men. I'd like to see the women's championship moved to Toledo, but the MAC bosses like it in Cleveland so they don't have to drive more than 20 minutes.

Some say the women deserve to play in an NBA arena too, but if it's 10% full is that a great experience?

(03-11-2018 04:13 PM)DetroitRocket Wrote:  Men's Final 5,633
Women's Final 1,656

Not very impressive. When Kent or Akron, or both, were in the finals there were some big crowds for the men. I'd like to see the women's championship moved to Toledo, but the MAC bosses like it in Cleveland so they don't have to drive more than 20 minutes.

Some say the women deserve to play in an NBA arena too, but if it's 10% full is that a great experience?

Men's tourney needs to move to Huntington Center, too. You can probably count on 1 hand the number of sessions with above 8,000 in attendance (around what Huntington holds for basketball).

And Toledo is more centrally located - it would be closer for everyone but Akron, Kent, and Buffalo (Ohio would be a push, as Toledo is only about 10 minute further).

I ask how many fans would be in Huntington Center in a CMU Buffalo final

Answer
Not many more

(03-11-2018 04:22 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  

(03-11-2018 04:13 PM)DetroitRocket Wrote:  Men's Final 5,633
Women's Final 1,656

Not very impressive. When Kent or Akron, or both, were in the finals there were some big crowds for the men. I'd like to see the women's championship moved to Toledo, but the MAC bosses like it in Cleveland so they don't have to drive more than 20 minutes.

Some say the women deserve to play in an NBA arena too, but if it's 10% full is that a great experience?

Men's tourney needs to move to Huntington Center, too. You can probably count on 1 hand the number of sessions with above 8,000 in attendance (around what Huntington holds for basketball).

And Toledo is more centrally located - it would be closer for everyone but Akron, Kent, and Buffalo (Ohio would be a push, as Toledo is only about 10 minute further).

If 5,000 Toledo students and fans aren't passionate enough for a 1hr, 45-minute drive to cheer on the Rockets for a NCAA Tournament bid in a NBA Arena and home town of two of their better players ... I doubt the place in Toledo would get that many, either.

And Buffalo should have had just as many fans, too.

I'm not overly disappointed with Cleveland. Its fairly neutral. I like the NBA arena. The night life is cool. The drive isn't terrible. We've been there long enough, its sort of the tourney's home now. It's much better than Columbus or Detroit. If Toledo or BG aren't in the finals, you would see similar attendance figures.

Downtown Toledo has many more entertainment options now vs the 1990's when we hosted. Maybe only Buffalo might have similar options to host? But Buffalo is way off the beaten path for every team. Of course we have the Huntington center, which is a much better venue than Seagate.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

(03-11-2018 08:31 PM)cleveland Wrote:  

(03-11-2018 04:22 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  Men's tourney needs to move to Huntington Center, too. You can probably count on 1 hand the number of sessions with above 8,000 in attendance (around what Huntington holds for basketball).

And Toledo is more centrally located - it would be closer for everyone but Akron, Kent, and Buffalo (Ohio would be a push, as Toledo is only about 10 minute further).

If 5,000 Toledo students and fans aren't passionate enough for a 1hr, 45-minute drive to cheer on the Rockets for a NCAA Tournament bid in a NBA Arena and home town of two of their better players ... I doubt the place in Toledo would get that many, either.

And Buffalo should have had just as many fans, too.

Re-read my post. I never said move it to Toledo because more Toledo fan would come.

A smaller arena (8,000 seats) would be a better atmosphere than 5,000 in a 20,000 area.

Maybe they can get Kraft back as a sponsor and set admission back to a box of Mac & Cheese again---then maybe attendance would get back up to 5 digit numbers again. Of course that is not going to happen ----the MAC would rather have 5,000 fans paying $34 or so a head plus the Cleveland tax on tickets than accumulate 15,000 boxes of Mac & Cheese that would they have give to the local food bank to take off their hands. Just kidding but in any case I don't see the tournament ever coming back to Toledo unless attendance gets so poor they have to go totally bush league and start playing all tournament games on home courts.

(03-11-2018 04:22 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  

(03-11-2018 04:13 PM)DetroitRocket Wrote:  Men's Final 5,633
Women's Final 1,656

Not very impressive. When Kent or Akron, or both, were in the finals there were some big crowds for the men. I'd like to see the women's championship moved to Toledo, but the MAC bosses like it in Cleveland so they don't have to drive more than 20 minutes.

Some say the women deserve to play in an NBA arena too, but if it's 10% full is that a great experience?

Men's tourney needs to move to Huntington Center, too. You can probably count on 1 hand the number of sessions with above 8,000 in attendance (around what Huntington holds for basketball).

And Toledo is more centrally located - it would be closer for everyone but Akron, Kent, and Buffalo (Ohio would be a push, as Toledo is only about 10 minute further).

The Huntington center, isn’t that great of a venue. It doesn’t have enough locker rooms to host an 8 team tournament. Heck it might not even have enough to host a 4 team tournament. Even Savage is a better venue to a tournament than the Huntington Center.

(03-12-2018 12:36 AM)utpotts Wrote:  

(03-11-2018 04:22 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  

(03-11-2018 04:13 PM)DetroitRocket Wrote:  Men's Final 5,633
Women's Final 1,656

Not very impressive. When Kent or Akron, or both, were in the finals there were some big crowds for the men. I'd like to see the women's championship moved to Toledo, but the MAC bosses like it in Cleveland so they don't have to drive more than 20 minutes.

Some say the women deserve to play in an NBA arena too, but if it's 10% full is that a great experience?

Men's tourney needs to move to Huntington Center, too. You can probably count on 1 hand the number of sessions with above 8,000 in attendance (around what Huntington holds for basketball).

And Toledo is more centrally located - it would be closer for everyone but Akron, Kent, and Buffalo (Ohio would be a push, as Toledo is only about 10 minute further).

The Huntington center, isn’t that great of a venue. It doesn’t have enough locker rooms to host an 8 team tournament. Heck it might not even have enough to host a 4 team tournament. Even Savage is a better venue to a tournament than the Huntington Center.

The Huntington is a great venue in regards to not having a bad seat in the house, central MAC location, and also is close in proximity to bars/restaurants. But IMO, it was built too small...
The HC, if it had a capacity of 13-15,000 could host a Mid East regional like Dayton does. With the new Hilton hotel planned, along with the renovated Park Inn , you would have 600+ plus rooms all within a 10 minute walk indoors connected to the arena. Agree with Potts on locker room issues, but that could be rectified with an addition or redoing some of the rarely used used meeting room space (Aquariam) into additional locker rooms...
HC > Gund Arena

Hold the tournament in Toledo and give the Rockets a bye to the Championship game each year. Guaranteed 4,500 for Women’s Final, 6,500+ for the men and within ten years I bet the men would make it to the NCAAs.

(03-12-2018 07:50 AM)H2Oville Rocket Wrote:  Hold the tournament in Toledo and give the Rockets a bye to the Championship game each year. Guaranteed 4,500 for Women’s Final, 6,500+ for the men and within ten years I bet the men would make it to the NCAAs.

This is a great idea. I hope the MAC commissioner is reading the board.

(03-11-2018 08:31 PM)cleveland Wrote:  

(03-11-2018 04:22 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  

(03-11-2018 04:13 PM)DetroitRocket Wrote:  Men's Final 5,633
Women's Final 1,656

Not very impressive. When Kent or Akron, or both, were in the finals there were some big crowds for the men. I'd like to see the women's championship moved to Toledo, but the MAC bosses like it in Cleveland so they don't have to drive more than 20 minutes.

Some say the women deserve to play in an NBA arena too, but if it's 10% full is that a great experience?

Men's tourney needs to move to Huntington Center, too. You can probably count on 1 hand the number of sessions with above 8,000 in attendance (around what Huntington holds for basketball).

And Toledo is more centrally located - it would be closer for everyone but Akron, Kent, and Buffalo (Ohio would be a push, as Toledo is only about 10 minute further).

If 5,000 Toledo students and fans aren't passionate enough for a 1hr, 45-minute drive to cheer on the Rockets for a NCAA Tournament bid in a NBA Arena and home town of two of their better players ... I doubt the place in Toledo would get that many, either.

And Buffalo should have had just as many fans, too.

having the MAC tournament during UT spring break really hurts attendance by many UT students and fans

H2O...too funny. I share your, between the lines, take on UT hoops. Let's face it, the comments from our HC ,to me, show that he has an over inflated state of the of the program.

Win the games you need to win, period. Marshall did not impress me in the C-USA championship game win over WKU. We should have beaten them, no question.

TK is right, these are really good kids. But let's face it, having the luck of two transfers that really panned out saved out bacon two years back to back. This schedule was good enough to get us an NIT bit if we had won in the OOC schedule. Our MAC play was very good. We deserve better from our MBB program.

Did Toledo women surpass 3k in Cleveland last season?

(03-12-2018 11:30 AM)UofToledoFans Wrote:  Did Toledo women surpass 3k in Cleveland last season?

I put the odds of getting either the men's or women's tournament back to Toledo only slightly higher than the Rockets chances of leaving the MAC.

(03-12-2018 12:36 AM)utpotts Wrote:  The Huntington center, isn’t that great of a venue.

(03-12-2018 12:36 AM)utpotts Wrote:  It doesn’t have enough locker rooms to host an 8 team tournament. Heck it might not even have enough to host a 4 team tournament. Even Savage is a better venue to a tournament than the Huntington Center.

The Huntington Center has 4 locker rooms, which is just fine. 2 locker rooms for the game ending, 2 locker rooms for the next game up.

Other teams might see it as semantics but if there is less a drive to the venue, that might salve the wound. As for H versus Savage, the off-campus if possible would be further salve. I've never been but have been told it's a good fan venue and both sides I imagine are equitable, whereas Savage has the one side goes to the sky.

A little off topic, but here's a link to a Detroit News story about attendance at the Horizon League men's and women's tournaments -

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports.../32903939/