IMO, I guess it comes down to which direction you want to go? Money or playing at more of a neutral site?
Currently the MWC tournament is held in UNLV's home area and has been pretty well attended, this year the finals had 16,096 in attendance and the semi-finals had 13,913 in attendance. But, IMO if the MWC wants the best attendance the smart choice would be Salt Lake City at the Energy Solutions Center (the Jazz Home court) that seats 20,000. If BYU and UNLV would have played in the finals their this year it would have been a sellout of 20,000. I also feel BYU's semi-final game would have been a sellout too.
BYU high Home attendances this year were;
22,580 vs UNLV
19,932 vs New Mexico
19,460 vs Utah
17,427 vs Air Force
For BYU 8 MWC home basketball games they averaged 16,918 per game which happens to be higher than the turnout for the MWC Championship game of UNLV vs BYU of 16,096. Even on December 8th the BYU Michigan St game at the Energy Solutions Center in Salt Lake had 16,412 (not many Michigan St fans came as you can imagine) and going into that game BYU was averaging 10,293 per game in attendance. Attendance did not start picking up until MWC play started.
Now Utah had the 4th highest attendance average in the MWC at 9,979 per game (10,668 per MWC game).
Combine BYU and Utah average home game attendance:
BYU 13,518 (MWC 16,918) + Utah 9,979 (MWC 10,668) = 23,497 (MWC 27,586).
So if the MWC wants to go after the money they should look very hard at Salt Lake City.
MWC Tournament Locations to date;
1999-00: Las Vegas
2000-01: Las Vegas
2001-02: Las Vegas
2002-03: Las Vegas
2003-04: Denver
2004-05: Denver
2005-06: Denver
2006-07: Las Vegas
2007-08: Las Vegas
IMO, why not try Salt Lake City or "the Pitt" at Albuquerque since they also have better average attendance than UNLV...
UNLV 11,573 (MWC 12,335)
New Mexico 14,361 (MWC 15,700)
