RE: Mid Majors with Final Four Potential
I really think that Richmond is a non-starter. They got a lot of attention because of the Georgetown president's very public support for their candidacy.
However, any objective analysis of what they bring quickly shows way to many negatives. I'm sure that Fox has people on staff who will be quick to point out those negatives. Bringing in Richmond would be like bringing in Holy Cross except without HC's great history and tradition. The league badly wanted Holy Cross 35 years ago when times were different, but could anyone seriously imagine Holy Cross as a candidate today?
Assuming that St Louis is #11, I really think that it comes down to VCU and Dayton. While VCU has being a public school as a negative, it's geography is a very big plus. Their location saves money for East Coast teams on travel, which is a big deal for some of the Big East schools that operate with smaller budgets.
Their location plus their size is a big advantage for VCU's ability to deliver fans to the Big East tournament, which is a very high priority for this league. In the glow of the birth of this new confederation, Big East tournament tickets have been a hot commodity, but anyone who looks even a little farther down the road knows that there is no guarantee that this will continue. The ACC and the Big Ten have both shown interest in locating their tournaments in NYC. The Big East really doesn't want to create an opening for this interest to gain any traction. In this case, location matters.
For all of its great fit and top market, an expansion spot is St Louis's to lose. They have the inside track, but that doesn't mean they're automatic IMO. The move from CUSA to the A10 was not good for St Louis. Despite his success in reenergizing the Billikens' basketball program, it didn't result in improved attendance. Even this past season their were concerns in the local paper pointing to their problems in attendance. They drew 7,600 last year, which is not bad in some quarters of the Big East. But it's not good in comparison with Dayton, which drew 12,400 last year.
St Louis has drawn between 6,000 - 8,000 for the past 5 years and consistently fails to sell out its arena (capacity: 10,600). Prior to the past 5 years, their attendance was 8,000 - 10,000. Better but still not where it was in their CUSA hay day when their range was 11,000 - 18,000 between 1995 - 2002 with a highway after mark of 17,700 in 1998.
There are two ways to look at the decline in St Louis' attendance. First is simply that the program is not once was and that a steady decrease to 15 years shows that. The second is that the move to the A10 cut them off from their natural geographic rivals and that their CUSA attendance shows their true potential and a dormant fan base just waiting to be deactivated by renewed rivalries with Marquette, DePaul, etc.
The problem that St Louis suffers in comparison with Dayton is that the Flyers have shown none of the same declines in attendance. Dayton is also 330 miles closer to MSG, giving their larger fan base a smaller hurdle to surmount in delivering fannies in the seats at tournament time.
I'm assuming that St Louis is #11. But I'm also assuming that the number crunchers at Fox and the Big East will do the same analysis that I have, raising some concerns about St Louis. Should they falter, they may not be as automatic as we think they are.
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