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Post by Bornthrilla on Mar 12, 2010 11:06:31 GMT -5
How is that different than if both A&T teams are our by Wednesday - which was the case this year?
Do you think those A&T fans all bought a full book for the tournament and are now going to come to Winston just to see the other teams. Not now.
But folks might be more inclined to buy a full book and make a weekend vacation out of it if the tournament began on a Friday morning or maybe a Thursday night.
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Post by Bornthrilla on Mar 12, 2010 11:11:23 GMT -5
Besides, the ultimate goal should be to improve the tournament to where it is not depending on the participation of one or two schools.
We have to get to a point where the MEAC tournament is a strong enough brand that it draws people just on its own merit.
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oleschoolaggie
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Post by oleschoolaggie on Mar 12, 2010 11:22:49 GMT -5
I would love to see what the advanced ticket sales and hotel reservations look like this year. I don't think folks from Delaware and Florida invested a lot of money ahead of time to attend the MEAC tournament. I would anticipate that most of the attendees are local or folks who bough their tickets and reserved their hotel room just days prior to arriving into town. Hell, you can get a ticket to the ACC men's tournament this year for next to nothing, so I know the MEAC did not sell a lot of tickets in advance. point well taken, but i certainly waited until i knew for sure the lady aggies would make the championship game before i was willing to reserve a room and purchase tickets. if a&t ain't in it, there's zero chance i would go. even though we've been eliminated, a&t's crowd that showed up mid-week probably boosted the normal mid-week attendances. take a&t out of the tournament and there's no boost at all. the meac doesn't have a large enough following to dismiss the value of that. no matter where we're seeded, the meac needs our participation. they also need norfolk, famu, and all of the schools that have large fanbases. what if the 3 largest fanbases don't make it in the same year? then we have to rely on the likes of umes, dsu, csu, and bcu to carry the load. it would be like a ghost town at the tournament. the meac simply can't afford to be exclusive. the meac can't afford to say to 3 schools you have no stake in the meac tournament this year. folks aren't knocking down doors to get meac tickets, so why would you exclude 3 schools from being a part of the festivities no matter how small they are? even if they're only there for one night, if they enjoy themselves they're likely to come back the following year. the meac needs every single fannie they can get in the seats. i think a smaller venue for the first 2 rounds could alleviate the problems you referred to. even if its an offsite smaller college venue. but i think every meac school needs to feel like they're a part of the tournament. if not, it reduces overall interest. like right this very moment, i can't tell you any tournament results since our men and women were eliminated. i have very little interest in the tournament now. and if a&t were ineligible for future tournaments, who cares about anything else going on at the tourney?
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oleschoolaggie
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Post by oleschoolaggie on Mar 12, 2010 11:25:48 GMT -5
Besides, the ultimate goal should be to improve the tournament to where it is not depending on the participation of one or two schools. We have to get to a point where the MEAC tournament is a strong enough brand that it draws people just on its own merit. that's very true too! but we're not there yet and i don't think its wise to be willing to diminish interest if we're not there...
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oleschoolaggie
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Post by oleschoolaggie on Mar 12, 2010 11:29:04 GMT -5
The MEAC Tornament needs to be shortened and the winner should be going to the NIT or WNIT. We need our regular season champs to represent us in the Big Dance. only the regular season champions get an automatic bid to the nit/wnit. for example, there's no guarantee that if the 8th place team wins the tournament that they would get a bid to the nit. i suppose there would have to be some type of agreement between the nit/wnit and the meac to make that happen. plus, when you lower the stakes of the tournament, you also lower the intensity of the tournament and you lower the agony of defeat. won't be too much drama if the #1 seed loses a game, no one would care. the regular season champs would have zero incentive to win the tournament other than pride. and the rest of the teams wouldn't have the same "hunger" to go to the nit/wnit as they would for the big dance. and worst of all, we'd probably lose espn coverage of the tournament if the winner goes to the nit/wnit instead of the big dance. why would espn want to cover an meac tournament if the champion doesn't go to the big dance? i can see espn turning down that idea...
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Post by Bornthrilla on Mar 12, 2010 11:42:31 GMT -5
Damn, you're on your A game today, oldschool.
Solid arguments all around.
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oleschoolaggie
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Post by oleschoolaggie on Mar 12, 2010 11:58:32 GMT -5
Damn, you're on your A game today, oldschool. Solid arguments all around. thanks, good buddy. i think the meac puts a little more thought into what they're doing than what we sometimes give them credit for...
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Post by aahhbigboy on Mar 12, 2010 11:59:13 GMT -5
The MEAC Tornament needs to be shortened and the winner should be going to the NIT or WNIT. We need our regular season champs to represent us in the Big Dance. only the regular season champions get an automatic bid to the nit/wnit. for example, there's no guarantee that if the 8th place team wins the tournament that they would get a bid to the nit. i suppose there would have to be some type of agreement between the nit/wnit and the meac to make that happen. plus, when you lower the stakes of the tournament, you also lower the intensity of the tournament and you lower the agony of defeat. won't be too much drama if the #1 seed loses a game, no one would care. the regular season champs would have zero incentive to win the tournament other than pride. and the rest of the teams wouldn't have the same "hunger" to go to the nit/wnit as they would for the big dance. and worst of all, we'd probably lose espn coverage of the tournament if the winner goes to the nit/wnit instead of the big dance. why would espn want to cover an meac tournament if the champion doesn't go to the big dance? i can see espn turning down that idea... Don't forget to take into account that the NCAA TV contracts are almost over and I'm hearing that the expansion of the big dance is probably going to happen. If that's the case, that would significantly water down the NIT. For the MEAC's sake, that would be a good thing because then the NIT would be more inclined to make a deal (a better deal I should say). As it stands now, they'd be crazy to make that kind of deal with the MEAC. Because if they gave away slots to a weak conference like ours, in the case of this year, that would take away from the likes of Arizona, UCLA, UNC, UCONN etc! And that's not gonna happen.
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Post by captaggie on Mar 12, 2010 12:01:33 GMT -5
Good points oldschool.
Ultimately, the "competition phase" of the tournament has to complement the "economic phase". Would love to see the financial numbers.
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Post by aahhbigboy on Mar 12, 2010 12:05:10 GMT -5
Damn, you're on your A game today, oldschool. Solid arguments all around. thanks, good buddy. i think the meac puts a little more thought into what they're doing than what we sometimes give them credit for... Gotta agree with this too. The major thing that really hurts the MEAC is that they follow the CIAA's tourney. The CIAA is, largely, in the same region as the MEAC and is more popular amongst HBCUs for basketball. They host a better event in a better city and most people take their time off to travel and party there, even MEAC faithful. Everyone is all back to work when the MEAC gets going and all the luster is gone. Their hands are kind of tied. It doesn't matter where the tourney is or who plays first.
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Post by Bornthrilla on Mar 12, 2010 12:24:47 GMT -5
I still think the MEAC could draw a few more causal fans to the tournament if they started targeted more families. They should mirror it after the ACC women's tournament and strike some deals with the YMCA, churches and grade schools around Winston to get more younger fans in the building.
It know the weather was not that great this week, but it would have been nice to see some inflatables and interactive games set up outside of Lawrence Joel.
Last year, I took my son to Friday night of the ACC women's tournament just because they had a big mascot night promotion.
The CIAA got the party crowd on lock but we can go after the family crowd.
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Post by Bornthrilla on Mar 12, 2010 12:31:50 GMT -5
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Post by Aggie Monster on Mar 12, 2010 14:42:26 GMT -5
I still say tidewater area is where it should be. It's been in Richmond, Raleigh, and now Winston. Wasn't it even on Morgan State's or Deleware State's campus back in the day?
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Post by Blankman on Mar 12, 2010 16:42:44 GMT -5
Does anybody know how the attendance has been looking the last two days, since both A&T squads are now out??
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Post by thefriscotxaggie on Mar 12, 2010 16:42:55 GMT -5
Interesting enough the SWAC is being played in Shrevport. I would figure the attendance is pretty good since you have a ton of casinos in town. Grambling is the closet school to Shrevport about 70 miles away
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