Other tournament locations

[brandon]

Watching the Ivy League, they are similar to the ASUN in playing on campus sites.

However, something they do, is change the court, it is heavily branded for the Ivy League.

Do y'all like the campus sites or would you rather have a central, neutral site that is easy access for most of the conference?

[unalions]

I think campus sites look better on TV for conferences like the ASUN but I don't like the advantage it gives the host teams. I felt bad for Jacksonville against Bellarmine. Both 2 seeds having knocked off top-seeds, it was tough to see them in a sea of red with just a few of their cheerleaders there. To me, that's not a fair championship setting but it looked great on TV. They had 6251 reported in attendance. Their normal home attendance is between 1500-2500. So, it was likely a much better setting than a neutral arena nowhere near Bellarmine or Jacksonville that might cause very few folks to show up. That may not be the case, though, I don't know.

Pensacola hosted the men's and women's Sun Belt Conference tournament again this year. This is the second year, I think. I was last weekend. The highlights on TV of the first rounds showed they were poorly attended. But, the men's title game was last Monday and had 3528 (the Pensacola Bay Center seats about 5600 for this type of event) between the 3-seed GA State and the 8-seed Louisiana. GA usually draws about 1000-1500 at home while Louisiana draws about 2500 at home games.

[roaringsince96]

Championship game should be played at the previous years conference champion? Being champion gets you exposure the following year by hosting the game. I like the higher seed team hosting the game in the conference playoffs, earned by your play during the season.

Hope our teams continue to improve and the men actually get to host some games too.

[unafied]

I've been thinking about this and go back and forth on what the right solution is.

I do think that having the tournament on campus can look "small-time" in a way. If you want to grow the conference as a basketball league, that doesn't necessarily help. But the problem is, how many schools in the conference have a fan base that would take several thousand to a neutral location? If most schools can't do that, having a conference final with a few hundred in attendance doesn't help shake the small-time look, either.

I wish we could take a page out of the SoCon's book and find a neutral site that is also a popular tourist spot, and would potentially draw people that can make a vacation out of it. The SoCon has the advantage of a smaller geographic footprint, though. Samford may have the longest drive to Asheville, and it's still maybe 6 hours? Finding a spot in the southeast that all of our teams can drive to in 6 hours or less is likely impossible. I really hoped Chattanooga would join the league with the promise of them hosting the tournament every year. Yes, I live here and I'm biased, but I really do think that would be a perfect spot for it.

As long as we have a pod of Florida schools, and those of us that are farther north and west, I think the only solution to having a neutral site would be to rotate between a northern and a southern location every year. For example, even years somewhere along the Florida coast, and odd years in a Chattanooga/Nashville/maybe even Huntsville type setting. Actually an arena like the VBC would probably be the perfect not too big/not too small setup.

[brandon]

Mar 15, 2022 6:09:59 GMT -6 unafied said:

I've been thinking about this and go back and forth on what the right solution is.

I do think that having the tournament on campus can look "small-time" in a way. If you want to grow the conference as a basketball league, that doesn't necessarily help. But the problem is, how many schools in the conference have a fan base that would take several thousand to a neutral location? If most schools can't do that, having a conference final with a few hundred in attendance doesn't help shake the small-time look, either.

I wish we could take a page out of the SoCon's book and find a neutral site that is also a popular tourist spot, and would potentially draw people that can make a vacation out of it. The SoCon has the advantage of a smaller geographic footprint, though. Samford may have the longest drive to Asheville, and it's still maybe 6 hours? Finding a spot in the southeast that all of our teams can drive to in 6 hours or less is likely impossible. I really hoped Chattanooga would join the league with the promise of them hosting the tournament every year. Yes, I live here and I'm biased, but I really do think that would be a perfect spot for it.

As long as we have a pod of Florida schools, and those of us that are farther north and west, I think the only solution to having a neutral site would be to rotate between a northern and a southern location every year. For example, even years somewhere along the Florida coast, and odd years in a Chattanooga/Nashville/maybe even Huntsville type setting. Actually an arena like the VBC would probably be the perfect not too big/not too small setup.

I think Huntsville would be the perfect location for a tournament, even in baseball. The trash pandas stadium isn't too big and there are tons of college baseball fans throughout the region.

Could there be a situation that you have 3 neutral sites? A central location for each division until you get to the semis and championship then move it to a central league site...

So for the west, maybe Nashville, east maybe Jacksonville, then the semis and Championship in Huntsville or Atlanta.