The Sun Belt Problem

[UNTflyer]

406 in attendance for the Championship game.

What should the Sun Belt do? Should the game continue to be played at a neutral site with a large increase in marketing?

Should the tournament Championship be hosted by the regular season champion?

Or should the SBC just eliminate the "neutral site" idea and allow the higher seeded team host every game all the way through to the title game?

I favor the last... let the higher seeded teams host the games. The Sun Belt's attendance is just miserable and until it gains some respect, the goal should be generation of revenue for the schools.

[CMJ]

I'd probably say the 2nd option. The logisitics of hosting every single game at a different site would be difficult - unless you want the conference tourney to last about 9-10 days.

[UNTflyer]

I have also seen a number of other suggestions:

Move to a "tourist friendly" site (Shreveport anyone? )

Move the Championship game to a weekend night

Limit schools hosting the tournament to the top five attending schools

[EagleD]

I like the way we handle the first round.

The best option, in my opinion, is to have the regular season champ host the remaining rounds. This year it would have backfired as USA got bounced early. But I like the odds of the conf champ playing in the finals. Plus they deserve a home court advantage as a bonus for winning conference.

Seeing an empty arena on national tv for the championship game kind of sucked.

GO MEAN GREEN !!!!!!!!!!

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

I have also seen a number of other suggestions:

Move to a "tourist friendly" site (Shreveport anyone? )

Move the Championship game to a weekend night

Limit schools hosting the tournament to the top five attending schools

----I have thought the same thing (Shreveport) if in the West or perhaps somewhere in the East every other year. Shreveport makes sense because there are a lot of members within driving distance of there .... plus as you stated there is other entertainment available. A second item to consider is make the Conference Tournament a tournament with only four teams and not eight teams and have the earlier rounds hosted by the higher seeded team. Even our "awful" 2,700 attendence is better than what happened in Lafayette.

----I doubt the weekend part will happen..... unless you don't want it covered by ESPN.... as we need the publicity...

[JayDub]

Whatever they do...they need to do something about this now. 400 people at a CHAMPIONSHIP GAME is UNACCEPTABLE.

[EagleD]

-

----I doubt the weekend part will happen..... unless you don't want it covered by ESPN.... as we need the publicity...

I'm pretty sure every conference that gets an automatic bid to the NCAA has the conference tournament finals on national tv.

GO MEAN GREEN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[CMJ]

I'm pretty sure every conference that gets an automatic bid to the NCAA has the conference tournament finals on national tv.

But you don't wanna be relegated to ESPNU, or ESPN Classic either.

[UNTflyer]

I don't know if that matters. ESPNU, Classic, Plus...

The Belt needs to do something to increase attendance. I would have been at the game if wasn't 8 hours away on a work/school night.

[greenminer]

We can help big time if we make some noise in the tourney. Winning does wonders.

[Baby Arm!]

The conference offices are in New Orleans,

the bowl game is in New Orleans,

the basketball tourny should be in NOLA

[NM Green]

New Orleans could use the support. The Mountain West has moved the tournament from Denver to Las Vegas and the town has time to prep, people have time to plan, and the destination is great even if your team gets knocked out early.

GMG

[ParksAndRecRick]

We just have to have more people go the games. I don't thik having it in New Orleans would help. New Orleans natives won't come. La-La is a neat place. Denton is a neat place. I know the Mid-Week is hard on many of us... But, we just HAVE (and when I say we, I mean all the Belt Schools) go the tournament. It says a lot.

I PRAY that we can sell our allotment for the Tournament! That is the next big question....

I think if Western kentucky would have been in the final they would have brought a couple thousand. All of us have to work up to that. What is more sad...of the people that were there....70 percent were from Arkansas State.

However, their is a new day dawning at UNT and I think we will continue to improve.

NOw, before there is any bashing, I KNOW that many of you could not have went...but, there are others that could have. Arkansas State was a retirement age group. However, that is still where we lack...older alumni and friends who support the team. The GOOD news is their is a new branding happening. I think many of you are the answer! When you can get there...YOU WILL! Rick V. works hard on new students...and they will be better.

I graduated in 94 and Masters in 86. I can't even get my friends interested. The only hope is consistant winning! And, I think we are posed to do that. Another Conference will help for sure (for some). However, I really love some of our new rivals.

I don't like that regular season Champion hosting the tournament. I think it gives them a tremendous slot to the Championship. ALL the Belt Schools must STEP UP and bring more fans!

That's it from ParksAndRecRick!!!! See ya at the Show at the A.A.C. Hope to see ya there....

Rick

[NT91]

Or should the SBC just eliminate the "neutral site" idea and allow the higher seeded team host every game all the way through to the title game?

This is the best idea.

[Coach]

How about better seed hosts until the "final four" which will be at a predetermined location and time for TV logistics? Then that city could focus on marketing three games and not an entire tournament that may or may not involve the hometown team.

[ADLER]

Or should the SBC just eliminate the "neutral site" idea and allow the higher seeded team host every game all the way through to the title game?

This is the best idea.

I think spontanious travel costs could become an expensive nightmare and all time between games would be dedicated to travel.

What about playing it at home/neutral sites the same way it was for this tourney, tourist/resort locations could bid for this event and it could be taylored for a weekend. Then play the finals 2 days after the semifinals and at the home of the highest seeded remaining team.

I'm not sure if two days to prepare is enough for the SBC and ESPN people, but it would do wonders for attendance.

Wouldn't everybody benefit?

[Green Mean]

The tourney was far for many schools and people and as far as UNT was concerned it was during midterm time. For the past 2 weeks I have had 6 Midterms that were major. I cant say that 409 attendence justifies it but I think it shows why less students went. As far as other people I mean the belt needs to realize that we people have what is called jobs and/or families to take care of. Taking off a few days including the early part of the week is difficult for most people no matter what job you have and how much you make. It might just be the fact that its the belt and in general people dont care....thats why attendence for all the sports in general are pretty low. If it has something to do with that then I think its just a matter of time and they just have to better their repuation by winning or more national tv exposure or something.

Edited March 11, 2007 by Green Mean

[BonfireBrian]

If I remember correctly, isn't the conference basketball tournament moving to Biloxi, Mississippi in a few years.

The point of this move was to provide a true neutral site, but a place where fans would travel to.

I've never been to Biloxi, but I know there's gambling and stuff. It sounds pretty similar to a Shreveport.

I also think this was originally supposed to happen in 2008 or 2009, but Biloxi was hit pretty hard by Hurricane Katrina, so we'll see if that idea is pushed back.

Does anyone else remember hearing anything about this in the past?

[UNTflyer]

The 2008 tournament will be at Southern Alabama.

Mitchell Center

[GrandGreen]

----I have thought the same thing (Shreveport) if in the West or perhaps somewhere in the East every other year. Shreveport makes sense because there are a lot of members within driving distance of there .... plus as you stated there is other entertainment available. A second item to consider is make the Conference Tournament a tournament with only four teams and not eight teams and have the earlier rounds hosted by the higher seeded team. Even our "awful" 2,700 attendence is better than what happened in Lafayette.

----I doubt the weekend part will happen..... unless you don't want it covered by ESPN.... as we need the publicity...

I guess you never made any of the Southland tournaments held in Shreveport. I am sure things have greatly improved but the fair ground arena that was used in those tournaments was as bad a venue as I have ever seen a college game in. NT attendance was marginally better but hardly good and there was little local support.

IMO, I am much more concerned about NT's attendance than the overall tournament. Despite Lafayette being a six hour drive from Dallas there was probably less than 30 NT fans at the first two games excluding pep organizations. The championship game was a little better but I wondered why the President or the AD made none of the games. This NT team deserves much better support and perhaps this championship can start to turn it around.

[TheTastyGreek]

I don't understand how neutral site hosting solves the attendance problem.

400 people show up when one school hosts.

How does that go up when that school also has to travel?

This is a problem of winning, tradition, and distance. The ACC, Big 10, and company have a long and vibrant tradition of basketball success. These dink-ass conferences in the northeast don't have the problem we do of distance. To get to Lafayette from Denton, you drive 430 miles. If you drive 430 miles east from Cleveland, Ohio... you'd be well out into the Atlantic Ocean. If you drove west, you'd go through two states and be halfway through a third (Iowa) to Nebraska.

There are entire conferences (America East, Big West, Big South, MAC... and now I'm sick of looking it up, but I'm pretty sure just from looking that there are more) that span from east to west, north to south, or any widest spread, less than 430 miles. And Lafayette is one of the relatively close schools in our conference.

Anyway... you can get people to travel when they're passionate about their team and basketball in general. For example: unmentioned in the head count of the 409 in attendance at the championship are the few dozen Western Kentucky fans who made the trip for the whole tournament. Or, you can get people to travel when they can make it somewhere in a few hours on short notice (look out, Boston University... here come the mighty Whatevers of Stony Brook!) to see a big game.

Bandwagons move fast, but not fast enough to get people from Denton to Biloxi, Shreveport, or anywhere else without having to miss a day of work or classes. So either we manufacture decades of conference basketball tradition and rivalry overnight, we figure out a way to teleport fans from place to place, or we face the reality that most years, our championship game is not going to feature the host team and will be very sparsely attended. That's reality as I see it, unless we want to host the thing in Western Kentucky every year.

And anyone who thinks that the mighty tourist appeal of Biloxi or Shreveport is going to draw the masses... please fire your travel agent. You can do better with your vacation time. And as swell as some people think New Orleans is, it's also 130 miles of road farther away than Lafayette.

Answer me honestly now... aside from maybe some of the people who made it to Lafayette, who is prepared to book 4 days in New Orleans for next year's tournament? I won't. I can't spare that much time from work, and I won't go unless I know North Texas is going to make it through to play some games there.

How many of the outraged superfans went to the conference championship when we hosted it in Denton? I didn't. Because I don't really give a damn about most of the other schools in our conference. As the years go by and we develop a history and rivalry with some of them, that's changing. But anyone who didn't go to Denton to see two other schools play for the Sun Belt championship, you really don't have much ground to be slamming Lafayette or the Sun Belt conference for the attendance at this year's game.

This problem isn't solveable. All the posters in the world won't solve geography and they won't manufacture the sort of rivalry that you see between Duke and North Carolina.

Western Kentucky travels for basketball. Because they have a history of success and and a passionate fanbase that rightfully expects to be rewarded for making a trip. Until some more Belt teams develop the same, this situation will always fall somewhere between poor and awful.

[Green Mean]

Teams in the northeast dont have as much trouble because I have noticed that the schools are closer to eachother than they are in the south in general. I mean the teams we play are not very close and I think distance does make a difference. In addition to that why dont people just realize that most people JUST DONT CARE. Its something we all have to accept and the only thing that will change is if the conference repuation increases and if teams beat the teams they arent supposed to beat more consistently. I would think the sunbelt would want NT to be more visible of the conference and maybe even the face of it as its in a top 5 media market and has 35K+ students. This will all take time as it doesnt happen over night....people will come if you give them a reason too and the only reason that needs to happen is if they are consistently winning and beating teams that they generally are not supposed to beat.

[redallover]

USA is probably the best option. Don't they have the best regular season attendance? Do it like C-USA does, let the schools bid on it and make sure it doesn't lose money. I'd hope that a school like UTEP (far west) wouldn't host but Memphis is doable and has strong support. It's sort of like not wanting one of the Florida schools to host the SB tourney. I would hope that UNT would "pay up" to host a tourney when it felt it had a reasonable chance to draw well and breakeven. It sure helps your chances and a tourney bid would be worth the investment. ULL has been good in the past but Lafayette should be ashamed about its support.