One small bit of praise for the NCAA Tournament
It's obviously not a huge thing, but I love that all of this year's regionals are at actual basketball arenas and not football stadia. Obviously this doesn't apply to Glendale for the Final Four, but I think that's more acceptable and predictable, since that goes back decades.
Next year's regionals are also all in basketball arenas too, including what may be the smallest city to host a regional in some time
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March 22 and 24
- West Regional, Staples Center, Los Angeles, California, (Host: Pepperdine University)
- South Regional, Philips Arena, Atlanta, Georgia, (Host: Georgia Institute of Technology)
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March 23 and 25
- East Regional, TD Garden, Boston, Massachusetts, (Host: Boston College)
- Midwest Regional, CenturyLink Center Omaha, Omaha, Nebraska, (Host: Creighton University)
Regional Finals in 2016 did not include any football stadiums either.
Looks like 2015 was the last year with the football stadium that hosts the Final Four the next year pattern, in this case, NRG Stadium. And, as pointed out below, the Carrier Dome was used as well.
it's quite a huge thing. There were some remarks on it during UM's '13 run. Why in the hell would the NCAA put these games in a cavernous football stadium? The seating is a pain in the ass, the look and feel for the players is all screwy. Obviously all teams have to deal with the same crap, but why make them? These games should never be in anything bigger than an NBA arena.
Quick answer: Money
Long answer: The NCAA is a greedy, self-serving parasite who only cares about making money while paying lip service about student athletes.
/ClimbsOffMySoapBox
Although the ticket prices for this year's regional are pretty ridiculous. The one thing the football stadium did was have ticket prices a lot lower than it will be in an arena. I sat in AT&T Stadium in '13 for the regional and Lucas Oil for the '14 regional(Upper Deck in both). Jerry's World was much better due to the screens and where the court was located. It was pretty awful at Lucas Oil because their screens ar far away from the court, but I paid a lot less at both those places than i did for the ticket in Bankers Life on Sunday.
You ever try to get regional tickets at a basketball arena? My understanding is that the regional round is always a little easier to get tickets.
For the opening weekend, it's usually pretty easy to start placing highly ranked schools at particular sites a few weeks before the season ends. Thus, those fanbases can start buying up the tickets long before brackets are announced. It's much harder to do the same for regional sites. So you end up having pretty much the entire regional site on sale for just a few days with very little advanced planning in terms of attendence. This drives down the secondary market. There's other factors too, four teams vs. eight. May have less teams within driving distance. You start getting in the situation where you weigh the possibility of saving your money for a possible final four trip.
Checked this year and to get in the building it will be $300. Now maybe that has more to do with it being in Kansas City and Kansas fans raising the prices but the ticket isnt cheaper than it was on Sunday.
They used to do it as a "dry-run" for the next year's final four. So you were pretty much guaranteed to have at least one football stadium as an NCAA host site. I guess that's no longer a thing (it had been for probably 15 years).
They did go a few years there where they seemed to have two football stadiums in the regional round. Maybe the NCAA realized it wasn't doing as much for ticket sales as they had hoped and was creating a bad atmospher and bad tv optics.
I don't imagine the final four will ever go back to an actual basketball arena. I believe the arena at the Meadowlands (whatever it was called then) was the last one sometime in the mid 90's.
I think the city well support it well.
Syracuse hosted a regional in 2015, FWIW. Not to be that guy to nit-pick but they are a smaller metro area vs Omaha (although, of course, a much larger population to draw from once you extend the radius out to 150 miles and beyond).
Maybe they simply don't bid on them anymore, but it's been awhile (2002) since there's been a Regional in Lexington. That's another smaller city which was a good site for a regional.
Looks like Louisville and Anaheim hosted last year too, which are both smaller.
Trendline is going in the right direction.
In a few more years we'll have one in Ann Arbor!
but kind of in middle of nowhere.
long drives from almost everywhere, poor airport
I know they're unrelated but is anyone else a little peeved that Glendale/Phoenix get both football and basketball championships in 2017? Neither even needs to be played outside...
Yeah, it's getting tiresome.
Seems like all of the big events are on a rotation between Dallas and Phoenix.
Almost hope UM is in the East region next year instead of the Midwest. Feel like we'd have a lot more fans in attendence in Boston rather than Omaha. (Sorry Gil from Omaha.)
Seems kind of an absurd decision to put a regional in Omaha, the 59th largest Metro Area in the country, tbh. First weekend sure. But regional?
Agreed, big benefit to Kansas and host Creighton, but no other big basketball schools within 200 miles. Madison is close-ish, but still over 350 miles away.
I really hope this is intentional shade thrown at Nebrasketball (or a few others---K-State for example) because I laughed a lot.
a high school gym, only slightly glorified. i went back in the '80's when pepperdine was pretty good, made the NCAA's, even played len bias and maryland before his untimely death. they may have upgraded in the interim years, but this is what used to look like:
was a fun place to watch or to play.
Not sure if this is what you implied, but the Regional games will be played at the Staples Center, not at Pepperdine's gym, they're just the host. If I inferred incorrectly then disregard!
Why do you even need a "host" when the game is being played at a non-school venue.
Is that to fudge some rule like so much else in college sports?
Does all of the organizational stuff that has to take place. They supply the stats crew, the timer & the other off-court officials, plus they ensure that every team has the stuff they need in the locker room, on the benches, during practice sessions, etc. Their SID takes care of the media needs. And so on.
In exchange, the "host" school gets a small cut of the revenues. I think they do it mostly so one institution can be held responsible if things go wrong. ("There wasn't enough room on press row; we will withhold the host's cut of the revenues").
Yeah like in hockey in 2002 when UM was fined half of the $20k for "crowd control issues"
Are you sure they didn't play Len Bias after his death?
that would be march. len bias died 3 months later.
It was a joke, man. Just a play on your words.
Edit: Not a very good joke.
I'll agree about avoiding football stadiums. However, you really want a basketball stadium that holds at least 20,000. The United Center in Chicago is a good venue, as is Banker's Life in Indy,. The new Little Caesar's venue in Detroit will hold 21k for basketball. I like the improvements made to Crisler, but it really is just too small.
IMO the first round of regionals should be on campus sites to preserve the college nature of it. You could even place more emphasis on the season (which is badly needed) by having home teams, but that won't happen. Instead we have the sham of 'neutral site' where the arena is 90% in favor of the in state teams
Boston is no LA or NYC but I wouldn't really call it all that small...