Big East Tournament Thread

[freescooter]

Attendance wise the BET is #1 year after year. But sure. you want to focus on TV audience.

You do know that barring a few exceptions out there - your overall TV audience is positively correlated with the size of your alumni base, right? and the draw of the channel its aired, right?

At the end of the day - this is college basketball and a lot of folks tune in to follow their alma mater and unless you are on mainstream ESPN 1/2** (where casuals and sports fans tune in and all the bars put it on every TV) your TV audience ceiling is capped by the size of your alumni fan base. I shouldn't have to explain this. This is obvious

The Big East has an uphill battle on both of those fronts: We know that. We are all well aware that 10 out of the 11 schools are small to mid-size private universities. We are also aired on Peacock/Fox not ESPN.

Even UConn cannot compete with the draw / alumni bases of the large state universities of the South/Midwest. But attendance wise we have many schools that have great attendance and proud CBB traditions

I’m not the one that called it the “marquee” tournament. The Big 10 final will be popular because it is a national conference. Same with the others P4 leagues. They all have national followings. It isn’t alumni. It’s who the teams are in those leagues. The Mountain West even draws more often. You obviously weren’t around when the Big East was viewed as the dominant conference in college basketball. Between 2003 and 2013 the Big East had at least 1 final four team in 8 years. And what is amazing is 6 different teams made an appearance. 2 final four teams thee times. 3 teams won 4 National championships. The only way this league gets 2 teams into the Final Four is if one buys tickets.

And by the way don’t you think the reason we are on peacock/fs1/Fox is related to the lack of interest in the product?

 

[HW611]

Happy March 10th!

Hurt my knee and had to stay home from school this day because I couldn’t walk.

Best injury ever.

 

[Mike Honcho]

They do do their job, which is to help people find their seats. It's not their job to kick people out of otherwise unoccupied seats.

The Gampel security could learn something from the MSG ushers.

I meant more about preventing people from accessing sections that they don't have tickets for, not about kicking people out of seats.

 

[aboogieee]

BIG EAST Tournament broadcasting teams

 

[AZHuskiePop]

St John’s plays 11 games at Madison Square Garden. Seems like a home court to me. Doesn’t matter when they aren’t good. When they are, though it is a little unfair, no?

The Big East Tournament has been there since 1980-81
They haven’t won that many times
A big reason why so many people love the Big East is the MSG tournament.
Play good and you will win

 

[BFieldHusky]

Predictions for tomorrow: I think Providence, Marquette and DePaul win.

 

[kobebeanbryant]

I would wait. Saturday is usually not a tough ticket.

even if it ends up UConn and St Johns?

 

[huskyjawz]

even if it ends up UConn and St Johns?

It will be a full house, but I still don't think that it will be a tough ticket. Lot of losing team's tickets flooding the market.

 

[imno1]

even if it ends up UConn and St Johns?

That’s the dilemma Buy now and do you still go if UConn isn’t in the finals or wait and pay through the nose if it’s a chalk championship game. $120 will be a bargain if it’s UConn vs ST John’s

 

[huskymedic]

 

[GruntCakes]

The Big East Tournament has been there since 1980-81
They haven’t won that many times
A big reason why so many people love the Big East is the MSG tournament.
Play good and you will win

Not to nitpick, but the BET wasn’t played in MSG until 1983. The first year was in Providence, next year in Syracuse, and then everyone remembers the BET in the Hartford Civic Center in 1982! The conference then decided to give the BET a little more cachet moving it to New York City, plus a premium site in Madison Square Garden. “The World’s Most Famous Arena!”

 

[superjohn]

 

[jdb50]

Went to the BET in Providence. Cuse beat us and IIRC we were never in the game in second half. Louie Orr buried us with baseline jumpers. The following year we melted down at HCC and lost to St Johns and Chris Mullins.

 

[BGesus4]

+1700 for the hall is interesting

 

[jpeakin]

I remember the 1999 BET final vs SJU very well. It was totally Storrs South and Johnies fans were like non existent. If its again this match up, expect something like 65% to 35% UConn fans - bit closer but still heavy UConn advantage.

You believe the crowd will be 65% UConn? Not sure where you get that from considering the last time we played them at MSG last month, it was like 80/20 SJU. I hope you're right though.

 

[bendm]

St John’s plays 11 games at Madison Square Garden. Seems like a home court to me. Doesn’t matter when they aren’t good. When they are, though it is a little unfair, no?

Clown

 

[HooperScooper]

You believe the crowd will be 65% UConn? Not sure where you get that from considering the last time we played them at MSG last month, it was like 80/20 SJU. I hope you're right though.

Remember that St. John's controlled a lot of the tickets for that game because they have season ticket holders who were not selling their best home game all season. Plus the BET final is a Saturday night instead of a Friday night. I don't think it would be 65% UConn fans but it won't be like February 6 either.

 

[jpeakin]

Remember that St. John's controlled a lot of the tickets for that game because they have season ticket holders who were not selling their best home game all season. Plus the BET final is a Saturday night instead of a Friday night. I don't think it would be 65% UConn fans but it won't be like February 6 either.

Fair point on the season tix holders. I think there were still tickets to be had on Ticketmaster, etc, for that game, but people weren't willing to pay for them. Would love to see us have a bigger turnout this time, we were overwhelmed last time. You know it's bad when you don't have to wait in line to pregame at Legends.