NCAAT Regional Attendance: What to do? | The Boneyard

NCAAT Regional Attendance: What to do?

Would the WCBB Regional Rounds get better attendance paired with the MCBB Region?

  • Yes, more fans would attend if the regions were combined with the me

    Votes: 4 21.1%
  • No, the fans a distinctly different and attendance would not improve

    Votes: 15 78.9%

  • Total voters
    19

DefenseBB

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The biggest concern the NCAA has over WCBB NCAAT is the Regional attendance issue that the West in particular as well as the Midwest, South or Southwest has not been well attended. Only theEast when UConn is placed in that bracket has attendance reached capacity. One noted WCBB pundit has postulated to have all 4 regions held in Las Vegas. Maybe, maybe not. How about leveraging schools and the administrations by having the WCBB pair up with the Men? For example; the Men’s Midwest and West Regions are Indianapolis and Los Angeles on March 26 & 28. So have the women play on March 27 & 29 at these venues. The Southwest and East Regions are in Houston and New York on March 27 & 29 so the WCBB teams in these regions would play the 28 & 30th. You will have some crossover fans and school administrators and teams who will go and watch peer conference members or former colleagues who coach/admin in the Women’s game. The stress on the NCAA to host and man these events becomes less and the TV production would be less. There are clearly enough flights and hotel rooms to accommodate teams and fans in these big cities.
It’s nice to think the women’s game can stand on its own but the reality is, it can’t as evidenced by the 1st two rounds hosted at the top 16 seeded teams schools. Only the Final Four has sold out. What say you BYers?
 

nwhoopfan

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Attendance for the Regional semis and finals last year, Portland was ahead of Albany by nearly 5000 for the 2 games. You don't even want to compare Chicago or Greensboro to PDX.
 

bballnut90

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The biggest concern the NCAA has over WCBB NCAAT is the Regional attendance issue that the West in particular as well as the Midwest, South or Southwest has not been well attended. Only theEast when UConn is placed in that bracket has attendance reached capacity. One noted WCBB pundit has postulated to have all 4 regions held in Las Vegas. Maybe, maybe not. How about leveraging schools and the administrations by having the WCBB pair up with the Men? For example; the Men’s Midwest and West Regions are Indianapolis and Los Angeles on March 26 & 28. So have the women play on March 27 & 29 at these venues. The Southwest and East Regions are in Houston and New York on March 27 & 29 so the WCBB teams in these regions would play the 28 & 30th. You will have some crossover fans and school administrators and teams who will go and watch peer conference members or former colleagues who coach/admin in the Women’s game. The stress on the NCAA to host and man these events becomes less and the TV production would be less. There are clearly enough flights and hotel rooms to accommodate teams and fans in these big cities.
It’s nice to think the women’s game can stand on its own but the reality is, it can’t as evidenced by the 1st two rounds hosted at the top 16 seeded teams schools. Only the Final Four has sold out. What say you BYers?

If they want to maximize attendance, do what volleyball does and let the #1 seeds host until the Final Four.

Fact is if teams are close to home, theyll get butts in seats. South Carolina/Oregon/Dallas regionals will be heavily attended this year since each has a nearby school playing there. UCONN has had the luxury almost every year of playing in front of essentially a home crowd to get to the final four since the East region is usually in their backyard. I dont love the current set up, but I think it's far more effective than going to Vegas (which has zero fanbases nearby) and as long as sites are strategically picked fan attendance should be steing even if it somewhat unfairly favors teams nearby (ex. Louisville and Mississippi State had to play road games as #1 seeds last year in the elite 8).

Pairing it with men's isnt a good call either IMO. The west regional is usually in California which is a blackhole attendance wise for women's collegiate sports. KC is also a common spot for midwest and attendance would be weak there too. And UCONN fans will be less likely to go to MSG in NYC than to go to Albany where traffic and parking will be much easier. Plus, big time fans of the men's games usually arent fans of women's so I don't see fans checking out the women's games just because they're there. Not the best parallel, but the boys McDonalds AA game is always well attended and the girl's game is usually pretty empty despite being in the same arena and same day I believe.
 

cockhrnleghrn

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^I agree, except I'd love to go to a Regional at MSG or Barclays.
 

LETTERL

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I am tickled that we are getting a regional at Greenville this year. I am so there! Hopefully, NC State will be placed so they can advance to the Greenville Regional, if they can survive the first two rounds of the tournament.

For those who have never been to Greenville, you are in for a treat. The downtown area is happening, an award-winning place where families can feel safe and with good eateries within walking distance of the arena.
 
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I am tickled that we are getting a regional at Greenville this year. I am so there! Hopefully, NC State will be placed so they can advance to the Greenville Regional, if they can survive the first two rounds of the tournament.

For those who have never been to Greenville, you are in for a treat. The downtown area is happening, an award-winning place where families can feel safe and with good eateries within walking distance of the arena.

I was in Greenville a few years ago for work and managed to have time to go to some games for the wbb SEC conference tourney. I agree, it’s a great area.
 
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I am tickled that we are getting a regional at Greenville this year. I am so there! Hopefully, NC State will be placed so they can advance to the Greenville Regional, if they can survive the first two rounds of the tournament.

For those who have never been to Greenville, you are in for a treat. The downtown area is happening, an award-winning place where families can feel safe and with good eateries within walking distance of the arena.

You are correct. Greenville is a terrific town and I love the few trips I've been able to make there. Downtown is great and it's just big enough to have some options but small enough to get around easily. I love the area.
 

DefenseBB

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All right friends, colleagues and those that frustrate me, here are the statistics of the last 7 years of regional and final four attendance below. A few notes for you: I put the locations into 4 regions-East, South, Mid-West and West, while it's not perfect, it shows how cities and regions do. I highlighted in Green the highest attendance any one region ever had and highlighted in Amber the lowest attendance a region had. No surprise here that the East Region is most well attended. UConn was the #1 seed in 6 of the 7 years. ND was other and it hosted that year in 2014. Other big note is that the Mid-West's best year was also 2014 when UConn was placed there as the #1 seed. Overall, the Final Four is well attended and seems to do well anywhere. Kansas City, Sioux Falls and Stockton should be avoided at all costs going forward as should Lexington KY. Portland was great last year with Oregon but Spokane 2 years ago was not good despite Oregon being in both cities. Take a look and let me know. @bballnut90 should particular look at the #1 and #2 seeds to assess his hypothesis.
1579117682576.png
 

Plebe

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Clearly what @bballnut90 says is true: The quasi-home court regionals yield the highest attendance. The attendance-leading 2014 Louisville and 2019 Portland regionals are cases in point, as is the consistently high attendance at the Albany and Bridgeport regionals.

Even though it would be the quickest path to maximal attendance, I would personally hate to see WBB revert back to home-court regionals as volleyball has done. I'm intrigued by the latest proposal to consolidate the four regionals into two sites (after 2022?). But honestly I don't know if it would be successful.
 

bballnut90

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All right friends, colleagues and those that frustrate me, here are the statistics of the last 7 years of regional and final four attendance below. A few notes for you: I put the locations into 4 regions-East, South, Mid-West and West, while it's not perfect, it shows how cities and regions do. I highlighted in Green the highest attendance any one region ever had and highlighted in Amber the lowest attendance a region had. No surprise here that the East Region is most well attended. UConn was the #1 seed in 6 of the 7 years. ND was other and it hosted that year in 2014. Other big note is that the Mid-West's best year was also 2014 when UConn was placed there as the #1 seed. Overall, the Final Four is well attended and seems to do well anywhere. Kansas City, Sioux Falls and Stockton should be avoided at all costs going forward as should Lexington KY. Portland was great last year with Oregon but Spokane 2 years ago was not good despite Oregon being in both cities. Take a look and let me know. @bballnut90 should particular look at the #1 and #2 seeds to assess his hypothesis.
View attachment 49963

Thanks for putting this together. I think it definitely highlights how being located in front of a home crowd goes a long way, especially if there's an established fan base for that team. The 2 best years for regionals were 2019 and 2014 where 3 regions had a 1 or 2 seed essentially playing at home:
2019 (all 3 are within 2 hours of home)
Portland-Oregon
Albany-UCONN
Chicago-ND

2014 (all 3 literally played at home)
South Bend-ND
Louisville-Louisville
Stanford-Stanford

Every other year only had 1-2 teams playing in front of a home crowd. This year we'll likely see massive attendance IMO with the Oregon schools, Baylor and SC all in the hunt for #1 seeds and playing regionals within 2 hours from home.

UCONN has played within an hour or 2 from home for every regional besides 2014 and has an established fan base, so each year they draw big crowd. If UCONN wasn't there I don't think crowds would come out.

Spokane is not close to Corvallis or Eugene, it's 7+ hours from either. Agree Spokane is a blackhole until Gonzaga becomes a powerhouse. Support for WBB is very good locally, but I don't think it's strong enough to draw a regional.

Lincoln drawing well surprises me since they didn't have Nebraska in that region, but Lincoln also draws well for women's sports, and UCONN will attract fans to watch.
 

nwhoopfan

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Yeah, Spokane loves their Zags and is considered a "basketball town," but attendance wasn't great for the Regionals they hosted. Kind of surprising they've had 3 of the last 7. Is nobody else bidding? Stockton was a puzzling choice, and while I've never been to Sioux City and won't say anything bad about it, it's really not even in the West. Looking at a map it's about as far east as Dallas is (I realize a flat map is not an accurate representation, but it's still pretty far east to be west). That was a really strange choice too.

Thanks @DefenseBB for compiling those attendance numbers, helpful to see.



Maybe Vegas could host the West Regional and see how attendance is before they try anything radical like having all 4 Regionals in 1 location. The city currently hosts almost every conference tournament for teams out west, some of those are well attended.
 

DefenseBB

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Clearly what @bballnut90 says is true: The quasi-home court regionals yield the highest attendance. The attendance-leading 2014 Louisville and 2019 Portland regionals are cases in point, as is the consistently high attendance at the Albany and Bridgeport regionals.

Even though it would be the quickest path to maximal attendance, I would personally hate to see WBB revert back to home-court regionals as volleyball has done. I'm intrigued by the latest proposal to consolidate the four regionals into two sites (after 2022?). But honestly I don't know if it would be successful.
As long as one of the sites is in the Northeast section of the US from Baltimore to Boston, I am all for it. Plenty of Airports, hotels and other things to do as well as large support for WCBB. The SEC locales, ACC locales, Portland and Vegas can all fight it out for the other hosting. Stay the heck out of California, Texas and the Mid-west...:rolleyes:
 

bballnut90

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As long as one of the sites is in the Northeast section of the US from Baltimore to Boston, I am all for it. Plenty of Airports, hotels and other things to do as well as large support for WCBB. The SEC locales, ACC locales, Portland and Vegas can all fight it out for the other hosting. Stay the heck out of California, Texas and the Mid-west...:rolleyes:

Well of course you're for it, UCONN gets home court to the Final Four every year with that set up.
 

cockhrnleghrn

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I think the Regionals need to be located in places relatively easy to reach. Sioux Falls, Spokane and Stockton are not easy to reach or particularly appealing destinations. Wouldn't it also help to be in media centers for the Regionals? MSG, Barclays, Atlanta, etc.
 

Plebe

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I think the Regionals need to be located in places relatively easy to reach. Sioux Falls, Spokane and Stockton are not easy to reach or particularly appealing destinations. Wouldn't it also help to be in media centers for the Regionals? MSG, Barclays, Atlanta, etc.
But cities have to submit bids. Unless something dramatically changes, you're not going to see a NYC regional at Barclays or MSG. There's a reason you tend to see regionals at smaller, not so expensive markets -- they're the ones that are submitting the bids. Perhaps the lone exceptions in recent years are Dallas and Chicago.
 

bballnut90

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But cities have to submit bids. Unless something dramatically changes, you're not going to see a NYC regional at Barclays or MSG. There's a reason you tend to see regionals at smaller, not so expensive markets -- they're the ones that are submitting the bids. Perhaps the lone exceptions in recent years are Dallas and Chicago.

Even in Dallas, theyre playing at Moody Coliseum which has just a 9k capacity compared to American Airlines Center where the Mavs play which holds 20k.
 

cockhrnleghrn

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But cities have to submit bids. Unless something dramatically changes, you're not going to see a NYC regional at Barclays or MSG. There's a reason you tend to see regionals at smaller, not so expensive markets -- they're the ones that are submitting the bids. Perhaps the lone exceptions in recent years are Dallas and Chicago.
True, but the NCAA could certainly encourage it.
 

Plebe

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True, but the NCAA could certainly encourage it.
Unless the NCAA ponies up a small fortune to subsidize a hosting effort in NYC, I don't see how they could do anything meaningful. And besides, that would defeat the purpose.
 
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If they put them close to big time programs, within say 3 to 5 hours drive they would all be packed. Sticking regionals in wacko locales that are 7 or 8 hours to the closest big program is going to have low attendance.

Vegas might work out west, Nashville would definitely be best spot for south/southeast.
 

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