The Big East Tournament is thriving | Page 2 | The Boneyard

The Big East Tournament is thriving

don356 said:
You're missing the point that the reason it draws is because it's in the biggest city in the free world, and folks and businesses are looking for something to do. If you hold that tourney in Milwaukee or Omaha it's going to be just like the rest of the tourneys. The fact that it draws well(which it has always done) isn't indicative of the conference being some big bell cow as much as it's in a great location with an absence of bball right now. The tv ratings during the regular season are the reality of the situation.
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Nope. A10 is in NYC an they didn’t draw. 1/2 full for their finals.
 
Nova is 103 miles from NYC....and Philly is 93 miles....sure, being close to school, and two major metropolitan areas of alumni support...will give some good attendance....

I read a fan blog that said half the crowd were Nova fans...

But...the Big East isn't the Big East of bygone days...no masses of TV watchers...no excitement of forecasted #1's and #2's matching up.

A nice car trip for fans though.
 
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I was not thinking of geography...but Seton Hall, Georgetown, Providence, St. John's and Villanova are ringed around NYC....with DC being the furthest.

In terms of propinquinty, it would be like a tourney conducted in Jacksonville for FSU, Florida, and UCF.
 
Zissou said:
Nope. A10 is in NYC an they didn’t draw. 1/2 full for their finals.
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Fordham? Bonaventure?

What other powerhouse fan bases from A-10 in NYC?

VCU has fans down in Virginia...as does Old Dominium.
 
For better or worse the AAC tournament is never going to be really well attended outside of games from the host teams. There's just not a lot of teams close enough together. They're trying the next three years in Fort Worth, Texas, but I don't have high hopes for that either. SMU/Houston/Tulane/Tulsa will be within decent driving distances, but everyone is else if plane trip. I went to the tournament and outside of the Memphis games it was #1 Wichita State, #2 Cincinnati, and then just handfuls of everyone else.
 
don356 said:
You're missing the point that the reason it draws is because it's in the biggest city in the free world, and folks and businesses are looking for something to do. If you hold that tourney in Milwaukee or Omaha it's going to be just like the rest of the tourneys. The fact that it draws well(which it has always done) isn't indicative of the conference being some big bell cow as much as it's in a great location with an absence of bball right now. The tv ratings during the regular season are the reality of the situation.
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Yeah people bought the Marquette and Creighton gear on the street.

Creighton sends more fans to the Big East tourney than anyone sent to Hartford for the either AAC tourney.

They send more to MSG than like the bottom 8 AAC teams combined.

Does the building help? Sure. But just stop these are programs that have actual fanbases.
 
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How can you say the Big East Tournament is the Mecca of college BB when the ACC just landed three #1 seeds in the dance?
 
billybud said:
Fordham? Bonaventure?

What other powerhouse fan bases from A-10 in NYC?

VCU has fans down in Virginia...as does Old Dominium.
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Exactly. It's not just NYC. The Big East is the draw.
 
billybud said:
I was not thinking of geography...but Seton Hall, Georgetown, Providence, St. John's and Villanova are ringed around NYC....with DC being the furthest.

In terms of propinquinty, it would be like a tourney conducted in Jacksonville for FSU, Florida, and UCF.
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Nova also sold-out San Antonio last year :)
 
The Alamodome attendance was impressive....but the Neilson rating across three networks was the lowest for a national championship game...(Wiki).
 
billybud said:
The Alamodome attendance was impressive....but the Neilson rating across three networks was the lowest for a national championship game...(Wiki).
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It was a blow-out!
 
That 2018 final was a complete TV poop...

The lowest ratings for the NCAA Final in 30 years....
 
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That game must not have been that attractive...

And...the next lowest rated final game in the last 30 years....also featured Villanova.

The people of America have voted with their remotes...
 
Zissou said:
I think you are underselling the BET. It's still in the Mecca of Basketball, the center of the media universe, and it sells out more than any other conference tournament. ACC is probably a close 2nd for crowds, and certainly has better top teams this year, but never had the whole vibe that the BET has. I don't think another tournament comes close. Nothing like MSG in March.
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It’s not.

There’s one national program in the conference and that program will live and die with the coach.
 
The BET did once have a vibe...it left with Uconn, Pitt, Louisville and Cuse....

Once, in a conference far, far away, Pat Ewing strode the floors for Georgetown...and Syracuse and Uconn vied as kings.

That conference was hit by an asteroid and is now a splintered portion of what it once was.

Maybe Swofford was as crazy as a fox....Where once the Big East filled the air waves of March, one can hear ACC....the echoes of the past still reverberate in the ether but each passing year that echo loses strength..
 
billybud said:
The BET did once have a vibe...it left with Uconn, Pitt, Louisville and Cuse....

Once, in a conference far, far away, Pat Ewing strode the floors for Georgetown...and Syracuse and Uconn vied as kings.

That conference was hit by an asteroid and is now a splintered portion of what it once was.

Maybe Swofford was as crazy as a fox....Where once the Big East filled the air waves of March, one can hear ACC....the echoes of the past still reverberate in the ether but each passing year that echo loses strength..
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What did I just read?
 
Zissou said:
I think you are underselling the BET. It's still in the Mecca of Basketball, the center of the media universe, and it sells out more than any other conference tournament. ACC is probably a close 2nd for crowds, and certainly has better top teams this year, but never had the whole vibe that the BET has. I don't think another tournament comes close. Nothing like MSG in March.
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All due respect, but when Uconn, Cuse, Louisville, Pitt, and WVU were in the BET, it was definitely must-see TV. BET Week was an event throughout the NE corridor. The fanbases were rabid, and let's be honest, Nova wasn't exactly ruling the roost like they currently are in the New BE. Comparisons between the 2 leagues, then and now, is frankly non-existent. Enjoy the vacuum that was created when the Big Boyz split up, but don't forget where you came from. Slow your roll.
 
Average Conference Tournament Attendance 2019
Big East....19,756
Big 12...….18,969
ACC...……..18,321
Big Ten.....17,463
SEC...…...…16,405
PAC12...….11,504
AAC...…...….7,588
A10...…...…..6,800
 
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And nobody watched the Big East on TV...

Not even the BE Championship game....1.43 million.
 
billybud said:
And nobody watched the Big East on TV...

Not even the BE Championship game....1.43 million.
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The AAC game was on ESPN and drew less than 1.2, for reference.

Regardless of your TV criticisms, the BET is thriving. I think Fox is happy with the success of the tournament, even without the Cuse and UConn fan bases that are so close and used to be active in NY.

It’s already a sold out success without UConn. Adding UConn would only add to the demand and the BET experience.
 
It will be interesting to see the viewer ratings for the AAC games when they shift to ESPN+.
 
The FOX broadcast network scored a 0.7 rating and 1.13 million viewers for Saturday’s Villanova-Seton Hall Big East Tournament final, down 22% in ratings and 24% in viewership from last year (Villanova-Providence: 0.9, 1.49M).

Cincinnati-Houston American Athletic Conference final drew a 0.75 (-45%) and 1.19 million (-43%) on ESPN; last year’s final aired on CBS.
 
Dooley said:
The FOX broadcast network scored a 0.7 rating and 1.13 million viewers for Saturday’s Villanova-Seton Hall Big East Tournament final, down 22% in ratings and 24% in viewership from last year (Villanova-Providence: 0.9, 1.49M).

Cincinnati-Houston American Athletic Conference final drew a 0.75 (-45%) and 1.19 million (-43%) on ESPN; last year’s final aired on CBS.
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Different numbers than Billybud.
 
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Zissou said:
It will be interesting to see the viewer ratings for the AAC games when they shift to ESPN+.
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Those numbers won't have ratings, so it's going to lift AAC ratings since the dreck will be excluded from the average.
 
Zissou said:
Different numbers than Billybud.
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As BIllybud said, numbers are adjusted for overnight. The AAC final without its conference heavyweight outdrew your "thriving" Big East with its conference heavyweight.
 
Dooley said:
As BIllybud said, numbers are adjusted for overnight. The AAC final without its conference heavyweight outdrew your "thriving" Big East with its conference heavyweight.
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AND it wasn't on broadcast TV. Pretty bad indictment for the Big East on FOX.
 
The tournament is thriving. The conference is solid.
Big East....19,756
Big 12...….18,969
ACC...……..18,321
Big Ten.....17,463
SEC...…...…16,405
PAC12...….11,504
AAC...…...….7,588
A10...…...…..6,800

After ESPN and the ACC moved on the Big East, Fox created the Big East split of what was left. We have all of our games nationally broadcast because of Fox, so I'll take whatever TV results they muster.

Our games won't be streamed on Fox+. They are on TV.
 
Slasher said:
AND it wasn't on broadcast TV. Pretty bad indictment for the Big East on FOX.
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The title of this thread is very misleading. The Big East is far from "thriving". Ratings are consistently lower than most other basketball conferences year-to-year...and that's the only product that the conference offers. Absolutely nobody cares about venue attendance come basketball tournament time. Wait until NCAA games start tomorrow and venues are at 50% or less capacity everywhere for every game (exceptions being "home court advantages" for regional high seeds). And guess what? Millions of Americans will still watch the tournament...even the games that are being played in front of players friends/families. CBS isn't paying a gazillion dollars to the NCAA to air games at sold-out venues only. The premise that sold-out venues being any sort of indication that a conference is "thriving" is absolutely comical and completely misplaced. You can just as easily find 19,000 New Yorkers to go to Madison Square Garden to watch a championship high school basketball game.

The truth is that the Big East conference did a remarkable job at finding a desperate buyer for its part-time part-year content. Honestly, if we were to swap anything with the Big East, I wish we could swap commissioners. FOX desperately needed something/anything east and the Big East wasn't going to get anywhere close to $5M/yr from ESPN...who passed and instead inked MWC to a cheap deal at the time. The timing worked out incredibly well for the Big East and kudos to them for it.

My guess is that when the Big East's current TV deal expires, they won't get a raise either. Actually, the numbers they're pulling in on Fox sports would justify a significant pay cut. I don't know if it'll happen or not, but it would be VERY hard for anyone to compare ratings and still pay the Big East $5M/yr. Maybe their next deal will be scaled per school. Ex - Villanova (if Wright is still coach) gets $3M-$5M/yr; then a few (Georgetown? St John's? ) get $2M-$3M/yr; then the rest pull in $1M/yr or less. That would make more sense since half the conference are absolute deadweights with very tiny fanbases.

Fact is, not many casual sports fans watch regular season college basketball games. Most sports fans only begin to watch college basketball in March through the end of the tournament. Meanwhile, college football continues to outpace college basketball viewership by a very large margin. Sports fans do watch regular season college football games throughout the entire season. Hence, the AAC media deal being more lucrative than the Big East's.
 
Zissou said:
Our games won't be streamed on Fox+. They are on TV
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ESPN+ is not nearly the disadvantage that you want to hope/believe it is. Those ESPN+ games are only the dreg games that only the fans of each team will watch. Bottom line is that if a team in the AAC has a good season, they are going to be "rewarded" by having their games aired on ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU - maybe ABC - and will pull numbers that will always outpace anything FOX airs from the Big East. By filtering out ESPN+ low viewer games, it actually increases the viewer line of games that are on ABC/ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU etc and, ultimately, justifies the ROI of the network. Strong network viewership numbers are what advertising agencies care about and what drives everything.

Ironically, by airing so many Big East games that struggle to bring anyone to the TV set, it hurts the conference image which hurts advertising strength which could ultimately hurt the next Big East media deal. There is no way on Earth the Big East will secure north of the current $5M/yr. The viewership numbers don't justify that kind of cost by any means. The next Big East deal will likely see a fairly significant decrease.
 
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