I think the selection of Amherst and Worcester wasn't one of the more
intelligent moves by the NC$$ siting group.  Having two regionals
within an hour of each other necessarily impacts on the attendance.
For you westerners that would be akin to having the west and midwest
regionals at Colorado Springs and Denver.  I doubt that those venues
with their nice new arenas would be able to attract much a crowd in
that situation.

The other big problem was the teams playing.  UNH has a sizable
following, but as Albany knows,  you need one of the other big draws,
like Maine, BU, Cornell, Vermont, even RPI (what a crowd we brought in
"95!) to make your site a success.

Brian Morris

On Mar 28, 2005, at 6:33 PM, J. Michael Neal wrote:

> Spreeman, Cathryn wrote:
>
>> "I doubt that many of those folks in Amherst came early to watch the
>> Denver game.  But I bet there were more folks in Minneapolis who
>> stayed
>> to watch at least most of the Cornell game, than those who came early
>> to see Denver out east."
>>
>> Attendance on Saturday at the Mullins Center:  3,622 *
>>
>>
>>
>
> In all honesty, I would consider 3600 people to be a real
> disappointment.  Van Andel had 6500, and Ann Arbor is about as far from
> there as Durham is from Amherst, and a farther than Cambridge.  If 3600
> is all you can muster, then I think that the east is actually in the
> same boat as the west, despite the shorter distances.  Worcester did
> well, but by our standards, it's a suburb of Boston.
>
> Also, isn't the Mullins Center a campus site, albeit one for a team
> that
> didn't make the tournament?  It looks to me like the eastern regionals
> are not necessarily going to neutral sites.
>
> J. Michael Neal
>