----- Original Message -----
From: "Greg Ambrose" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2002 6:50 PM
Subject: Re: 16 Team tourney


> A few of us are already talking about the logistics of the eastern
> regionals.  Worcester is already guaranteed to be one of the venues.  If
> either Manchester or Providence is the other one, we are already
speculating
> that we could watch two games at one arena in the afternoon, then make a
mad
> dash to another rink and catch at least one of the night games.  The
> advantage of living in the northeast corridor!  As for the West, I really
> don't know what they can do to improve attendance.  Better promotion,
> discounted air fares?

You'll have to discount airfares a lot.  I was helping a list member get to
Ann Arbor for the West Regional.  If you started shopping right after the
seedings were announced, the best possible airfare to get there was almost
$1200, changing planes in Toronto and ending up in Windsor.  He ended up
going by Amtrak, and arrived in Ann Arbor at 4am, after taking a cab from
Toledo when his train to Chicago was too late and missing the connection.

I can't impress on eastern fans enough that relying on western fans to
travel to a regional site after the pairings are announced isn't difficult;
it's impossible.  It is an absolute must that there be sufficient fans to
draw within two or three hours drive in order to fill your arena.  That
means that home site advantages are a fact of life.  The reason that
Michigan is hosting the regional again next year is that they were the
*only* school to put in a bid for it.  After the ratings disaster in Madison
a few years ago, no one else was willing to take the risk, except maybe for
Minnesota, which is already busy hosting a basketball regional.  The
regional is in Colorado Springs in 2004, but I think that everyone needs to
hold their breath and pray that CC makes the field, or that one is going to
be a fiasco.

Remember: $1200 airfares
> Although there is a precedent with women's basketball, I'm dead set
against
> campus sites. Too much of an advantage for the home teams.  We already
have
> seen what home ice has done for Michigan twice in the last five years, do
we
> want to repeat it multiple times in the same year?  I hope not.

Would you rather have the home-ice advantage go to the higher seed or to the
team that risked its finances to put in a bid (or, *always* to a team in SE
Michigan, which can probably count on at least one local team making it).
Those are your choices, not a pipe dream to have the regional at a
legitimately neutral site.


J. Michael Neal