Glen Keeney writes:
>As to the revenue; that must not have been the reasoning behind allowing
>the 8/9 game in HE since HE dropped the other playoffs to single games
>rather than 2 of 3 - or perhaps the TV revenue more than made up for
>the loss of the extra 1 or 2 (per series) playoff game.  The $ must be
>there someplace - not just for NCAA but also all the conferences - and
>I guess all the schools for that matter.  $$ rule - long live the $ (or
>however that saying goes).
 
To a large extent, it is true that money plays a part.  HE apparently
covers a fair chunk of its annual operating costs from money made in
the postseason tourney.
 
I am not sure whether the league expects to lose money with only
single elimination games in the quarterfinals.  Certainly, they could
have made more with longer series.  But as has been mentioned here
before, HE opted to cut back the length of the quarterfinal series
because of the four straight weekends of tournament play in the Boston
area in March.  I do not know if HE will go back to longer series next
season.
 
At any rate, I don't believe the 8 vs 9 game was planned because of a
desire to make more money.  It may be that the game will draw
reasonably well since it is at BC (capacity 7,884), but it was also
possible until this weekend that the game would have been played at
Providence or Merrimack, two teams who have averaged under 2,000 at
best.
 
I think Sean Pickett's comments on this matter were very good,
especially as regards recruiting...HE knows that it helps its member
teams in recruiting to be able to guarantee PSAs that they will have a
shot, at least, at playing in the Garden every year and maybe even
going to the NC$$s.
 
Personally...I don't mind the fact that everyone makes it.  It does
seem not to make sense that a team like UMA can win four games and get
an NC$$ bid, but remember that in nearly every conference, anyone
below 4th or so isn't going to get in without winning the tourney
anyway.  I don't think most folks would advocate letting only the top
4 teams in.  And besides, you are already asking a lot for those teams
like UMA to win 4 straight games in order to get a bid...those
situations have hardly ever happened.
 
I will go on record as being one who would like to see the ECAC let
everyone in.  The race this year certainly was exciting, but would it
have been any less so if everyone had made it?  I don't think so, but
that is only my view as an outside observer.
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                                            [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93