attending tournaments

[Shocker4Life]

Last year the MVC tourney had larger attendence figures than all of the BCS conference tourneys.

Umm not quite. I'm pretty sure the ACC had the most. I think we had a larger attendance than a couple BCS conferences but not all. At any rate it's still a great tournament.

[rayc]

Sorry, but there is NO way the ACC tournament in Tampa this year outdrew the MVC tournament in St. Louis.

The figures released by the ACC (as well as the Big12 and probably others) are the arena capacity multiplied by the number of sessions and have no bearing on actual attendance. To get an accurate picture of the ACC draw outside of the shadows of the NC schools, multiply the “official” figures by 0.5 to 0.6.

They love to be considered a traveling juggernaut, but the truth is they are not. The only sellout, if I recall correctly, was the final.

[rrshock]

Sorry, but there is NO way the ACC tournament in Tampa this year outdrew the MVC tournament in St. Louis.

The figures released by the ACC (as well as the Big12 and probably others) are the arena capacity multiplied by the number of sessions and have no bearing on actual attendance. To get an accurate picture of the ACC draw outside of the shadows of the NC schools, multiply the “official” figures by 0.5 to 0.6.

They love to be considered a traveling juggernaut, but the truth is they are not. The only sellout, if I recall correctly, was the final.

The couple of games I saw on the TV from the ACC tourney last year appeared to show a whole lot of empty seats. Unless they were all sold out and people from other schools only watch their school play and none of the others, I am guessing they fibbed a little.

[rayc]

They don’t “fib a little”, they lie through their teeth. Tickets available for sale at the gate at game time belie a “ticket sales” in lieu of “turnstile count” argument.

There are no rules or regulations that require accurate figures on attendance; if the league office (any league) announced 100,000 as the game attendance, that would be the “official” tournament attendance figure published and used by the NCAA, although reporting more than 100% of capacity would likely draw some ridicule.

A local reporter here in Tampa asked the ACC league office why they were reporting sellouts when there were no more than a couple of thousand in attendance. The league response was that the “official attendance” is the number of tickets released by the league office. Since 100% of the tickets are released, all games will be reported as sellouts.

This “accounting method” appears to be popular with other BCS conferences as well. It’s more than an ego trip for them, although that is part of it. These figures are what cities base their calculations on when they determine how many tax dollars to spend to get a tournament to come to their town. When there is no law against lying and there is money to be made by doing so, don’t expect the truth.

[rrshock]

So where would the MVC stand if they did the same thing?

[rayc]

I’m speculating, of course, but based on the fact that the MVC championship game was #1 in attendance, and the MVC has 5 sessions vs. 6 sessions for many conferences, the MVC would probably have ranked #1 in average attendance and in the top 2 or 3 in total attendance.

Not that it would matter, if everyone used this method of counting, attendance figures would only tell you who booked the largest arena.

I’m just old school on attendance figures; they should reflect turnstile count only. If a team or conference wants to include tickets sold or any other criteria as an addendum, that’s fine, but attendance figures should reflect just that.

[DoubleJayAlum]

So where would the MVC stand if they did the same thing?

I can tell you for a fact, that there were no available tickets for sale on either Saturday or Sunday for last year's MVC tourney. On Saturday, all of the scalpers that normally pollute the area outside the arena were even sold out. Creighton had several thousand fans who travelled to ST Louis, but were unable to watch the Saturday game. If more tickets were available for sale, they actual attendence would have been much higher.

Obviously for those travelling from as far away as both WSu and CU do, my recommendation is to purchase the all session pass through the school. I've done that for years and have never had to to find tickets. The only time you have to deal with scalpers is if you want to sell some of your tix.

[Ricky Del Rio]

So where would the MVC stand if they did the same thing?

I can tell you for a fact, that there were no available tickets for sale on either Saturday or Sunday for last year's MVC tourney. On Saturday, all of the scalpers that normally pollute the area outside the arena were even sold out. Creighton had several thousand fans who travelled to ST Louis, but were unable to watch the Saturday game. If more tickets were available for sale, they actual attendence would have been much higher.

Obviously for those travelling from as far away as both WSu and CU do, my recommendation is to purchase the all session pass through the school. I've done that for years and have never had to to find tickets. The only time you have to deal with scalpers is if you want to sell some of your tix.

Are you saying there are several thousand "fair weather" Creighton fans?

<Just messin' with you.>

[WuDrWu]

"Several thousand"??????????????????????????



Let's be realistic. The only way that statement would be even remotely close is if it was worded as follows:


"There were several thousand Nebraska football fans in St Louis that wanted to bandwaggon on the Bluejay basketball team train that found trading Husker Bill Bobblehead dolls for semi final tickets next to impossible".

[rayc]

WuDrWu:

"There were several thousand Nebraska football fans in St Louis that wanted to bandwaggon on the Bluejay basketball team train that found trading Husker Bill Bobblehead dolls for semi final tickets next to impossible".

Ya got to love it! :clap: :yahoo:

[rrshock]

I think this is gonna be the year that I buy the all-session tickets. The baby will be almost 1, my now 2 1/2 yr old has been once, but wasn't old enough to remember, and should enjoy St. Louis.

It would be great for the MVC to actually sell out on all-session passes this season. A team needs to hit the top 15 and stay there for it to happen, but I feel it is possible. 2 teams in the top 25 going to St. Louis would make it even better.