Crazy thought-Big Sky tourney neutral site

[BelgradeBobcat]

Truthfully, I think the Big Sky gets it right having the regular season champ host the Big Sky tournament. If the league thinks they must have a tourament, it's only right that the best team has the best chance to win it and go to the big dance. I know this system is unlikely to change. But...I'm not ready to talk about 2014 football recruits yet so I'm filling space on the basketball board.

I'm watching a lot of these conference basketball tournaments and most of them are at a neutral site. Some are played in very empty arenas, and some are full. But the neutral sites have more of a tournament feel than those played at a home site. The problem with the Big Sky is that it is so far flung and so lightly followed that there is no obvious central location to host the tourney that is close enough for fans to travel to, will generate enough local interest to fill seats yet be neutral enough. A lot of western leagues hold their tournament in Las Vegas, but the Big Sky doesn't have enough fans either that travel or live there to fill a Jr. High gym.

So I got to thinking, is there a place with a decent arena, enough hotels and motels for the teams and fans, and a populace that would attend the games? The answer is Butte! The Civic Center is not too big, but big enough, and I think the people of Butte would go crazy for it. It'd be a ton of fun (who wouldn't have fun partying in Butte?) Butte is a fairly easy drive for MSU, UM, ISU, WSU, EWU and Idaho when they join. The other schools would have to fly in-which is probably the achilles heal of this proposal because Butte's airport doesn't have many flights, but they could always fly into Bozeman or Helena and bus over. The neutral site would be set and fans could plan their spring break around going to the tournament-heck I know I would. I would also have all teams go and give the top teams first round byes. It won't happen I know, but it would be fun.

So...if not Butte, are there any other appropriately sized neutral venues that would work? Billings, Great Falls, Idaho Falls, Salt Lake City, Spokane...etc.

[BelgradeBobcat]

If the Big Sky ever does decide to go to a neutral site, this might be the perfect venue in a pretty central location (as central as you can get in the Big Sky)

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[MSU01]

If the Big Sky were to go to a neutral site tournament, they would first need to change the format to include all 11 teams. Because you can't expect fans to plan a trip to a known location in advance when there is a chance their team wont even be playing there at all. Butte sounds nice but good luck getting other schools to agree to essentially a home tournament for the Montana schools! I really think the only realistic option is Vegas, but even it wouldn't draw more than mediocre crowds - but at least it is easy to get to by air or car from most BSC towns.

All in all I think the conference is getting it right by awarding the tournament to the regular season champion. I just wish it were in Bozeman a bit more regularly!

[MSUcantouchus]

All i know is that the reg season champ should get auto birth to the champ game.

[MSU01]

All i know is that the reg season champ should get auto birth to the champ game.

If you're going to do that, you might as well go Ivy League style and ditch the conference tournament altogether! I imagine it would save quite a bit of money and would allow the conference to get rid of the December conference games.

[kcatz]

Not to be a Debbie Downer but here are two reasons why Butte would not work:

1. The 2012 tournament was held the first weekend of March. In 2013 Butte hosted the State B boy and girls tournament the first weekend of March.

2. In 2013 the tournament is essentially St.Patricks weekend and hotels in Butte are always booked for St.Patty's. The civic center may be available but Butte is pretty much at capacity.

[dwainegf]

If you are looking for a party Butte on St Patty's day is definitely a place to go. I used to live there and I was always amazed at the turnout.
I believe Idaho Falls would be a perfect neutral site although I doubt the tournament would get a big crowd. Even the best teams don't draw very big crowds. I miss the late 80's when there wasn't anything to do and the Cats would always have large crowds. Now there isn't very many people at the games and the arena is like a morgue. I drive up from SLC,UT to attend at least 2 games a year. I often wonder why aren't the students at the game? It would be nice to get them back but I'm not sure that having a winning team is enough. Some other marketing may be needed to get them back. Too much competition for their time with the game systems, internet....

[SonomaCat]

SLC, Spokane or Denver would probably be decent options, given the air connections and driving distances. Or maybe even Reno? It ain't Vegas, but it would be far more centrally located and still have all of the sins to keep people entertained?

[BelgradeBobcat]

SLC, Spokane or Denver would probably be decent options, given the air connections and driving distances. Or maybe even Reno? It ain't Vegas, but it would be far more centrally located and still have all of the sins to keep people entertained?

I was thinking of Reno too. Vegas is pretty full with the WCC, WAC, MWC, and Pac-12 tournaments all being there.

I was watching the Summit League Championship in Sioux Falls last night. Total attendance for the men's and women's tournament was something like 45,000-which is pretty good considering the Sioux Falls Arena only holds a little over 6,000 for basketball. It also doesn't hurt that South Dakota State is only 50 miles away and has the best men's and women's programs in that league. But it's a real event for that league. I was a little jealous-the Big Sky just doesn't have something like that...and probably never will.

Sioux Falls is building a new 12,000 seat arena-so that tournament has room to grow.

Anyone know if the Big Sky loses much money on the Big Sky tourney? Do they clear enough to cover each team's travel costs? How do teams schedule airline travel with less than a week's notice of where the tournament is going to be? It must be a real headache.

[BelgradeBobcat]

According to NAU's radio/tv guy Mitch Strohman on twitter, NAU flew to Spokane and will bus to Missoula from there. I'm sure the tournament at the reg. season winner is a logistical nightmare-NAU didn't know they were in the tourney and UM didn't know for sure that they were hosting until Saturday.

[marceag]

Vegas...who cares what venue, just find a way. Would be a blast for everyone involved. All the other western conferences do it and it gets great reviews (except whats left of the WAC).

[allcat]

The tourney is just an excuse for several bad coaches to proclaim "we sucked, but we made the tournament". If you don't have a winning record in conference you should not get to go.

[SonomaCat]

Vegas...who cares what venue, just find a way. Would be a blast for everyone involved. All the other western conferences do it and it gets great reviews (except whats left of the WAC).

The downside is that you'd be taking all of that revenue and economic impact that could be going to a member-school state and giving it to a state that now has nothing to do with the BSC ... same with Reno.

[SonomaCat]

Portland actually wouldn't be a terrible site, either, assuming you could get the locals at least a little bit interested in it to get some additional attendance. And it's a very fun city (way more fun, in my eyes, than Vegas, but I'm probably in the minority on that one).

[marceag]

Vegas...who cares what venue, just find a way. Would be a blast for everyone involved. All the other western conferences do it and it gets great reviews (except whats left of the WAC).

The downside is that you'd be taking all of that revenue and economic impact that could be going to a member-school state and giving it to a state that now has nothing to do with the BSC ... same with Reno.

True, I saw that having both tourney's in Missoula is going to generate just under one million for local businesses, which is a nice boost.

2 reasons I see to have it in a neutral site are that teams (and fans) can book plans earlier saving them on travel costs. Teams couldn't book their plans for Missoula until Saturday. Having a tourney in a larger area with a neutral site has the potential to showcase the Big Sky conference. Not sure how well it would work with a conference like the Big Sky though...

[SonomaCat]

Vegas...who cares what venue, just find a way. Would be a blast for everyone involved. All the other western conferences do it and it gets great reviews (except whats left of the WAC).

The downside is that you'd be taking all of that revenue and economic impact that could be going to a member-school state and giving it to a state that now has nothing to do with the BSC ... same with Reno.

True, I saw that having both tourney's in Missoula is going to generate just under one million for local businesses, which is a nice boost.

2 reasons I see to have it in a neutral site are that teams (and fans) can book plans earlier saving them on travel costs. Teams couldn't book their plans for Missoula until Saturday. Having a tourney in a larger area with a neutral site has the potential to showcase the Big Sky conference. Not sure how well it would work with a conference like the Big Sky though...

Yeah, I agree on 2 above ... I was just voicing the concern about putting it in a state that doesn't even have a BSC member within it. The more I think about it, though, the less that probably is a real consideration. It's not like a lot of people would care if SLC or Denver or Portland got additional business, as very little of that would trickle down to the member school in that state, anyway. If there was a city that could create a lot of interest/revenue from the event itself, there'd probably be a lot more money at stake for the member schools/conference directly from the event than from the subsequent economic development of the city.

That probably made no sense ... so apologies.

[SonomaCat]

I don't know how plausible this is, but would it be possible for the BSC schedule to be front-loaded, so that the conference champion (and therefore tourney host) would be determined two or three weeks prior to the tournament, and then play non-conference games during those last two weeks or so as tune-up games?

I suspect it would be virtually impossible to schedule enough quality non-conference games at the part of the season, but that approach would at least make it possible for fans to make plans and book reasonably-priced plane tickets to attend the tournament.

[BelgradeBobcat]

Thanks all for indulging me in this thread. Like I said, the Big Sky probably does it right-considering the nature of the league.

If they were to go to a neutral site I think it would have to be in a decent sized town with a nice, but compact arena, with nothing else going on. The big cities in our footprint won't turn out. Seattle, Spokane, Salt Lake, Portland, San Francisco, Phoenix, Denver-simply won't show for a low major conference like the Big Sky. The Summit League has a lot of big cities in their foot print too, but they go to Sioux Falls. Sioux Falls is a big town but there's no high major teams and no major league teams anywhere close-so they go nuts for the Summit League tournament. It probably also helps that the entire Siouxland area of South Dakota and NW Iowa is hoops crazy.

The new arena in Idaho Falls arena is intriguing, but their airport has limited flights.

Maybe with Idaho coming into the league Boise will want to take another shot at it (lots of UI alums in Boise)-they've got a nice downtown arena of the appropriate size (Idaho Center I think it's called).

[aucat]

Considering that the odds for MSU ever winning the BSC and hosting a tourney here (what, 5%?), then heck, yea, I'm all for a neutral site. Better than playing in Missoula every other year.

[Toucat]

Several years ago the winner of the BSC regular season title would host the tournament the following year. A locked in site for the tournament was established, but complaints were that winning the regular season title didn't really mean much with the BSC being a one team league for the NCAA tournament and the number of upsets, and they often had very low attendance with the team hosting either not being very good that year or at times not even making the tournament. Having the regular season champ host was adopted to address those problems, at the cost of making it difficult to plan ahead.