[wadszip]

Great post. You won't believe what those rascally folks at the NCAA are doing now. They are releasing figures that show D1 basketball is increasing in popularity, and those jerks at ESPN were dumb enough to print it.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=6432396
A suggestion to increase scoring and get college basketball out of decline; leave the three point line alone and lower the baskets to 9 feet.

Seriously, I can't tell if you are agreeing, or just being a douche. But from looking at your post history, I'm leaning toward you just being a flat-out douchebag.

P.S. I actually disagree with his much of his post, too.

[Zip Watcher]

Timely article in the WSJ this week.

Where are the fans?

I think there's a real risk of building too big. Gotta avoid that, and the noid.

See you in Tulsa.

Go Zips!

[GP1]

Great post. You won't believe what those rascally folks at the NCAA are doing now. They are releasing figures that show D1 basketball is increasing in popularity, and those jerks at ESPN were dumb enough to print it.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=6432396

This story only points to an increase. Doesn't say where the increase is coming from or gives any history of attendance beyond one year. The increase pointed to is an increase over the previous year, which was probably in decline because of the recession. While it may have increased, it may not be at the point where it was three years ago. Not just college basketball, but lots of industries are experiencing the same phenomena.

[zippy5]

This story only points to an increase. Doesn't say where the increase is coming from or gives any history of attendance beyond one year. The increase pointed to is an increase over the previous year, which was probably in decline because of the recession. While it may have increased, it may not be at the point where it was three years ago. Not just college basketball, but lots of industries are experiencing the same phenomena.

It's #5 all-time.

[GP1]

Timely article in the WSJ this week.

Where are the fans?

I think there's a real risk of building too big. Gotta avoid that, and the noid.

Thanks for posting ZW. It is a topic I'm interested in and saddened by. College basketball is great entertainment and it's sad to see it in decline. If the NCAA ever goes to a college football playoff, everything will become about the playoffs and not about the games themselves. It will be interesting for a few years, then the stupidity that has crept into college basketball will take hold and the decline will begin. ESPN will be right there to aid in the decline.

College of Charleston plays in TD Arena. They were on TV here last weekend the the talking head said it was their 5th sell out of the season. 5,100 seats is too small, but the configuration is great. A larger upper deck making the arena 7,000 seats would be perfect for the Zips.

Now...if we would just move the Zips to Charleston, I could go to a lot more games.

[GP1]

It's #5 all-time.

If it is growing, why isn't it #1? Arenas have only gotten bigger so the seating capacity has gotten bigger and fans aren't taking advantage of the increased size of arena. Building bigger arenas in the hope of fan interest and turnout is not the answer. An entertaining product with filled, smaller stadiums is the answer.

The reason so many new baseball stadiums were built as small as they are was to drive weekday ticket sales. The teams could easily sell Friday, Saturday and Sunday tickets. They made them smaller to drive sellouts on the weekend so fans who were interested, but without tickets, had to go to Monday-Thursday games. A 10,000 seat arena for Akron isn't the answer.

[zippy5]

If it is growing, why isn't it #1? Arenas have only gotten bigger so the seating capacity has gotten bigger and fans aren't taking advantage of the increased size of arena. Building bigger arenas in the hope of fan interest and turnout is not the answer. An entertaining product with filled, smaller stadiums is the answer.

The reason so many new baseball stadiums were built as small as they are was to drive weekday ticket sales. The teams could easily sell Friday, Saturday and Sunday tickets. They made them smaller to drive sellouts on the weekend so fans who were interested, but without tickets, had to go to Monday-Thursday games. A 10,000 seat arena for Akron isn't the answer.

You answered that yourself earlier, the economy. I certainly don't think CBB is in any trouble drawing the 5th most fans ever during crappy times. And the seating capacity all depends on the conference, imo. 7000-7500 for the MAC/CUSA...over 10k for the Big East.

[GP1]

You answered that yourself earlier, the economy. I certainly don't think CBB is in any trouble drawing the 5th most fans ever during crappy times. And the seating capacity all depends on the conference, imo. 7000-7500 for the MAC/CUSA...over 10k for the Big East.

Major League Baseball had a large increase in attandance over 2010 last season. If I'm not mistaken, it was their best season ever. Would you describe the condition of MLB as good or even ascending? Of course not, our national pastime is quickly becoming swallowed up by other forms of entertainment and is in steady decline and has been for a number of years now. TV viewership is terrible and 80% of the teams have no shot at ever even making the playoffs. People in cities like Pittsburgh and KC should never pay a dime to go watch their teams play. Don't count attendance as the only evidence that a sport is in decline or not. CBB is having problems and lots of people are starting to notice it. There are lots of ways to increase ticket sales through low prices, etc. Do we really want to build a 10,000 seat arena and then have $1.00 tickets just to fill the wasted space?

[zippy5]

I think one could make a pretty compelling argument that baseball is in the best shape of any professional sport right now, but that has nothing to do with this.

[Zipmeister]

Seriously, I can't tell if you are agreeing, or just being a douche. But from looking at your post history, I'm leaning toward you just being a flat-out douchebag.

P.S. I actually disagree with his much of his post, too.

I think my winking smiley face says it all.
I can't tell whether you really can't tell if I am agreeing with his post (since you say that you disagree with much of his post too) or just being a fully-inflated douchebag.
massive attendance stats available at:
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/m_basketball...attend/2011.pdf

[Blue & Gold]

I think an arena between 8,000 -10,000-seats is appropriate. Of course this is just my uneducated opinion. The U will have much consulting on this issue, probably receiving much input from the Big East, if, in fact, they are in discussions with the conference.

[Spin]

Has anyone brought up the UPA site at Forge and E. Market?

Yeah, the city wants it downtown, but they have no funds. The U wants it "on campus". Which is a couple blocks way. But that would give the University one heck of a footprint on E. Market. Parking would be a problem. Summa desnt have enough for itself (where does that sound familiar?).

Just thinking out loud.

[ZachTheZip]

Has anyone brought up the UPA site at Forge and E. Market?

Yeah, the city wants it downtown, but they have no funds. The U wants it "on campus". Which is a couple blocks way. But that would give the University one heck of a footprint on E. Market. Parking would be a problem. Summa desnt have enough for itself (where does that sound familiar?).

Just thinking out loud.

Forge and E. Market is still "downtown". It's just completely underdeveloped in that area. The area bordered by Market, Forge, Goodkirk, Perkins, and Union is just an enormous grass field twice the size of our football stadium. You could put an arena there and a major parking lot, and still leave enough spaces for businesses to develop along Market that would compliment an arena, like restaurants.

[Dave in Green]

One thing that would help reduce the cost of a new arena would be to use existing parking facilities. Parking decks are much more efficient uses of space than parking lots. There are plenty of parking decks downtown to support a new arena. There are also several parking decks on campus that could be used to support an on-campus arena if it was built in the right location.

One of my occasionally reliable sources recently mentioned to me that a leading location candidate for a new on-campus arena would be where the baseball field is presently located, with the baseball field to be relocated. If there's any substance to this, then the new arena would be about as close to UA's Exchange Street parking deck as the JAR is to the East Campus parking deck.

Another possibility that I mentioned in a previous thread would be to locate a new on-campus arena in the area between the JAR and the East Campus deck. This area is mostly parking lots plus a couple of small structures that could either be torn down or relocated to another area on campus. This has a couple of advantages, such as allowing for connection of the new arena to the JAR and continued use of the East Campus parking deck for basketball fans. You could even have an elevated, covered walkway over Spicer Street from the parking deck to the new arena, which would allow fans to get from their cars into the arena without having to walk outside.

Really, there are many different scenarios that could be made to work.

[Zipmeister]

A little bit off topic but...

a couple weeks ago I went into one of my professor's offices to meet with him. I walked into his office and the seats were like four connected wooden chairs. I sat down and didn't immediately put the pieces together and while examining it said "this is, uh, this is a bench?" He told me that it was a set of chairs from Memorial Hall. Pretty cool huh?

Cool. I did try to get a couple of tiles from the pool in Memorial Hall, but by the time I asked, according to the AD, the pool was covered with lots of dirt. I do, however, have in my office a hunk of the first artificial surface ever put down at the Rubber Bowl.