Valley leaving St Louis????

[Jays26]

If it's going to be moved, let's not go to a smaller market. It makes the MVC look even more smalltime.

Move the tournament to Chicago, keep it in St. Louis, or rotate it between the two.

Kansas City small time????? That is just a stupid statement.

[Jays26]

As far as Kansas City goes, are there a lot of larger hotels close to the arena? Usually when I attend meetings in KC the sites are the Overland Park area, Crown Center area and Country Club Plaza area. I know they have been revitalizing the downtown area and have heard about the power and light district but not familiar with what is offered. Kansas City is a cool town and one of my all time favorite resturants is Jack Stack at the freight house of Union Station. When at tournaments I usually attend all the games so there isn't much time for looking around but it is nice to have a late night dinner or refreshment if wanted. Either town would be fine with me.

Yes, there are plenty of hotels in the area. Many are walking distance to the arena. The Power & Light district is very nice with a lot of places to eat and drink. Not to mention the many other places right outside the Power & Light dist. I don't remember what the exact number was that I read but the revamp is billions and billions of dollars. And I think the locals would embrace the fans of the MVC much better than St. Louis.

[Red]

Obviously I'd like Chicago in a rotation, but I'll bet anyone $10 it's going to be in STL a long time. Elgin is a poor bluffer.

[DoubleJayAlum]

Obviously I'd like Chicago in a rotation, but I'll bet anyone $10 it's going to be in STL a long time. Elgin is a poor bluffer.

I certainly won't take your bet, but KC might be much more motivated to make a competitive bid this time. With Mizzou no longer in the Big 12, it certainly seems feasible that KC could lose the Big 12 basketball tourney completely or a rotation is split up between northern and southern venues. If that happens, KC needs "content" for their new arena and our conference tourney is pretty lucrative to the communities that host it. I'd at least expect a competitive bid.

[uniftw]

FWIW...here are three different calculations as to where the geographic center of the conference is.


The first one is the "center of gravity" between all 10 cities.
The second is the "center of minimum distance" between all 10 cities.
The third is the "geographic center of latitude and longitude" between all 10 cities.








The third is ever so slightly more south than the first one.


KC is the geographic center of MSU, WSU, and Omaha. Add Drake and it shifts to about St. Joes. After that is goes east very very quickly.

[Dean Wormer]

Interesting....

Since 2 of the 3 are nearly identical, the solution seems pretty clear.

We get Hannibal, MO to agree to build a 10-15K arena, in turn, we agree to make them the permanent host. We will be the biggest thing to hit there since Mark Twain.

Heck, maybe we can get Quincy, Hannibal and Keokuk to engage in a bidding war.

[Ali]

I don't think UNI fans are as married to STL as a couple of schools are. KC would be fine by me. It's funny how Illinois State, Bradley, SIU (etc, etc) fans say they just won't go if it's not in STL. The longer drive hasn't stopped WSU and CU all these years. Support your team no matter where it's at.

[LanceShock]

There are other ways to look at this.

Kansas City
Closest school: MSU at 197 miles
Second closest school: CU at 184 miles
Farthest school: UE at 419 miles
Second farthest school: IlSU at 378 miles

St. Louis
Closest school: SIU at 101 miles
Second closest school: IlSU at 168 miles
Farthest school: WSU at 446 miles
Second farthest school: CU at 437 miles

Overall, the distance is less to St Louis on average, but you also have more disparity between the closest and farthest schools than with Kansas City. In my mind at least, one requirement of a good neutral site would be that it spreads the burden as evenly as possible. In a lot of ways, a rotation between Kansas City and St Louis would help spread the burden of travel the best.

I would much prefer to see the center of the minimum squares of distance over center of minimum distance. It would probably still be somewhat close to St Louis, but it would get closer to Kansas City than the other graphs.

This is also why Chicago would be a terrible site. The schools that are close to St Louis would tend to be close to Chicago and the schools that are farther away would be EVEN farther away than with St Louis.

[bcg]

This is also why Chicago would be a terrible site. The schools that are close to St Louis would tend to be close to Chicago and the schools that are farther away would be EVEN farther away than with St Louis.

I don't think Chicago is a realistic location, but it does have $$$ and alumni. You would be catering to a different crowd.

[DoubleJayAlum]

It's funny how Illinois State, Bradley, SIU (etc, etc) fans say they just won't go if it's not in STL. The longer drive hasn't stopped WSU and CU all these years. Support your team no matter where it's at.

This is exactly what I predicted early in this thread. The eastern schools, for the most part, barely support the tourney now even though it is in their backyard. SIU fans support it in great numbers when SIU is good, but don't show up at all when SIU is bad.

Chicago would be an epic mistake on many levels. If the eastern schools won't support the tourney now, why reward those same fans by moving it even further east? All you will do is alienate more of the fans from the west, who are the ones that actually support the tourney now.