Bulldog4life24 wrote:Bulldog2323 wrote: St Louis, excluding this year depending on your worldview, has been a great host.
I obviously don’t post a lot here, but would like people’s views on this. Before WSU/CU left I think it would have been a no brainer to give KC a chance, but maybe not now. And I’m not sure there’s a great option, but Indy should get a hard look.
But has St Louis been a great host? I’m not sure how to think about “host” but a few thing I’d point out, and if my math is correct I think I just attended my 28th Arch Madness-
Ballpark Village was a SIGNIFICANT upgrade as it had gotten to the point that the city was really tired, at least in the area where hotels and arena are at.
I’m not sure if outside of NY/Boston/LA there is an arena in the country that has such high prices for food and drink. I recall going to OKC for NCAA games and it stood out how much cheaper food was. If you compare to what Arthur Blank did when he opened Mercedes stadium in ATL with fan friendly pricing (obviously extreme) the STL prices are 3x ATL. A bottle of water at Enterprise is $6.
I’m sure there are a lot of good people that work at arena but I’ve also experienced or witnessed a fair number of employees (ticket takers/ushers) who are “less than friendly”. I’m sure there was 2 sides to the story but they kicked out a UNI fan for not having his mask up Thursday night when he said he was drinking beer. There was no one near him other than his party (really hardly anyone in the entire arena) and there were TWO MINUTES left in the game.
I think the street poles in the few blocks around the arena that have Arch Madness banners are the banners purchased 20 years ago. There isn’t really anything around town that makes it feel like a big event is going on.
Maybe the reality is accepting the state of the Valley and its finances and fan support and this is what we get. The league needs MSU/SIU/BU/ISUr to get back to consistent success and hopefully the fane support they have shown in the past. That can drive more buzz in STL. Even hearing the less than 100 SIU fans Thursday night doing the SIU chant Thursday night reminds me of the days when that would be deafening at the tournament. As a UNI fan it almost felt unfair as it was a damn near road game, but it was also awesome.