Arch Madness to move??

[COUTEAU]

Move Thursday game to Wednesday
# 7 seed hosts #10 seed
#8 seed hosts #9 seed

Fri-Sat-Sun games as usual, with the regular season Conference Champion awarded as host of MVC tournament.

[pafan]

What arena in the geographical footprint of the Valley has the amenities and hotels available that would be smaller and not a "home court" advantage to one school?

Family Arena, St. Charles, MO. Capacity 10,467.

Closer to Lambert Field than Scottrade.

[m-v-c]

Strategically, St. Louis is perfect. The arena is a mile or so from conference headquarters, it's a larger media market than all but Chicago, it's the epicenter of the league footprint, and it's easy to get to by car, train, or air. The local media gives great coverage, which attracts a good number of fans not personally affiliated with any particular MVC team.

The problem is without a high quality credible rivalry (e.g., WSU & Creighton) the stakes are much lower. If, for instance, WSU was "merely" a Top 25 team, and ISUb or MSU had beaten WSU at home to make the conference more of a horserace, there would have been more interest from more teams. In that case, Bradley, SIU, UNI, and ISUr fans would have held out hope that they could have lucked into a more plausible matchup should they have reached the final. You have to go back to maybe 2004 or 1998 the last time that dynamic wasn't really in place, and I'd be interested to compare this year's attendance to those years.

This year in particular, the prospect of knocking off WSU was nearly inconceivable. The gulf between WSU and the rest of the league was enormous. This was the first season since 1985 that a team had gone into the tournament undefeated in league play.

Well said. Think this year's attendance was affected by just the lack of real challengers to WSU. If there were even a couple teams who were considered legit challengers to them, the attendance would've reflected that. In general, the more teams this league has in contention for at-large bids, the better attendance will be. Won't always be 5-6 teams like there were in 2006, but no reason why there shouldn't be 2-3 at least most years. And if there are, those teams' fans will travel. And indeed it will help if at least one of those teams is SIU, Bradley or Ill. St.

[unipanther99]

Calculating the mid-point of all the schools, it seems fair and logical that the tournament should be moved to the 7700 seat Prairie Capital Convention Center Arena in Springfield, IL.

http://www.springfieldpccc.com/floorplan.htm

[rlh04d]

Move Thursday game to Wednesday
# 7 seed hosts #10 seed
#8 seed hosts #9 seed

Fri-Sat-Sun games as usual, with the regular season Conference Champion awarded as host of MVC tournament.

Would have to find a way to remove the financial incentive to host those games. Otherwise the hosting team gets an extra home game payday.

[unipanther99]

Move Thursday game to Wednesday
# 7 seed hosts #10 seed
#8 seed hosts #9 seed

Fri-Sat-Sun games as usual, with the regular season Conference Champion awarded as host of MVC tournament.

Would have to find a way to remove the financial incentive to host those games. Otherwise the hosting team gets an extra home game payday.

Typically the gate would go to the conference office, minus expenses. I really hope we don't go that route. I'd much rather see a smaller neutral site venue than return to on-campus. It just says "low-major" to me.

[Mikovio]

It's no mystery why attendance in STL is down. Nearby SIU and Bradley have been bad since Lowery and Les ran the programs into the ground. And ISU Red has only been slightly better in that time. If those teams start contending again you'll see their fan bases wake up and travel.

[ptownbraves]

How many additional Wichita State fans would travel to KC over St. Louis? A few hundred, a few thousand? Drake, UNI and MoSt likely add a few hundred also. I'd be curious if that outweighs the number you lose by moving from STL for the 4 Illinois schools and 2 Indiana schools.

[DUShock]

One item that would need to be addressed is the Illinois Valley Conference Tournament's brand. "Arch Madness" is cool. It is my guess that a change in venue would require a substantial financial and marketing incentive for the Valley office to actually pull the trigger. I personally would love to see it KC but I don't know if they are as interested in having the tournament as some of us are in having it there.

Go Valley!

Go Shocks!!

[Cdizzle]

How many additional Wichita State fans would travel to KC over St. Louis? A few hundred, a few thousand? Drake, UNI and MoSt likely add a few hundred also. I'd be curious if that outweighs the number you lose by moving from STL for the 4 Illinois schools and 2 Indiana schools.

Extra thousands of Shocker fans would go to KC. Not enough to make up for years when SIU is good, but I think other than that it would be a net plus every year.

It doesn't matter though. It will not be moved from St. Louis until they have to give up the large arena and consider small arenas or on-campus sites. Maybe they would move it to Chicago in a few years.