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Post by The Cats on May 26, 2014 19:29:46 GMT -5
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Post by SCCat66 on May 26, 2014 21:23:14 GMT -5
The article was written by Charleston folks. As one who has attended all or part of the last 20 tournaments, I have always said that Charleston (and The Citadel) does a better job of hosting the tournament than Greenville. We can discuss the negative of using The Citadel's home field all day and change nothing.
The article blames the fall off in attendance with moving the site. That cannot be supported by facts.
(I created the following information with formatting, but that formatting does not hold when I "post". Hope you can understand the four pieces of information based upon the headings)
YEAR TOURNAMENT CHAMP TOTAL ATTENDANCE SITE
2003 Western Carolina 20,212 Charleston, S.C.
2004 The Citadel 35,150 Charleston, S.C.
2005 Furman 26,707 Charleston, S.C.
2006 College of Charleston 28,206 Charleston, S.C.
2007 Wofford 30,834 Charleston, S.C.
2008 Elon 15,144 Charleston, S.C.
2009 Georgia Southern 17,820 Greenville, S.C.
2010 The Citadel 21,511 Charleston, S.C.
2011 Georgia Southern 11,860 Charleston, S.C.
2012 Samford 18,336 Greenville, S.C.
2013 Elon 8,985 Greenville, S.C.
How would the writer explain the 2008 attendance being half the 2007 attendance? Because it had been announced that the tournament was going to be in Greenville the NEXT YEAR? I would explain it by the fact that The Citadel lost a play-in game and never really participated in the 2008 tournament. But Chuck made it to the final game that year, so the Charleston folks should have turned out... but didn't.
The tournament in Charleston will never draw as many in future years as it has in the past because of the departure of Chuck from SoCon.
I agree that the format of a one-game championship between the two bracket winners cannot be justified. TV has been the justification for going to that format. So that TV could be guaranteed WHEN THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME WOULD BE PLAYED. SoCon has no TV contract worth wiping your butt with. ESPN3. That's a joke.
But even the College World Series (with a rich TV contract from ESPN) has abandoned that one-game-take-all finals format. The CWS does double-elimination brackets and then the two bracket winners play 2 out of 3. (More games; more TV money.)
The last two years in the SoCon, each of the two final teams left town with one loss but one of the teams had the championship. This is WRONG. The Championship needs to be decided on the field, not in the SoCon office complex in Spartanburg.
What is the answer to the attendance problem? I think it is economics. A good part of it may be the general economic malaise in our country for the past 7-8 years. A good part of it may be the fact that gasoline continues to be well above $3.00. Both those things go counter to most folks having enough discretionary $$ to spend on stuff like attending the SoCon tournament.
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Post by wcu32 on May 31, 2014 0:33:13 GMT -5
I read that little quick but i did not see where they mention that the fall in attendance has alot to do with the Citadel not being very good those years. Yes they did make it a one game for championship for TV and its not on TV. Last year Elon would have had to beat Citadel twice and this year GSU would have had to beat Samford twice. Neither would have been able to do it probably which sucks for Citadel and Samford.
I dont know about you guys but most people i talk to like the tourney in Greenville better. Better park to watch game and more of neutral site. But yes its not best circumstance for attendance but little more fair.
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Post by The Cats on May 31, 2014 6:10:12 GMT -5
When CofC was still in the conference, Charleston had a much better chance of having higher attendance, especially when both Charleston and the Citadel were doing well in the tournament.
IMO, with CofC gone, the attendance will not go back up to those levels, regardless of how long the tournament remains in Charleston.
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