(05-24-2016 03:26 PM)monarx Wrote:  

(05-24-2016 11:58 AM)Eagleholic Wrote:  

(05-24-2016 11:01 AM)monarx Wrote:  Nothing against El Paso, but it sucks for the vast majority of the conference. There won't be 2,000 people there outside of UTEP fans. Hope they get a big corporate sponsor or something. Isn't a conference tournament supposed to generate enough revenue to pay the administration costs for the conference each year? Good luck. At least Birmingham is slightly more central, even if its not an exciting or welcoming locale.

I'm not sure that there have been 2,000 fans outside of the home team in the past 10 years.

Seriously, with 14 teams in this conference we can't get 2000 from 13 schools combined?!! If thats the case this conference is just sad. I'm being a bit hypocritical because I haven't been to one yet since they've been in El Paso and Birmingham, but I did go to about 15 in a row when it was within driving distance. Theres no excuse for a top half division 1 conference to only have a couple thousand fans in attendance. The CIAA draws 5X that and they're D2.

http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/m_basketba...d/2015.pdf

Here are some quick numbers from 2014 that show CUSA a little better off. Was it in El Paso that year?

I find it hard to believe that Birmingham tournaments don't draw 2,000 traveling fans, I'll grant I haven't made it to one personally, but MT/WKU conservatively brought nearly half that to Hot Springs Arkansas both times I went for SBC tournaments.