Just curious if y’all would be interested in a central location for our championship tournaments? I feel like Huntsville would make a lot of sense. They have a nice arena. Von Braun Center seats 10k and is centrally located. Toyota Field for baseball. Thoughts?

That’s a good location!

I would also suggest...
1. Pensacola, FL
2. Panama City, FL
3. Chattanooga, TN
4. Nashville, TN (I guess that wouldn’t be fair would it?)

But I also like it being hosted by ASUN schools that have the infrastructure to do so... like Lynchburg, Jax, Ft. Myers, etc.

(03-10-2021 04:39 PM)Ewglenn Wrote:  Just curious if y’all would be interested in a central location for our championship tournaments? I feel like Huntsville would make a lot of sense. They have a nice arena. Von Braun Center seats 10k and is centrally located. Toyota Field for baseball. Thoughts?

I've wanted to use Toyota Field for baseball tournament... It's nice.

The VBC is okay.

I also like Pensicola...

I think Nashville provides a nice, central location while being easy to get to whether is by driving or plane.

Count me in for Smashville™.

I wouldn’t mind some kind of destination city within the conference footprint.

Nashville
Atlanta
Jacksonville,Fl
Louisville
Orlando
Tampa

All are spots that usually have affordable flights and they offer more entertainment opportunities than say Evansville, IN. These cities also offer multiple quality arenas as options.

We need a central location. The way the ASUN has been doing it does not lend itself to a showcase event on TV. It was very noticed by our fan base that the ASUN and the OVC played their semi-finals on the same night. The OVC double-header was on ESPNU while the ASUN was just streaming on ESPN+. That needs to change.

Also, it wouldn't be centrally located at all, but count me in for Louisville!!!!!!

(03-11-2021 08:19 AM)eku05 Wrote:  We need a central location. The way the ASUN has been doing it does not lend itself to a showcase event on TV. It was very noticed by our fan base that the ASUN and the OVC played their semi-finals on the same night. The OVC double-header was on ESPNU while the ASUN was just streaming on ESPN+. That needs to change.

I agree 100% with aiming for a central location. Making the tourney convenient for as many fans as possible is more than just fan service. It makes the difference between a wild and crazy packed house for semis and the championship game versus a quarter-filled, oversized arena that screams low-tier mid-major.

When you're on ESPN, you don't want to do anything that even whispers low-tier. It fails to capture the interest of non-fans (i.e., ratings), it fails to capture the interest of high school players (i.e., recruitment), and in addition to the lower ticket sales at the arena itself, the lack of excitement both compromises the conference's leverage in negotiating future TV deals and plays at least a small role in eliminating any chance of an at-large bid for the conference (i.e., revenue).

Ratings ... Recruitment ... Revenue ...

(03-10-2021 08:58 PM)Hradmiralsfan Wrote:  All are spots that usually have affordable flights and they offer more entertainment opportunities than say Evansville, IN.

HA! When I saw this thread, my first thought was, "Anything's better than Evansville..."

When I said "we need a central location" what I guess I really meant was that we need a single, neutral site as opposed to the campus locations that the ASUN has used in most recent years. Relative central location is good, although a true central location in this fairly widespread league would mean it's always a pretty long haul for the likes of EKU and Bellarmine in the North and the Florida schools in the South.

I'm fine with rotating a little. Jacksonville is a nice location. Nashville would be halfway decent for a number of schools. Obviously the league is headquartered in Atlanta. Louisville isn't perfect, but by TV ratings it is the #1 college basketball market in the country. I'd like to think my city would embrace being the host of a conference tournament.

(03-11-2021 11:24 AM)eku05 Wrote:  When I said "we need a central location" what I guess I really meant was that we need a single, neutral site as opposed to the campus locations that the ASUN has used in most recent years.

Oh, I agree... It can certainly rotate to different locations each year, and while I stand by my comment that a central geographical location should be our aim, it's not like we absolutely need to have a tight spread.

In fact, widening that spread to include the occasional visit to Louisville or the Florida coast would probably be preferable to a rigid, geographically centralized location.

For instance, Atlanta is definitely centralized and convenient to a several schools -- and crazy convenient for JSU and KSU -- but it's far less convenient for EKU, Bellarmine, UCA, Liberty, and the Florida schools. It wouldn't be fair at all to those schools to hold it in Atlanta every year. (JSU knows all about this sort of thing from our time in the OVC.)

So a rotation may be the ideal setup. Each year, the tournament -- or at least the semis and championship -- would be held in a single location, but that location could rotate each season from one destination city to another, all within the conference footprint. Atlanta, then Jacksonville (FL), then Nashville, then Louisville, then Tampa Bay, etc.

Just make sure that when fans have to travel, they have a place worth traveling to.

(I'll save everyone some time. Go ahead and take Birmingham and Montgomery off the list.)

Count me in as someone that would like to see a neutral-site location.

I'm biased because I live here, but honestly I think Chattanooga would be the perfect location. The Mocs' arena seems it would be the right size for what most of our fanbases could expect to draw. There are plenty of hotels and things for visitors to do while in town. It's decent travel for most of the conference. The airport is big enough to have a few direct flights, including Orlando for the Florida schools. Of course, the prerequisite to playing at UTC Arena would probably be for the Mocs to actually join the conference.

If the conference splits into divisions, I also wouldn't mind to see it alternate between hosting sites yearly. Not too many people complain about having to travel to Florida in early March.

Here’s the drawback with a central location..... fan support. The ASUN has almost NO fan support. Most schools have a hard enough time getting fans to come to home games, much less travel for a multi-day road tournament. Empty arenas don’t look good on TV. I am lumping Liberty in here as well, even with the streak we’ve been on. Though I love the idea of ASUN tournaments rotating to cool places for fans to visit, I just don’t think it’s feasible at this time.

(03-11-2021 02:16 PM)army56mike Wrote:  Here’s the drawback with a central location..... fan support. The ASUN has almost NO fan support. Most schools have a hard enough time getting fans to come to home games, much less travel for a multi-day road tournament. Empty arenas don’t look good on TV. I am lumping Liberty in here as well, even with the streak we’ve been on. Though I love the idea of ASUN tournaments rotating to cool places for fans to visit, I just don’t think it’s feasible at this time.

Yeah, I get that. But I think part of the way you build a successful brand is by getting your conference, and especially your tournament on TV. We just need to pick a good arena, curtain parts of it off if we need to, and put the entire crowd on the side of the arena that the camera will see. You can dress it up a little bit, and maybe we can find ways to get locals in the host city to come out with some good deals on tickets, etc.

I think we if we really want to build this conference the TV piece of it is key.

But this is the part where I miss a school like Murray State who just travels in droves to the OVC tournament.

(03-11-2021 02:53 PM)eku05 Wrote:  

(03-11-2021 02:16 PM)army56mike Wrote:  Here’s the drawback with a central location..... fan support. The ASUN has almost NO fan support. Most schools have a hard enough time getting fans to come to home games, much less travel for a multi-day road tournament. Empty arenas don’t look good on TV. I am lumping Liberty in here as well, even with the streak we’ve been on. Though I love the idea of ASUN tournaments rotating to cool places for fans to visit, I just don’t think it’s feasible at this time.

Yeah, I get that. But I think part of the way you build a successful brand is by getting your conference, and especially your tournament on TV. We just need to pick a good arena, curtain parts of it off if we need to, and put the entire crowd on the side of the arena that the camera will see. You can dress it up a little bit, and maybe we can find ways to get locals in the host city to come out with some good deals on tickets, etc.

I think we if we really want to build this conference the TV piece of it is key.

But this is the part where I miss a school like Murray State who just travels in droves to the OVC tournament.

The tv piece has a pretty simple solution, we need better games to present to ESPN. Usually the home sites are pretty packed for the tournament. This year obviously was different due to covid. I mean look at the match ups for the semi finals:

OVC
26-3 Belmont vs 18-9 JSU
22-7 Moorhead St vs 22-7 EKU

ASUN
22-5 Liberty vs 11-14 Stetson
13-10 UNA vs 10-8 FGCU

(03-11-2021 11:24 AM)eku05 Wrote:  I'm fine with rotating a little. Jacksonville is a nice location. Nashville would be halfway decent for a number of schools. Obviously the league is headquartered in Atlanta. Louisville isn't perfect, but by TV ratings it is the #1 college basketball market in the country. I'd like to think my city would embrace being the host of a conference tournament.

Yeah, if the conference ever gets to the point of having a centralized tournament at rotating sites, one has to think that Louisville would be in the mix. Bellarmine fans should turn out at least in that event -- I recall a couple of D-II Elite Eight games in 2012 or so at NKU's then-new arena, and the Knights had 4,000 or so fans there, including yours truly.

(03-11-2021 05:37 PM)BellarmineGrad Wrote:  

(03-11-2021 11:24 AM)eku05 Wrote:  I'm fine with rotating a little. Jacksonville is a nice location. Nashville would be halfway decent for a number of schools. Obviously the league is headquartered in Atlanta. Louisville isn't perfect, but by TV ratings it is the #1 college basketball market in the country. I'd like to think my city would embrace being the host of a conference tournament.

Yeah, if the conference ever gets to the point of having a centralized tournament at rotating sites, one has to think that Louisville would be in the mix. Bellarmine fans should turn out at least in that event -- I recall a couple of D-II Elite Eight games in 2012 or so at NKU's then-new arena, and the Knights had 4,000 or so fans there, including yours truly.

I would certainly hope you'd get a halfway decent turnout of Colonel faithful from 90 minutes away as well. Besides that, EKU has plenty of alumni living in Louisville (including your truly). I don't think it would be 4,000 by any stretch, but there would be some maroon in the crowd for sure.

I'm assuming if we played it the Ville we'd probably be talking Freedom Hall. The YUM! Center is probably too rich for our blood. Broadbent Arena is kind of small and not a great setup to look good on TV. Louisville Gardens has been out of commission for more than a decade.

My very first year following EKU, my freshman year in school (2001-2002), they moved the OVC tournament from Nashville for one season due to a scheduling conflict. They ended up play it at Kentucky International Convention Center. That's not really even an arena, though. It's a big convention hall where they wheeled in huge, portable stands and put down a court.

Louisville needs a nice, modern 8,000-12,000 seat arena, but it's not going to happen.

(03-11-2021 02:53 PM)eku05 Wrote:  

(03-11-2021 02:16 PM)army56mike Wrote:  Here’s the drawback with a central location..... fan support. The ASUN has almost NO fan support. Most schools have a hard enough time getting fans to come to home games, much less travel for a multi-day road tournament. Empty arenas don’t look good on TV. I am lumping Liberty in here as well, even with the streak we’ve been on. Though I love the idea of ASUN tournaments rotating to cool places for fans to visit, I just don’t think it’s feasible at this time.

Yeah, I get that. But I think part of the way you build a successful brand is by getting your conference, and especially your tournament on TV. We just need to pick a good arena, curtain parts of it off if we need to, and put the entire crowd on the side of the arena that the camera will see. You can dress it up a little bit, and maybe we can find ways to get locals in the host city to come out with some good deals on tickets, etc.

I think we if we really want to build this conference the TV piece of it is key.

But this is the part where I miss a school like Murray State who just travels in droves to the OVC tournament.

Then I’d go.....
1. Nashville- Very easy for UNA, JSU, KSU, BU, and EKU to get to. It’s a big city with a lot to do. And oLU can provide a good home crowd.

2. Louisville- Easy for EKU and oLU to get to. BU would provide a nice home crowd. Louisville has a huge rabid college basketball fan base. It could be played in Freedom Hall and you can’t get better history than that.

3. Atlanta, Chattanooga

4. Pensacola- Because of Florida beaches.

It really don't matter for UNA...

Realistically Florence is probably the easiest place to travel from as far as a fan base is concerned to get to a location.

Nashville is 2 hrs away.
ATL is roughly 4 hrs.
Louisville is roughly 4 hrs.
Chatty is roughly 4 hrs
Huntsville is a little over an hour because of traffic mainly.
Pensicola is a 5 to 6 hrs drive but its not a big deal to Florence people because, well, it seems like that's most of our second homes.

As far as fans showing up, UNA usually puts butts in seats when it matters. When you are in a transition, and the fans don't think it means anything, they wouldn't show, buy you can look at the women's semifinal game last year against Liberty, and see we will show up. If this would have been a normal year, in Jacksonville, for a conference tournament championship, you would have had to turn away UNA fans for that game.

(03-11-2021 11:14 PM)lion1983 Wrote:  It really don't matter for UNA...

Realistically Florence is probably the easiest place to travel from as far as a fan base is concerned to get to a location.

For real. And JSU and Kennesaw are right there with you. (If we add UTC, add them to this group as well.)

I'd say either stick with the campus locations to bring in the largest crowds & reward the top teams for their success, or pick a major location (like Atlanta or Tampa) that isn't necessarily convenient for everyone, but will bring in crowds because of the love for the game & gives fans who do travel a place to both vacation & enjoy the games.

I personally would pick Atlanta due to it being the location of the ASUN's headquarters & the area's love for the game, but any major city closer to a hub of teams would work out great.