Should the Stagg Bowl find a better site or stay in Salem, Va.

[jaypeter]

Not necessarily the full point of your post, but the last World Cup was held in South Africa and the next will be in Brazil, both in Southern Hemisphere.

[Ralph Turner]

Not necessarily the full point of your post, but the last World Cup was held in South Africa and the next will be in Brazil, both in Southern Hemisphere.

Yeah, remember those @#@$#%@ vuvuzelas!   

[wesleydad]

well, glad to hear that the Stagg will be in Salem for the next 5 years counting this years.  I will be there, Wesley playing or not.  I know the forecast can change a lot between now and next friday, but 54 in the day and 47 at night with a 20% chance of rain is good to me.  Hopefully it stays the same or improves.

[smedindy]

Sure... a dome can add to the noise because they either pump in more audio or the dome causes an echo... but the ONLY reason Division I basketball is played in places like domes is not because the games look better there... but because they draw enough people for those places not to look empty. If they saw a drop in attendance or didn't have the interest... they wouldn't be in domes or stadiums that large.

To wit, in the mid to late 80's (around the time the famous HS wunderkind Damon Bailey was playing for Bedford North-Lawrence HS), the Indiana HS basketball championship was played in the then Hoosier Dome, and drew 30,000. It had outgrown Market Square Arena.

However, thanks to several factors (most notably the change to a multi-class HS tournament which has caused attendance to plummet), they moved the tournament. In fact, the girls tournament has moved away from Indianapolis since even that can't look like a sell out at Banker's Life thanks to the diminished attendance.

[smedindy]

Salem, the ODAC and all involved do a GREAT job with the Stagg.   My only complaint is the inconsistent weather.   I've been to 16 of them following Mount and the chance of the weather (wind, rain, ice, snow) impacting the game or travel is just as likely (or more) than it is being a nice day.    If you could get 50 degrees, dry and calm in Salem 80+% of the time it would be perfect.   

It's December in the USA. Very few locations have predictable weather. Just look at this past weekend!

[Ron Boerger]

Salem, the ODAC and all involved do a GREAT job with the Stagg.   My only complaint is the inconsistent weather.   I've been to 16 of them following Mount and the chance of the weather (wind, rain, ice, snow) impacting the game or travel is just as likely (or more) than it is being a nice day.    If you could get 50 degrees, dry and calm in Salem 80+% of the time it would be perfect.   

It's December in the USA. Very few locations have predictable weather. Just look at this past weekend!

Yep.  Soccer championships in San Antonio last weekend featured beautiful South Texas weather in the 30s.   

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Not necessarily the full point of your post, but the last World Cup was held in South Africa and the next will be in Brazil, both in Southern Hemisphere.

I didn't write it clearly... I was alluding to the fact that the Olympics and World Cup have not been in the Southern Hemisphere nearly as much as the Northern.
- Summer Olympics: 27/30 have been held or have been awarded to Northern Hemisphere countries
- Winter Olympics: 23/23 have been held or have been awarded to Northern Hemisphere countries
- World Cup: 22/24 have been held or have been awarded to Northern Hemisphere countries

And the trend has only recently given Southern Hemisphere countries the bids... the two in the World Cup: the last and next cups... the three in the Summer Olympics: two of the last five.

[jaypeter]

As I was reading your post I remembered Sydney had hosted in the 90's (?).  What I did see in your pos was that those events are given to countries/cities with the resources to dedicate to them.  Our current geo-political-economic situation is that the cast majority of Southern Hemisphere places are unable to do so, but there is a recent trend to look at new places the events haven't been to.  It took the effort by them to bid, and the need to wait for appropriate situations.

OK, I think I'm tapping out of the conversation now.  I'm gonna go annoy the neighbors by playing my vuvuzela to a samba beat.

[K-Mack]

I'm all for growing the brand, but you have to be realistic about what the brand is and how much growth there is to be had.

I'm all for improving the game and experience, even if that means leaving Salem or rotating it out once in a while, but I have yet to hear enough compelling reasons why a bigger city = better experience, for players and fans, or why a different city = better.

High aspirations, low expectations.

How many compelling reasons do you need?  A bigger city in the mid-west would mean the game is closer to the usual suspects, enabling more fans to get to the game.  A bigger city in Texas or Florida might be easier to fly to, etc...  Bigger cities also have potentially a better stadium, better hotels, better restaurants.  Not saying the NCAA would foot the bill for the more expensive hotels, but the option is there for the fans at least.  Different is better as you can spur a little competition among potential host cities to one-up each other and you also expose the Stagg to new audiences.

The key word was compelling.

I think you're more focused on the potential fan experience, and growing the game; I'm more focused on the full experience for the people who play in the game, and the fans who already go to the game on a regular basis.

Certainly there is growth to be had, and it could be moved closer to the geographic centers of D-III, but I also think you're kidding yourself if you think tens of thousands of people who don't care about D-III will suddenly take an interest because the title game moves to their town.

Since the Stagg Bowl has never drawn 10,000 fans (source: http://www.d3football.com/playoffs/index), and speaking as someone who has actually been to the game, and who covers sports in a big media market, I'm of the opinion it might get lost in a big city, unless a local team happened to make it. Bigger is better for some things, but in this case if bigger means it becomes Virginia vs. Fresno State in the Humanitarian Bowl, I'd just as soon keep it where they already care about it and do a good job with it.

Not sure what kind of fan interest you're envisioning, but the D-II title game has been in Florence, Ala. since 1986, and the only time they've drawn more than 12,000 is when it's featured North Alabama:
http://www.d2championship.com/History/DII_Champ_History_11.pdf

The FCS game does some decent numbers, and moves around some:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Division_I_Football_Championship

There's not really a great test case for holding a title game in a very big city, but you look at the history of all the games in all divisions and you can see the correlation is strong between local teams and attendance. That supports your case, then, in years when the champions happen to be near the place where the game is held. But what about all the other years?

I think you have to focus on factors other than fan attendance, because it's pretty well proven that you can only make a non-Division I title game a small percentage more popular to fans who otherwise wouldn't be interested in it, based on where it's held.

More flight options, okay (but the bigger issue with flights is the 6-day turnaround). Better hotels, eh. The Hotel Roanoke is pretty awesome; the team hotels are generic and could be found in any city.

I'm just not sure you're gaining much by moving it just to move it. Major airlines fly into Roanoke, Salem's sister city. It's within driving distance for a portion of schools; not as many as some locations in the midwest, but it's 12 hours and 810 miles from Mount Union to Minneapolis, and 5 hours and 384 miles from Alliance to Salem. (approx the same distance, 392, as UMU to Chicago)

As I have said several times, if another place has advantages over Salem and wants to match the effort, while keeping it appropriate (i.e. not 8,000 fans in a 60,000-seat stadium), I'm all for it.

Obviously you have your opinion and I've stated that I'm open to other places besides Salem but also see the value in keeping it in Salem, you can keep on replying or we can agree to disagree.

[K-Mack]

Salem, the ODAC and all involved do a GREAT job with the Stagg.   My only complaint is the inconsistent weather.   I've been to 16 of them following Mount and the chance of the weather (wind, rain, ice, snow) impacting the game or travel is just as likely (or more) than it is being a nice day.    If you could get 50 degrees, dry and calm in Salem 80+% of the time it would be perfect.   

It's December in the USA. Very few locations have predictable weather. Just look at this past weekend!

I'm in favor of keeping the game itself (not necessarily fan experience) as much like the rest of the season as possible. The TV and replay/challenges are different, but my opinion on the weather has always been that Salem's unpredictability matches what the weather is like in the other four rounds for many of the competing teams.

D-III being almost entirely Midwest and Northeast-based, Salem's about as good as you're going to do weather-wise without taking it out of driving range for the fans of most schools, who are the fans most likely to actually go to the game.

[K-Mack]

A bigger city means the event would get lost.

The MSA of Roanoke holds 300,000 people (give or take). It's the 159th largest. We could play the game of going through the other 158, since God Forbid you'd want one smaller than 159 (so sorry to Kingsport, TN; Boulder; Utica; Lubbock; Erie; Fort Smith; Duluth; etc. etc.)

You have to find the right fit of where it's kind of a big deal, where people can get to, and where it doesn't get left on the "other events around town" page next to the bazaar at the Lutheran Church.

I wish I had made my point using these words. 

[K-Mack]

Do we have any idea who the people are who are rubber stamping Salem for four more years?  The same people who wanted to give an automatic bid to the NESCAC?  Is it such hard work that they can't go through the bid/selection process every year? 

Dave-
It's not just about the money for the World Cup or Olympics.  They wouldn't send the World Cup to South Africa or the Winter Olympics to Russia if this was the case.  They take it around the world because of the very notion of it being a global event.  They explicitly attempt to take it to different continents where they haven't been recently. 

The game is currently lost in all the big cities.  I really don't think anyone will miss the local Salem media coverage if it moves out.  Would you at least admit that the attendance might be higher in a big city?

I doubt you've been to many games in domes with 10,000 fans.  Doesn't look great on TV, but then no one is really impressed with the numbers of fans in the stands at Salem when the accidentally flip to the game on ESPNU.  You're not going to feel alone in a stadium with 10,000 fans there no matter how many empty seats there are.  In a dome the noise level is significantly higher than it would be in an outdoor stadium with 10,000 seats.

"There is a LOT that goes on behind the scenes that makes this work."  ----what exactly about a big city makes you doubt they could handle it?  A bigger city means more there are automatically more volunteers, community service activities, city support, practice facilities and hotel rooms available.

bottom line, I have no confidence in the championship committee to evaluate/solicit bids.  They've proven incompetent in so many other ways, I can't see how they would somehow be experts at this part of their job.

You have some points. Moving it around the way the Olympics do, just so people can share in the experience, is nice in theory.

Gotta find a city that wants it, and wants to support it, and would be ... Ah, I think we've hit every point there is to hit on this.

[Ralph Turner]

Another assessment of the popularity is the TV numbers.

I cannot remember which year D-3 (Stagg Bowl) outdrew D-2 on TV.

Just having a lot fans viewing is a sign of broad support.

[AO]

Another assessment of the popularity is the TV numbers.

I cannot remember which year D-3 (Stagg Bowl) outdrew D-2 on TV.

Just having a lot fans viewing is a sign of broad support.

last year it was pretty close, but as with all tv ratings, you have to consider what else was on at the time. 

[smedindy]

Also, it was on ESPNU, which doesn't have the reach of ESPN2 and is usually on a higher cable tier.