Monitor OKC attendance at Big 12 Tournament
Oklahoma City is on the spot at the Big 12 Tournament. OKC has been hit with a double whammy in hosting its second Big 12 Tournament: a new format that has the men starting on Wednesday, plus the recession.
Big 12 associate commissioner Tim Allen said he understands the new format, which cuts men’s teams a break: it gives the NCAA committee time to truly study a full resume’ and it gives the teams more rest before next week’s NCAA Tournament. In many years, the Big 12 title game has concluded about 4:15 p.m. Sunday, with the NCAA selections announced at 5 p.m. Sunday.
The new format, with a Saturday night final, is much more committee-friendly.
However, it makes it tougher on the fans. Visiting fans — or heck, even locals as far as the matinee sessions are concerned — have to take off an extra day of work. Many fans will still make a vacation of it, but not all fans can do that, plus there’s the recession.
Allen said one thing he’s always been proud of is first-day attendance at the tournament: 6,000; 7,000; 8,000 fans for Texas Tech-Nebraska or Colorado-Missouri. The arena isn’t full, but it’s got bodies in it, and the coliseum mostly fills up for the quarterfinals on Friday.
Now, with those first-round games on Wednesday, it could change. How many people will be in the seats for Nebraska-Baylor at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday? Then Colorado-Texas at 2 p.m.? Tonight should be rocking with OSU-Iowa State, but spotty attendance will cause all kinds of discussion for the schools.
Already, there is movement to make Kansas City a permanent host. It’s likely Oklahoma City would not be completely shut out of being in the tournament rotation, but poor attendance certainly would hurt OKC’s cause.
At least Allen has recognized that some things are beyond Oklahoma City’s control. Kansas City has the tournament the next two years. We’ll see how KC does with the new format, and hopefully, by next March, the recession will be over.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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Comments
Berry, Tim–looks like OKC has responded very well:
http://www.ksbitv.com/news/41170877.html
Rotate between KC and OKC every other year.
Hell, why not give Tulsa or Wichita–who are building $200-million arenas with no NBA or NHL tenant–a shot at it?
The big 12 tournament has no business being in Oklahoma City. Kansas City is the college basketball mecca, and has the history of hosting the tournament when the conference was the big 8.
Added to the fact that Oklahoma/Dallas shouldn’t have the tournament because they have a NBA team. As long as KC doesn’t, that is more added incentive because of fans being spread to thin especially in OKC. Sure the Oklahoma/OSU games will have fans, but Iowa State brings thousands to KC. Even thousands of Nebraskans will make the journey if it was a little shorter. Oklahoma still isn’t too far away from KC, and Texas will always travel. The other Texas schools don’t travel for bball anyways so they are mute.