2017 B1G Tournament to DC

Lyddea said:
Gotta admit, it took me some time to get through anger and bargaining before reaching acceptance, but this doesn't seem so bad anymore. The league has a legit Eastern contingent now. Playing a tourney in the East now and again -- that's fair. If DC is part of a rotation going forward and gets the tournament every third (can it be fourth or fifth?) year, then that's OK and might even be a twice-removed benefit I guess ($$$!).

But listen up Delany... if you think you can send our BBall tourney out of Indy/Chicago more than once in while, its time to take your corporate butt back to North Carolina and the devil-ACC that birthed you.
Click to expand...

SELL OUT sure move the conference tournament from a driveable venue to a flyable one don't expect those east cost tournaments to sell out unless hometown Maryland or Rutgers are good.
 
Great move the tournament from a driveable venue to a fly able one. Don't expect those east coast tournaments to sell out especially if Maryland and Rutgers are having bad years. If you are going to move the tournament out of your majority geographic area why not move it someplace warm or fun Florida Hawaii or Las Vegas?
 
vgshwk said:
Great move the tournament from a driveable venue to a fly able one. Don't expect those east coast tournaments to sell out especially if Maryland and Rutgers are having bad years. If you are going to move the tournament out of your majority geographic area why not move it someplace warm or fun Florida Hawaii or Las Vegas?
Click to expand...

Maybe because the B1G has zero schools west of Lincoln, NE, and they've got three schools on/near the east coast? This move makes perfect sense for the conference, and it's not like they're moving the tournament to D.C. full time. Rotating between Chicago and Indy was stupid in the first place, IMO. Speaking solely in terms of east-west, they're less than 90 miles apart. So you're not really helping the Nebraska or PSU fans either way, and Chicago is a better place to spend a week, IMO. Not to mention that's where the B1G offices are.

Making a move onto the east coast is a smart choice for the conference, at least now that we've got some more eastern schools.
 
Some folks here need to remove their trucker hats; it's keeping them from looking ahead and seeing the bigger picture. The collegiate sports landscape is changing rapidly. With the rise of mega-conferences and networks vying to show their games, the competition for the sports dollar is immense. BTN is a huge and increasingly expensive operation that is still able to spin off millions of dollars in revenue each year to the member institutions who belong to the B1G. Expansion into new markets is an important part of its continued existence and growth.

Holding the B1G tournament in Washington, D.C., in three years makes perfect sense. It is the natural progression from the entry of Rutgers and Maryland to the conference and the match-up of eight B1G and Big East teams in an early season basketball tournament. I like the fact the B1G is planting a flag squarely in traditional Big East/ACC territory.

If, as Diesel suggests, there are "tens of thousands" of fans from each B1G school in the Chicago area to attend the conference tournament there or in Indy, he needs to know there are just as many if not more living and working in the greater Washington area or in the Northeast Corridor, especially from New York through Philadelphia, Baltimore and down to Virginia, who will be eager to see their teams play in the conference tournament and likely will fill the auditorium and DC hotels for the event.

Behind Las Vegas and New Orleans, Washington also happens to be at or near the top of the list of convention cities in North America. It knows a thing or two about entertaining out-of-town visitors with great dining, clubs, fun things to do.
 
Last edited:
well, I can't make it to any of the sites, so doesn't matter much to me until all my kids graduate from HS, which coincidentally is another 10 years and maybe by then Minneapolis will host haha
 
tweeterhawk said:
With the rise of mega-conferences and networks vying to show their games, the competition for the sports dollar is immense. BTN is a huge and increasingly expensive operation that is still able to spin off millions of dollars in revenue each year to the member institutions who belong to the B1G. Expansion into new markets is an important part of its continued existence and growth.
Click to expand...

This is completely wrong, Tweetah. There is little competition for the sports dollar today. Competition is non-existent because the Conference owns the exclusive broadcast rights to all activities played in Big Ten venues along with the tournaments and championships. There is sizable demand for some of that content and the Conference has been able to exploit that demand to extract giant sums out of ESPN and piggyback some of it onto cable bills via the BTN. The cable companies are facing an existential crisis right now because large numbers of people are "cutting the cord" and doing away with cable. Generation Y's non-use of cable is terrifying these companies. Very little content is watched live, which is crushing advertising revenue, and sports are about the only thing people watch live and thus the prices of content have been bid through the stratosphere.

The bundled cable cartel will go belly up at some point. People are sick of paying $100 a month for content that goes 99.9% unused. It's a total scam. Once bundling breaks, the Rutgers addition is gonna look really, really stupid. If the cable model stays static for the next 100 years, yeah, this is a great move, but given the technological changes I've witnessed in the past 20 years, I highly doubt the content delivery system whereby ESPN, BTN and all these sports channels can extract a mandatory "tax" out of all viewers will make it another 20 years.
 
Have no problem with the Big Ten Tourny being played in DC. Just curious when the ACC or SEC tourny's are moved to the Midwest.
 
okeefe4prez said:
You wanna know why I'm scurred, Tweetah? Because I remember a recent bubble, not the last one your boys in DC puffed up, but the one before that. It was built on a rapidly changing technological model. You know what every moron disconnected from reality said their business needed to do? Add eyeballs. Ludicrous IPO prices were based on "eyeballs." The market predictably crashed and Joe Prole who had his whole retirement sitting in the Janus 20 Fund paid the price. But by all means, you go right on and ahead and trust Sally Mason to assist in steering the course of Big Ten athletics!

So yeah, perhaps the Big Ten needs to be aggressive in marketing to new audiences. But Rutgers, in particular, adds virtually no new audience. I don't know if Maryland does. But I do know that just putting an Iowa-Wisconsin snoozefest basketball game on TV or hosting a tournament in DC isn't going to bring new fans save for some Maryland fans and the 63 Rutgers fans. I mean, are you funna turn into a Utah fan if they get shown on Fox Sports at midnight on a random Saturday night in October? Of course not.
Click to expand...

If it's generation-to-generation, DC area is perfect. What other city boasts a plethora of 37-year old, under-/un-educated grandparents...living across multiple households...and on YOUR tax dollars, no less? This is the perfect chance to see your money at work. We're talking, in some cases, 4 generations under one roof. Bonanza!

As to "markets", think Vince McMahon. For "generations", rasslin' was local and regional and, in the finest Mafioso tradition, territorial. Then VKM decided he wanted more than just the Northeast of the old WWWF-cum-WWF-cum-WWE. He went after rasslers from the other "territories", he invaded TV markets everywhere, and then he got The Hulkster. Even Ric "The Not-So-Original Nature Boy" Flair hopped on board after years as The Man in the Southeast/Mid-Atlantic/NWA/WCW "territory". Ted Turner even upped the ante a bit, and actually put a dent in the McMahon stranglehold for a while.

Point is, not EVERY B1G fan lives in your Midwestern closet, pining for the days of Ray Rayner and Frazier Thomas each morning on WGN. Many of us grew up on that, but we discovered the world isn't 100% Garfield Goose and Hardrock, Coco & Joe.

Live a little. Go to DC, visit Baltimore, heck, even take a side trip to Atlantic City or Shenandoah National Park. There's a great big world out there, OK4P. Go discover it!
 
tweeterhawk said:
Some folks here need to remove their trucker hats; it's keeping them from looking ahead and seeing the bigger picture. The collegiate sports landscape is changing rapidly. With the rise of mega-conferences and networks vying to show their games, the competition for the sports dollar is immense. BTN is a huge and increasingly expensive operation that is still able to spin off millions of dollars in revenue each year to the member institutions who belong to the B1G. Expansion into new markets is an important part of its continued existence and growth.

Holding the B1G tournament in Washington, D.C., in three years makes perfect sense. It is the natural progression from the entry of Rutgers and Maryland to the conference and the match-up of eight B1G and Big East teams in an early season basketball tournament. I like the fact the B1G is planting a flag squarely in traditional Big East/ACC territory.

If, as Diesel suggests, there are "tens of thousands" of fans from each B1G school in the Chicago area to attend the conference tournament there or in Indy, he needs to know there are just as many if not more living and working in the greater Washington area or in the Northeast Corridor, especially from New York through Philadelphia, Baltimore and down to Virginia, who will be eager to see their teams play in the conference tournament and likely will fill the auditorium and DC hotels for the event.

Behind Las Vegas and New Orleans, Washington also happens to be at or near the top of the list of convention cities in North America. It knows a thing or two about entertaining out-of-town visitors with great dining, clubs, fun things to do.
Click to expand...

I agree with this.

I love visiting DC too.
 
vgshwk said:
Great move the tournament from a driveable venue to a fly able one. Don't expect those east coast tournaments to sell out especially if Maryland and Rutgers are having bad years. If you are going to move the tournament out of your majority geographic area why not move it someplace warm or fun Florida Hawaii or Las Vegas?
Click to expand...

I live in Florida. I don't want Nebraska and Michigan fans in my town--or state--at the same time. Individually, fine. Collectively? Not a chance.

By chance, though, I did discover there are O$U fans that can read.
 
tweeterhawk said:
Some folks here need to remove their trucker hats; it's keeping them from looking ahead and seeing the bigger picture. The collegiate sports landscape is changing rapidly. With the rise of mega-conferences and networks vying to show their games, the competition for the sports dollar is immense. BTN is a huge and increasingly expensive operation that is still able to spin off millions of dollars in revenue each year to the member institutions who belong to the B1G. Expansion into new markets is an important part of its continued existence and growth.

Holding the B1G tournament in Washington, D.C., in three years makes perfect sense. It is the natural progression from the entry of Rutgers and Maryland to the conference and the match-up of eight B1G and Big East teams in an early season basketball tournament. I like the fact the B1G is planting a flag squarely in traditional Big East/ACC territory.

If, as Diesel suggests, there are "tens of thousands" of fans from each B1G school in the Chicago area to attend the conference tournament there or in Indy, he needs to know there are just as many if not more living and working in the greater Washington area or in the Northeast Corridor, especially from New York through Philadelphia, Baltimore and down to Virginia, who will be eager to see their teams play in the conference tournament and likely will fill the auditorium and DC hotels for the event.

Behind Las Vegas and New Orleans, Washington also happens to be at or near the top of the list of convention cities in North America. It knows a thing or two about entertaining out-of-town visitors with great dining, clubs, fun things to do.
Click to expand...

One problem with DC--at least in the past--is that The Metro stops running at midnight. Safer? probably. But a drunk fan at 2am might not be good.
 
I don't like it but I can see doing it once every 4 years. A 4 year player from the east coast will get to play in 1 BTT relatively close to home. This not only benefits the east coast B1G teams. A Basabe, Uhl, etc. are likely to appreciate this when being recruited.
 
Just out of curiosity, how many changes that have been advertised as the new wave of the future have you experienced and even embraced that have ended in the toilet?
 
With McCaffery's primary roots /contacts / relationships historically residing in the East I view it as the BIG just put some fertilizer on his old farmland. I think it helps Iowa more than hurts. Might be why he was so positive about the announcement.
 
doclee said:
Just out of curiosity, how many changes that have been advertised as the new wave of the future have you experienced and even embraced that have ended in the toilet?
Click to expand...

Ugh. I don't want to think about it. But if forced to go into it, I would say just among idiotic things I have bought:

33.6k modem (whoa, this thing cruises, there is no way anything can ever get faster than this 486 with a 33.6 modem)
Crystal Pepsi
Red Dog beer
HD-DVD player when StorminSpank insisted those would become the standard over Blu-ray
 
LawVHawk said:
You just need to accept this is no longer your father's Rust Belt athletic conference. Long gone are "three yards and a cloud of dust," Bo, Woody, Hayden, even the days when the Big Ten conference actually had 10 schools. It's a new day and a different time.
Click to expand...

It is definitely a generational thing. However, just because it's a new day and a different time doesn't mean that it's better, just different.
 
I think many of you are blinded...Okeefe is actually being incredibly reasonable in this thread...the bundled cable model will be dead within a decade.

Not to mention O'Bannon/others...

That infinite cash cow that is collegiate broadcasting rights might not be around forever...

I hate this...and if the BIG of the future is one that has schools up and down the east coast (through expansion)...that's a Big Ten I don't want any part of.

It's bad enough when we don't get to see an OSU or someone on the schedule for 2-3 years...(I don't care if OSU or whoever is usually more talented than Iowa...you know when we play those teams it's prime time...
 
There will still be some apparatus to carry the live sporting events to the world, be that more ESPN3 or BTN2Go or a Hulu-type site for live sports. Anyway you slice this, the conferences with the biggest cable contracts now (eyeballs) will also be the conferences that have the best pay-per-view (or however it works over the interwebs) contracts then. Even if the current model dies within the decade, you're not changing who has the most viewership. If live sports aren't bundled with crap programming, then it'll be all about having proof your conference has enough eyeballs watching to get your channel onto another distribution apparatus.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Share this page

Top