New BSCT Location?

[SDHornet]

SWCat beat me to it. Most recent article on the BSC meetings:

Working in unison with the conference’s athletics directors, administrators will now use the next 60 days to put together a formal proposal addressing issues men’s basketball teams have faced in scheduling nonconference Division I opponents, the possibility of moving the conference tournament to a predetermined site and a television contract that would expand the Big Sky’s footprint in the region.

OOC scheduling seems more of a school by school issue. The schools in podunk places will always struggle to land OOC. That is not our problem. Our problem with landing a quality OOC is facilities. We get that addressed and we can see some desirable opponents come to town…or we can use the new downtown arena to leverage scheduling agreements with desirable opponents.

On May 25, Big Sky associate commissioner Ron Loghry said Las Vegas, a favorite destination of a number of the league’s coaches, had emerged as a likely host if the Big Sky were to relocate. Fullerton, citing discussions with a number of venues in Las Vegas, sounded less certain.

The South Point Casino, which has an arena that holds 4,600, has an annual equestrian event that conflicts with the tournament’s projected dates, Mandalay Bay isn’t interested in hosting basketball tournaments and The Orleans is host to the West Coast and Western Athletic conference tournaments.
“They’re booked,” Fullerton stated.

If the league is unable to strike a deal with a venue in Las Vegas, Fullerton mentioned Sacramento, Seattle, Spokane and Salt Lake City as other destinations. The determining factor would be how many fans each city could draw.

“Can we bring 1,000 people from every school in? Can we only bring in 700? Or can we only bring 50?” asked Fullerton. “If we’re only going to bring 50, then I’m not going to take them there.”

To ease the concern of fan interest, Fullerton said he would like to negotiate a regional television contract for men’s basketball in the model of the Big Sky’s agreement with Root Sports for its football broadcasts. In January 2012, the conference agreed to a five-year contract with the network and DirecTV Sports Networks that broadcasts football games to 50 million homes.

Aside from Seattle (and obviously here in Sac), none of those potential locations appeal to me although at least knowing in advance where the BSCT will be could make a planned trip possible. And the BSC should absolutely take into consideration the potential fan turnout. As far as TV deal? Meh. It will be on Root or some other regional network that is not readily available in the Sac market. I just hope it doesn't keep games from being available online like the football TV deal does.

 

[SDHornet]

Official BSC release: http://www.bigskyconf.com/news/2014/6/4/MBB_0604140741.aspx

The 2015 Big Sky Conference men's and women's championships will be held at the site of the regular-season champions on March 12-14. With the addition of the University of Idaho on July 1, 2014, as a member in all sports but football, the league will have 12 men's and women's basketball programs. The 2015 tournaments will feature eight teams with no byes. Four quarterfinals will be played on Thursday, followed by two semifinal games on Friday, and the championship game on Saturday.

At least one question is answered, I like the top 8 getting a ticket to the BSCT. At least the BSC got one thing right.