Championship moves to Houston in 18,19 Canton in 20,21

Started by AO, April 18, 2017, 01:27:54 PM

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SaintsFAN

Quote from: phil on April 19, 2017, 01:11:20 PM
Salem, Va population: 24,000
Greater Roanoke Valley population: 300,000

The Woodlands, TX population 110,000
Harris County population 4,100,000
Montgomery County population 566,000
The stadium is just outside Harris County

This also gives The Stagg Bowl a presence in what will eventually be the third largest city in the USA. Plenty of hotel space and restaurants. George Bush International Airport 20 minutes away. Being a local, I'll be interested to see how this event will be promoted in the upcoming months.

What?  You can play that population numbers thing with just about any metro area.  I'd say Houston is 10 or 12th largest in this country - and I visit all of the major cities with regularity for work.

OH and TX have their love for football - I think the NCAA is counting on that. 
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AO

Quote from: SaintsFAN on April 20, 2017, 02:52:36 PM
Quote from: phil on April 19, 2017, 01:11:20 PM
Salem, Va population: 24,000
Greater Roanoke Valley population: 300,000

The Woodlands, TX population 110,000
Harris County population 4,100,000
Montgomery County population 566,000
The stadium is just outside Harris County

This also gives The Stagg Bowl a presence in what will eventually be the third largest city in the USA. Plenty of hotel space and restaurants. George Bush International Airport 20 minutes away. Being a local, I'll be interested to see how this event will be promoted in the upcoming months.

What?  You can play that population numbers thing with just about any metro area.  I'd say Houston is 10 or 12th largest in this country - and I visit all of the major cities with regularity for work.

OH and TX have their love for football - I think the NCAA is counting on that.
Houston is now 5th.  I really doubt they get more than a couple hundred locals going to the game.  The FCS championship doesn't draw many locals in Dallas. 

Pat Coleman

Quote from: AO on April 20, 2017, 04:34:53 PM
The FCS championship doesn't draw many locals in Dallas.

Do you have a source for this?
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Quote from: old 40 on September 25, 2007, 08:23:57 PMLet's discuss (sports) in a positive way, sometimes kidding each other with no disrespect.

AO

Quote from: Pat Coleman on April 21, 2017, 12:06:51 AM
Quote from: AO on April 20, 2017, 04:34:53 PM
The FCS championship doesn't draw many locals in Dallas.

Do you have a source for this?
Myself?  Went to the 2011 championship and have watched every game since then.  Here's the 2014 crowd:

Not too many neutral colors in the stadium.  Of course there might be more locals if there were more tickets available and they were cheaper.  I think it would be cool to get a lot of locals out to fill up the stands but if I'm a player I mainly care about how many of my friends and family were able to come.

jknezek

Attendance in Frisco for FCS Championship is actually pretty interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Division_I_Football_Championship#Champions

This year and the first year are the obvious exceptions to near sold out games, and those years perfectly correlate to the games without ND State. Capacity is listed at 20,500, so it's pretty clear it was close to a sell-out every year ND State was there, but the two years ND State didn't attend, attendance was significantly lower. I think construction cut 4000 seats off the max number this year, but even still it didn't sell out. So there is a conclusion to be drawn that without a team like ND State, which travels very, very well, the attendance isn't overwhelming. That is a fairly clear indication that local demand is not that high. But we only have 2 out of 7 occurrences on which to base that.

HScoach

Quote from: SaintsFAN on April 20, 2017, 02:52:36 PM
Quote from: phil on April 19, 2017, 01:11:20 PM
Salem, Va population: 24,000
Greater Roanoke Valley population: 300,000

The Woodlands, TX population 110,000
Harris County population 4,100,000
Montgomery County population 566,000
The stadium is just outside Harris County

This also gives The Stagg Bowl a presence in what will eventually be the third largest city in the USA. Plenty of hotel space and restaurants. George Bush International Airport 20 minutes away. Being a local, I'll be interested to see how this event will be promoted in the upcoming months.

What?  You can play that population numbers thing with just about any metro area.  I'd say Houston is 10 or 12th largest in this country - and I visit all of the major cities with regularity for work.

OH and TX have their love for football - I think the NCAA is counting on that.

I can't speak for Texas, but I'm comfortable in saying the locals will support the Stagg Bowl in Canton regardless of the participants.  Yes, it would be an obvious success if Mount or another local team was playing, but NE Ohio and Western PA has a huge D3 presence and it should pull fans from many regional D3 teams simply because of the novelty of having the Stagg so close.  And the Pro Football Hall of Fame is a draw too.
I find easily offended people rather offensive!

Statistics are like bikinis; what they reveal is interesting, what they hide is essential.

Dave 'd-mac' McHugh

Quote from: Jack Parkman on April 19, 2017, 05:24:20 PM
Quote from: phil on April 19, 2017, 02:18:48 PM
Quote from: ITH radio on April 19, 2017, 01:12:12 PM
...Interesting stats on the population. I think if you had the usual suspects like UMHB or Mount U coming to town it would get good coverage from the local press and generate interest from local fans since it's a nationally televised event.
UMHB is a three hour drive from here.

Dallas is only 3 hours as well.  For the casual D3 fan in the DFW area, driving down to the Stagg Bowl is something that can easily be done and not have to worry about travel. 

I played in Salem when the D3 World Series was there and it was a great event and we enjoyed our time there.  It was moved to WI and from what I understand, it has been run very well in WI but it's now moving to Iowa.  Things change, doesn't mean everyone will think it's the best or right idea, but things change.

Biggest reason baseball is moving is because the playoff structure and schedule is shifting... the World Series will now be a week later and Appleton doesn't want to change it's current, yearly, schedule... so it has to move ... Appleton is no longer interested in hosting the event.
Host of Hoopsville. USBWA Executive Board member. Broadcast Director for D3sports.com. Broadcaster for NCAA.com & several colleges. PA Announcer for Gophers & Brigade. Follow me on Twitter: @davemchugh or @d3hoopsville.

Pat Coleman

But from the looks of the most recent host site decisions and what we've learned, guessing Appleton wouldn't have been allowed to continue to host, regardless.
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Quote from: old 40 on September 25, 2007, 08:23:57 PMLet's discuss (sports) in a positive way, sometimes kidding each other with no disrespect.

jknezek

I will be curious to see if the benefits of shifting the championships, in the case of football and basketball significantly better facilities, outweigh the benefits of having built something of a local following. Granted even in Salem it's not like you were selling out the games, but there was a significant local pride in being the home to so many NCAA championships among those who cared.

Personally I am all in favor of moving the Stagg to Canton on a regular basis. If DIII is all about the student athlete experience, tying in the Stagg to the HOF is amazing for any participants and visitors that haven't had the chance to visit Canton. That will be a more encompassing benefit, of course, if UMU ever relinquishes its ridiculously frequent appearances, but I think the idea has a ton of merit. The weather conditions might diminish that some, but that's a trade off I think is legitimate, especially if we can ever get a Saturday day time game back.

As for Texas, I'm just scratching my head. I don't see how that benefits the athletes, schools, students, or fans in most cases. But you never know until you try and I hope it all works out.

Pat Coleman

If you think of it this way, perhaps Shenandoah, Texas, is a two-year gamble by the NCAA. Canton wasn't going to be ready in 2018 regardless. The Texas pick allows the NCAA to make a small commitment to a new place without a lot of risk if it doesn't go well. Plus it allows the NCAA to throw a bone to an area of the country that gets screwed hard in Division III bracketing and hosting.

And if it does well, hey, even better.
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Quote from: old 40 on September 25, 2007, 08:23:57 PMLet's discuss (sports) in a positive way, sometimes kidding each other with no disrespect.

Dave 'd-mac' McHugh

Quote from: Pat Coleman on April 27, 2017, 03:57:12 PM
But from the looks of the most recent host site decisions and what we've learned, guessing Appleton wouldn't have been allowed to continue to host, regardless.

I think the excuse "we don't want to be at the same place all the time" was only used for Salem and really was meant to be "some of us at the NCAA (but certainly not a majority) would like you to move away from Salem for absolutely no reason than to say it happened. What? Greensboro? No. Go ahead and go there for four years for soccer. We have no opinion on that."
Host of Hoopsville. USBWA Executive Board member. Broadcast Director for D3sports.com. Broadcaster for NCAA.com & several colleges. PA Announcer for Gophers & Brigade. Follow me on Twitter: @davemchugh or @d3hoopsville.

Pat Coleman

But four years at Greensboro is not the same as 25 years at Salem.
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Quote from: old 40 on September 25, 2007, 08:23:57 PMLet's discuss (sports) in a positive way, sometimes kidding each other with no disrespect.

Dave 'd-mac' McHugh

Quote from: Pat Coleman on May 04, 2017, 12:46:47 PM
But four years at Greensboro is not the same as 25 years at Salem.

I don't disagree on the basics, but I have asked a member of one of those committees if they were told anything about not being in the same place too long. The answer was it never came up in conversation.

Sure... Salem has hosted a long time, but I think those who have a problem with it are a minority of people at the NCAA who have some issue they don't want to speak about. I don't believe it is an NCAA mandate and I don't think it is necessarily agreed upon across all sports. Furthermore, I would contend that if Salem was the problem and shouldn't be hosting, all committees would have been told to avoid them. There is more to this than just years... and I hate to say it, it is in the minds of a few people who apparently said the right things.
Host of Hoopsville. USBWA Executive Board member. Broadcast Director for D3sports.com. Broadcaster for NCAA.com & several colleges. PA Announcer for Gophers & Brigade. Follow me on Twitter: @davemchugh or @d3hoopsville.

Pat Coleman

This is an interesting intellectual exercise but if I were the NCAA and I wanted to enforce that rule, I wouldn't have really felt it necessary to tell the soccer committee anything, considering they have played this championship in five different locations over the past 10 years.
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Quote from: old 40 on September 25, 2007, 08:23:57 PMLet's discuss (sports) in a positive way, sometimes kidding each other with no disrespect.