Williams Arena
- Thread starter B1Gballerbrand
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I read that this was the first sold out Big 10's. I've also read on here that the attendance is never very good. Do you or anyone know if there is anywhere to find past years attendance?
I was at big tens in Carver a few years ago and it didn't sell out. Rodent fans don't travel as well as Hawk's. I think the sport is growing as can be seen by NCAA tickets the last few years. I imagine most would sell out going forward.
Let me clarify for you. I quite literally did not post that sentence. It was another poster (6relpparg) that said that.
Hope that helps.
If you were Minneapolis/the B1G Conference/ the U of M, wouldn't you want to roll out the red carpet and impress the visiting fans in ALL ASPECTS?
I just don't think it was well thought out. Target Center is downtown, surrounded by restaurants, bars, and hotels, and a lot of fans were staying downtown. And if they were staying near the Mall of America, its an easy $2 train ride from the Mall that drops you right off in the Target Center / Target Field (home of the Twins) area.
And lets face it. This is not about the cost, because like I said above, the NON REVENUE B1G baseball tournament championship plays in a modern, brand new venue. The NON REVENUE B1G women's basketball tournament championship plays in a modern, very new venue. The City of Indianapolis is awesome for that event.
The City of Minneapolis WOULD HAVE BEEN awesome for the B1G wrestling event, too. IF the B1G had picked the right venue.
The wrestling will always be great no matter the venue. Goofer fans will always defend the dump. But visiting fans are going to leave "the Barn" saying one thing: WHAT A DUMP.
Or do more Iowa fans/graduates live in the Twin Cities than Gopher fans live in Iowa?
yeah, there is nothing worse than going to the Barn and realizing that your view over the next 2 days is going to be obstructed. It is one of those ARE YOU BLEEPING KIDDING ME moments. Obstructed views would not have been an issue at a modern venue like Target Center, home of the NBA's Timberwolves.
Just to play devil's advocate (and I agree they would have been better off hosting it at Target Center, all things being equal), why, instead of Carver doesn't Iowa host it in Des Moines at the Wells Fargo center. It's nicer right? Wouldn't that be a better site than Carver? If the #1 factor is quality of the venue, wouldn't that make sense?
Damn you back from cleaning up Stevenson tears? Haven't seen you on the Penn State board yet?
um...Des Moines is 90 minutes away from Iowa City and the capacity is almost the same.
I think you would have a better comparison if Iowa had hosted it at US Cellular in Cedar Rapids instead of Carver. That would be a better comparison of Williams to Target.
All I am saying is that the quality of the venue for a B1G wrestling championship SHOULD MATTER when host cities are selected. It matters for the B1G baseball championship and that's why they have it yearly in Omaha now. It matters for the B1G women's basketball championship and that's why it is held yearly in Indianapolis.
Maybe B1G wrestling should do what B1G baseball and B1G women's basketball does and have it at the same venue EVERY YEAR?
If / when Iowa City is picked to host the B1G Championships again, at least you can see that Carver has many benefits:
* No obstructed views
* 15,500 individual seats. And it is your very own chair, with a back and armrests!
Go check out the thread on BWI and you will see that your statement isn't true. There are a few of you on this site that will just go out of your way to complain and make things out to be worst then they actually are... Williams is a dump and the worst place ever to watch wrestling, Flo sucks and everyone should cancel, the refs are the worst refs the NCAA has ever produced, Fix and Lizak are stalling cheaters and leg ridding should be banned. There was a thread on here called "Whats with the sorry tournament coverage" complaining about not being able to find tournament information. All the poster had to do was go to the hosting teams website and it was right there. Same poster complained there should be more promotion for the tournament. When told to check out twitter and facebook for the promotion he stated he should have to go to those sites for promotion. You can't make some of this stuff up and the list could go on and on. Some people just aren't happy unless they are complaining.
The BigTen needs to hire Bob Bowlsby away from the Big 12 and with that I think wrestling would get the respect it deserves. Better venues and not $hit on when it comes to television.
Fran, you are arguing with yourself.
No one is even debating the quality of Williams Arena, it was this bad 12 years ago when it was last there and it will probably be equally as bad the next time it comes back.
You list 3 sports, of which only one is a non rev sport...
Men’s Basketball plays there conference championship at a neutral site that is “Bid” on as it is a huge revenue generator. It alternates generally from Chicago, Indianapolis to now include Washington DC and New York City.
Note: this is not school run.
Women’s Basketball plays there championship at a neutral site in Indianapolis based on a winning bid, again as this is a huge money maker based on television revenues.
Men’s Baseball: Although baseball is a non revenue sport, Omaha Rosenblatt Stadium won the bid to be the neutral location host.
The Kansas City Royals moved from Rosenblatt meaning that stadium was virtually unused but for the “Permanent” home for the NCAA Baseball tournament (which they bid on and won).
They went after the Big Ten to keep the stadium afloat so they could keep the NCAA’s.
All three are great at what they do. I have enjoyed the NCAA baseball tournament in Omaha many times, it should be on everyone’s bucket list.
But none are remotely comparable to the Big Ten Wrestling Championships. Each school is responsible for running their own tournament every “however many number of schools there are” years.
In the past, the average attendance was around 6000.
There is no way a school is going to rent out the Target Center (where they had home Timberwolve games this past weekend) for 6000 fans. 10,000 may not cover cost when the school would pay for the site as well as not collect on any concessions.
If you want to argue for a different venue, fine. That is warranted as the Williams Arena is 50 years past it’s prime.
But you should be arguing to move it to the Hockey arena not off campus. And then you risk scheduling conflict between hockey “heaven’s sport” and wrestling.
No one is even debating the quality of Williams Arena, it was this bad 12 years ago when it was last there and it will probably be equally as bad the next time it comes back.
You list 3 sports, of which only one is a non rev sport...
Men’s Basketball plays there conference championship at a neutral site that is “Bid” on as it is a huge revenue generator. It alternates generally from Chicago, Indianapolis to now include Washington DC and New York City.
Note: this is not school run.
Women’s Basketball plays there championship at a neutral site in Indianapolis based on a winning bid, again as this is a huge money maker based on television revenues.
Men’s Baseball: Although baseball is a non revenue sport, Omaha Rosenblatt Stadium won the bid to be the neutral location host.
The Kansas City Royals moved from Rosenblatt meaning that stadium was virtually unused but for the “Permanent” home for the NCAA Baseball tournament (which they bid on and won).
They went after the Big Ten to keep the stadium afloat so they could keep the NCAA’s.
All three are great at what they do. I have enjoyed the NCAA baseball tournament in Omaha many times, it should be on everyone’s bucket list.
But none are remotely comparable to the Big Ten Wrestling Championships. Each school is responsible for running their own tournament every “however many number of schools there are” years.
In the past, the average attendance was around 6000.
There is no way a school is going to rent out the Target Center (where they had home Timberwolve games this past weekend) for 6000 fans. 10,000 may not cover cost when the school would pay for the site as well as not collect on any concessions.
If you want to argue for a different venue, fine. That is warranted as the Williams Arena is 50 years past it’s prime.
But you should be arguing to move it to the Hockey arena not off campus. And then you risk scheduling conflict between hockey “heaven’s sport” and wrestling.
which thread would that be? the fact that PSU had probably 100 fans there, with seats right on the championship mat all weekend will skew anyones view of how pleasant the barn experience was.
Fair enough. I actually think the answer is that the pick a "central/good" location that everyone likes and just host it there. Or go between a couple different venues like Minneapolis and Columbus or something like that.
And again, I agree for something like this that the venue and comfort matter. I happen to just know enough to pick a seatback. There's no way I was spending 4 hours sitting on the bleachers. Haha.
This is not a complaint. This is simply the truth.
How would you like to travel to Minneapolis, battle thru a winter storm, pay for hotels/food, etc and then have an obstructed view for 2 days when watching a B1G Championship play out? That should be unacceptable.
This is 2019 Hell, in the planning stages for this B1G Championship, Xcel Center in St Paul (19,000 seats; home of the NHL MN Wild) would have been an option as well (even though Target Center would have been the best overall venue).
B1G wrestling and B1G wrestling fans deserve better. Williams is fine for a 2 HOUR women's basketball game; it is NOT fine for a 2 DAY event when you are hosting fans from all over and trying to IMPRESS. Having the event in downtown Minneapolis would have left fans impressed and they would not have been referring to Target Center as a dump.
For a guy that was at home scared of the weather you sure care a lot about a facility you didn't even step foot in.
Read the linked article at the end of this post and then please tell us the TWO (and only two) sports that routinely make money for athletic departments. Note: women's basketball is not one of them, even though women's basketball gets treated like royalty in Indianapolis for their conference tournament championship. Why shouldn't wrestling and its fans get treated the same way? And if you watched the women's basketball tournament on TV (most of it was on BTN), you would have seen that the arena was maybe a third full. Conversely, I heard over 12,000 people were at each session for wrestling, and that was during bad weather conditions.
LINK: https://www.jconline.com/story/spor.../01/big-ten-womens-basketball-money/98508266/
And its not like the B1G does not have the money to subsidize the tournament (to rent an arena, etc), if needed
Did you see Delany is getting a $20 Million retirement bonus when he steps away next year? What a joke....
Women’s basketball gets the luxury of being combined with Men’s basketball. Since Men’s Basketball generates enough revenue to offset the loss from the Wimen’s sport - Basketball and Football are considered by the NCAA as Revenue Sports.
You can’t gave the one without the other. Many schools hockey, or wrestling or baseball actually make money, but it doesn’t qualify them as Rev Sports, they stay in the Non Rev classification.
You still, and quite purposefully, continue to skirt the whole “Bidding” process. In Wrestling, each school has WANTED to host it to make money. They don’t want to lose money or give up the rights to make that small profit.
It would be great if the conference did put it to a bid for a permanent site. Would Iowa fans be happy going to Columbus every year?
Williams Arena sucks. Agreed... So what do you do?
You say go to Target or the Excel Energy Center (MUCH newer and nicer than Target by the way).
How do you make the numbers work?
Do you move the NHL and NBA?
That incurs a cost...
Again, you would have had leg to stand on had you said they should have moved it to the Mariucci Arena and not off campus.
You can’t gave the one without the other. Many schools hockey, or wrestling or baseball actually make money, but it doesn’t qualify them as Rev Sports, they stay in the Non Rev classification.
You still, and quite purposefully, continue to skirt the whole “Bidding” process. In Wrestling, each school has WANTED to host it to make money. They don’t want to lose money or give up the rights to make that small profit.
It would be great if the conference did put it to a bid for a permanent site. Would Iowa fans be happy going to Columbus every year?
Williams Arena sucks. Agreed... So what do you do?
You say go to Target or the Excel Energy Center (MUCH newer and nicer than Target by the way).
How do you make the numbers work?
Do you move the NHL and NBA?
That incurs a cost...
Again, you would have had leg to stand on had you said they should have moved it to the Mariucci Arena and not off campus.
Gopher Hockey played Michigan in a Big 10 tournament game on Saturday.
It’s not quite as easy to schedule out these things because it is nice or not.
Gopher Hockey, Wild Hockey and Timberwolve Basketball as well as men’s and women’s gopher basketball all have to be scheduled around...
I am definitely not saying Williams is a great place or the best place, but I do understand why it was there.
Gopher Hockey, Wild Hockey and Timberwolve Basketball as well as men’s and women’s gopher basketball all have to be scheduled around...
I am definitely not saying Williams is a great place or the best place, but I do understand why it was there.
As I stated a long time ago in this thread, until last weekend, CHA is the only place that had ever been close to a sellout for the B1G Tournament. Most places average between 4-8,000, most closer to 4. I think over the last several years it has climbed to more in the 6-8,000 range and I believe it will continue to grow, especially now that the NCAA is trying to price half the fans out of their big tournament. No way should it (B1Gs) be held in a 5-7,000 seat arena. Just throwing away potential revenue, and cutting more fans out of it as well. Sorry, I'm sure attendance info is available, but I'm too lazy to look.
I wasn't that impressed with Target Center sight lines when NCAA was there. That being said, it would be WAAAAY better than Williams. My seats weren't bad this time, but a lot of other people's were. As I stated earlier, the B1Gs have always been held on campus, but this year, and definitely next would be a good time to change that.
First, read what I just wrote above. Second, Wells Fargo is not an upgrade over CHA. The only advantage it would have is more motels in the city. Otherwise, CHA is a much better venue and almost the same capacity.
They have the state high school championship at Xcel. Seems to work well for that.
Guys the positive thing is you have another 14 years til u have to complain about Big Tens at Williams again!
Women's basketball does not get magically combined with men's basketball to make women's basketball suddenly a revenue sport. What the hell are you talking about? Oh, that's right. You don't know what you're talkin about.
How would you move to Mariucci Arena (capacity is 10,000) when there is over 12,000 fans attending? The 12,000 fans will not fit in Mariucci. So again, you are making zero sense.
You have zero legs to stand on and zero arms to lean on.
Again, if the Big Ten Baseball Championship can be held at a modern venue in Omaha Nebraska every year, I would think there are enough smart people in the Big Ten Conference to figure out how to have a wrestling Conference Championship at a modern venue where it is comfortable for fans and where fans go away having had an amazing experience.
Baseball is not a revenue sport in the Big Ten Conference. That is very clear. That is why Wisconsin dropped the sport. Yet somehow the Big Ten Conference baseball tournament is held at a modern venue every year.
The Big Ten Conference figured it out for baseball. It's time they figured it out for wrestling. The current model does not work. Having it at Williams Arena this year and at the RAC next year obviously makes that point.
I will say this for Minnesota...lots of stuff to do around there and has me wanting to go back to see the area in the sunlight...perhaps for a football game. There...I said something nice. But come on y'all...that arena is jacked up. I'm guessing available real estate is the issue with it being so condensed in that area.
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