Championship Venue

[laxmom]

I have to agree with Catlaxman...as a first time attendee at the finals, having a mid afternoon game on Saturday makes more sense, especially for those of us who want to start celebrating before 10:00 pm. More time for socializing, etc. after the game!

[John Paul]

With a B final added to the mix, we can't really move the championship up that much unless we force the B teams to play a morning championship game, which we won't do. Right now they go at noon, the women at 3:30 and the men at 7:00. Even if we squeezed everything, the best we could do is move the men up to 6 or 6:30. The event should end with the men's A final. That's the premier game of the week.

I disagree about the disadvantages of a night game, aside from the celebration limitations afterwards. I thought the lighting was fine. It was fine for TV, and they're pretty particular. I had no trouble seeing. I don't like the distance to the field because of the track, but nothing we can do there. Waiting for a night game happens all the time in every sport at every level. If the weather is nice (which it wasn't at any time this year), a night game has a much bigger feel to it. I don't see that changing.

Both USL and the MDIA BOD desire to move to a final four format. I agree about the special feel of having all the teams together, but there are compelling reasons to move to a regional / final format. The problems of staffing, cost and competitive fairness still remain, and until we solve those we'll be staying with a 5 day, 16 team tournament.

[Sonny]

I have to agree with Catlaxman...as a first time attendee at the finals, having a mid afternoon game on Saturday makes more sense, especially for those of us who want to start celebrating before 10:00 pm. More time for socializing, etc. after the game!

The focus of the final Div. A game should be primarily on the participants with TV/attracting fans a close second. I don't think the amount of post-game celebration time should factor into the equation.

I though the new night time start was nice and added a new element to the championship. I always thought we should have done that in the Lou, but the lighting on the main field wasn't up to par.

[Bluevelvet]

I also disliked the 7PM start for the championship game for all the reasons stated above. The players on UCSB (participants) hated it.
In addition, I know for a fact that several participating teams left Blaine on Saturday before the final.
The attendance for the final was terrible, the worst I have seen in 4 years. The weather and the opening of fishing season may have held down local participation but the 7PM start was responsible for the teams that arrived by bus leaving early.
Further, the congregating and socializing after the game is an important part of the tournament. It was ridiculously curtailed by the 7 PM start.
I see no difference between noon and 11AM. There is also no reason to have 3 1/2 hours between 2 hour games. I think 11AM; 2PM amd 5PM would be a better schedule. If there is a snag, there is plenty of time to work with.
Another scheduling problem was that there were at least 2 consolation games scheduled during one of the semifinals. This sends a message to the teams that it is unimportant whether they are spectators for that semi final game or the final.

[CATLAX MAN]

The other problem with the night game this year was that it seemed to hold down attendance. Last year in the Loo, there were many more people attending than the amount that attended this year. The weather may also have been a factor in this, but the fact that the championship game was so late, it meant that the out-of-towners could not catch the late flight out of town. Many players from other teams opted to leave rather than spend another night in Blaine. That was also probably true for the followers of those teams. I would think that it would be better to move the Div. B champioship game to the evening and let the women have the 12:00 slot. I think you'd see many more people at the Div A game if it had the 3:30 slot.

Edited:

Again you type faster than me, Bluevelvet.

[Sonny]

The final game of the entire event should always be the Div. A Championship. That is the focus of the entire week. Playing the Div. B championship after the Div. A championship is counterproductive, unnecessary, and silly. I'd bet most of the crowd would leave if we played a women's or men's game after the Div. A final.

[Bluevelvet]

Constructive criticism (this was the prevailing feeling of the parents and fans that I spoke with-not just me):

1. The players hated the 7 PM start.
2. The parents and fans hated the 7 PM start.
3. Other teams and all their fans left before the game due to the 7PM start.
4. There was no chance to celebrate as a community due to the 7PM start and 10 PM finish.

Additionally, by spreading out the finals from noon until 10 PM, the schedule discouraged spectators from showing up for all 3 games. I think there would be a better chance that fans would show up for 3 championship games if they didn't span 10 hours. The 11AM; 2PM; and 5PM start times would reduce that to 7 hours which is bad enough.
If the B division stays at 8 teams, why couldn't their tournament be rescheduled so that the final would be held on Friday with the A Semi's? In that case, the B final would get more attendance and there would be only 2 finals to schedule on Saturday.

[John Paul]

First, the A final will always be last.

Second, the B final will be on Saturday, along with A.

Those two things will not change.

I agree we can tighten up the schedule a bit, but ultimately if we are also asking CSTV to eventually cover the finals live, and completely, then they will decide the schedule. If they tell us the final is Saturday at 9pm or there will be no TV, then that's what we do.

The night game presents other challenges, most notably keeping staff and officials an extra night which adds cost, but with three teams playing that day keeping people longer is unavoidable. Even a 5pm start would force most everyone to stay that night. Some teams left St. Louis before the final with an afternoon start. We can't force teams to stay. Hopefully someday this event will draw a decent crowd (2,000 - 5,000?) regardless of how many teams stay. Obviously, that will depend on where and how we do it in the future, and what kind of marketing and promotion USL does.

Even with better weather, the number of fans who are going to have enough interest in the event to show up for all three finals is negligible. There's not enough cross-over interest in men's/women's lacrosse to influence more than a handful of people.

I know that if my team was in the final, we would appreciate the late start just from a preparation perspective. I'll ask Mike Allan what he thought of the timing this week in Japan. I know Doug Carl had no complaints (about that, at least).

[UofMLaxGoalie11]

Even with better weather, the number of fans who are going to have enough interest in the event to show up for all three finals is negligible. There's not enough cross-over interest in men's/women's lacrosse to influence more than a handful of people.

Then maybe do the womens game first? I think more of the high schoolers would like to see the B game and then A right after, as they are much more interested in mens lax than womens. I think that would boost attendance at the B game as well, and people would be more likely to stick around for two games in a row rather than leave for 3 hours and come back.

[Johnny Tremain]

I agree with having the women's game lead off championship Saturday.

[shrekjr]

After reading the requirments for hosting the event, I have a couple of questions....

1- The request says 8-10 fields. Were there actually that many used at one time or did they rotate fields on the schedule?

2- The request says seating for 4000 (I assume that is for the championship games). I understand attendance may have been down for a variety of reasons. How many people actually attended the "A" championship game this year?

3- The request calls for alternate fields to be available in case of bad weather, I assume this calls for turf fields. I know a lot of lacrosse teams don't like the old turf and would rather play on grass. How unpopular would the old carpet-like AstroTurf be if that is all that would be available on championship day?

[Sonny]

At least 8 different fields were used this year in Blaine:
4 A Fields near frontage road (2 men's, 2 womens)
2 C Fields in the back
1 main stadium championship field
1 field next to stadium (for women's semis).

[cricketman]

[quote="John Paul"]"Even with better weather, the number of fans who are going to have enough interest in the event to show up for all three finals is negligible. There's not enough cross-over interest in men's/women's lacrosse to influence more than a handful of people."

So why do we share the event with Women's lacrosse? With all the discussion about the challenges presented by additional teams why not split the women off into their own tournament.

As far as I'm concerned it's such an entirely different game it should be renamed. I see absolutely no crossover whatsoever between fans! There was so much waiting around this year that I attempted to watch a womens game but still couldn't stay for more than a few minutes, I was bored out of my mind!

[LaxRef]

So why do we share the event with Women's lacrosse? With all the discussion about the challenges presented by additional teams why not split the women off into their own tournament.

As they've said about a dozen times in this thread, it is too expensive right now to run 2 or 3 separate tournaments. There are economies of scale in doing A, B, and women at one site.

Plus, they wanted women coming to the site from out of town to keep you guys from bothering the local womenfolk!

[Danny Hogan]

"Even with better weather, the number of fans who are going to have enough interest in the event to show up for all three finals is negligible. There's not enough cross-over interest in men's/women's lacrosse to influence more than a handful of people."

So why do we share the event with Women's lacrosse? With all the discussion about the challenges presented by additional teams why not split the women off into their own tournament.

As far as I'm concerned it's such an entirely different game it should be renamed. I see absolutely no crossover whatsoever between fans! There was so much waiting around this year that I attempted to watch a womens game but still couldn't stay for more than a few minutes, I was bored out of my mind!

broaden your horizons man. there were some incredible women's games out there this year. From what i saw the Cal Poly women could probably hang with some of them men's teams out there.

there is a lot more crossover fans than you think. if you polled the players i bet most if not all would want the womens tourney at the same site.