Tournament Suggestions Requested

[Sonny]

We need more folks to attend the tournament and the Friday/Saturday games. MCLA players (& ex-players) need to make plans now to attend May 8 - 12 in Dallas. It all goes back to supporting our own level of the game.

Do you think some folks would notice if we could draw 5K fans for the final game? What if that number went even higher?

I refer you back to my podcast interview with Chris Park. He said it better then I could ever do it. Listen toward the end:
http://www.collegelax.us/news.php?action=fullnews&id=869

[CATLAX MAN]

If you want more MCLA players to attend, you have a number of them at your disposal - the players and their supporters of the teams that are not in the championship game. To get them to attend, schedule the championship game back to a mid-afternoon time slot, so that they can attend the game and catch their flights out of town. The last 2 years when the title game was in the evening did not capture this captive crowd.

[scooter]

agreed, also, many schools still have finals when the tournament is..... To have more support and larger crowd for the games, the tourny would need to be a few weeks earlier

[Sonny]

agreed, also, many schools still have finals when the tournament is..... To have more support and larger crowd for the games, the tourny would need to be a few weeks earlier

And some teams have already finished school when the tournament occurs and the regular season is already compact enough. I doubt the tournament is moving any earlier in the calendar.

[Sonny]

If you want more MCLA players to attend, you have a number of them at your disposal - the players and their supporters of the teams that are not in the championship game. To get them to attend, schedule the championship game back to a mid-afternoon time slot, so that they can attend the game and catch their flights out of town. The last 2 years when the title game was in the evening did not capture this captive crowd.

I hear what you are saying Catlax. But what I don't understand is how some of those players aren't planning their travel schedule (airplane tickets) based on them actually playing in that last game (i.e. staying through Saturday evening).

And if that last game is indeed scheduled for Saturday evening, how come everyone attending (or playing in) the tournament doesn't plan on staying for the whole event as if their team is going all the way to the National Championship Final?

I could see trying to modify your travel plans to get out of town earlier if/when your team loses. But until then, I would plan on staying for the whole event.

P.S. Mid afternoon last year in Dallas on that turf was mighty warm.

[CATLAX MAN]

...and mid-afternoon in St. Louis was no picnic in the shade either, so that really doesn't seem to matter. The proof is in the pudding. I can remember the stands in St. Louis very full for the championship game with players of non-participating teams, but I can't say the same for Blaine or Dallas when the game was scheduled in the evening. Perhaps players and their families have made plans for dinner or going out somewhere in the evening, I don't know. The fact is, that they are not coming to the night game for whatever reason, when they attended pretty well when scheduled during the daytime. Draw your own conclusion, but it should be obvious.

[Dulax31]

Any chance we ever go back to St. Louis now that the girls aren't part of our league anymore? St. Louis was real tight.

[John Paul]

No. No chance. The facility is far too small. The weather almost killed the tournament a couple of times. The community support is not nearly where we need it to be.

The B and A games will be back to back now. Let's see if that makes a difference. Bottom line, if we are depending on our teams and families that are competing to fill the stands, then we have a long way to go. It would be nice if everyone would stay for the championship. I'm always surprised that team don't do that to support the league or simply because they are interested in seeing it. But we can't force them. We need to build an audience from the local lacrosse community to be successful.

[norway]

I agree w/ the above comment.

[Daniel Morris]

JP and I will be down in Dallas tomorrow and Wednesday for site visits and talks with the North Texas USL chapter and city planning groups. We will talk about some of the suggestions on this board, and hope to have some concrete announcements before (or just after) the holidays.

[shrekjr]

Can hardly wait for it all to become official. Hopefully, last year's small issues can be resolved, and last year's good things will be even better this year! Should be lots of fun.

[Jolly Roger]

Of course I find it interesting that, personally being involved with the tournament since 2000, I've never heard complaints from Sonoma, Colorado, Colorado State, or BYU parents anywhere near the level of a couple of these UCSB parents.

I'm sorry the game start time interferes with your celebration. Of course we can't start too early because then, with the time change, it's the equivalavnt to 10am for you.

B!tch, b!tch, b!tch

[CATLAX MAN]

It has nothing to do with complaining about the start time interfering with celebrating. If you've been involved in the tournament for as long as you say, you must have noticed that the attendance at the 2 night games were much less than the day games. Common sense will tell you that the time change must have had something to do with that as that is the only thing different about the championship game. It's not a complaint, it's a noting of a fact. Choose to ignore it if you want, but those who don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

[Daniel Morris]

Championship game times were out of our hands the last couple of seasons. We had to factor in television coverage and the wishes of USL to balance the Men's and Women's games, which conflicted with our desires on when we wanted to start.

This year, we will work to schedule games on the following factors:
1. When we think attendance will be the best
2. Possible televison coverage and their needs
3. When it is safest for teams to play
4. What we have to work with regarding field availability
5. Factoring in the desires of teams on when to start (most ask to start later in the day so teams can recover from a grueling week and semi-finals (usually a battle) the day before)

We may not be able to take everything into account, but we will try to balance these to come up with something that works best.

One comment on what Sonny mentioned earlier. There are a lot of teams that have tickets (or a bus) home on Friday night/early Saturday because they don't see themselves making the finals. With the addition of the rest day and the expansion of the week, some teams want to get back asap. Others, not happy with their team performance, may just want to get on the road. I am unsure how we combat this. But like JP said, we need to draw from the locals. If we are counting on just our teams and their families as spectators, we are in bad shape. It was one of the reasons we decided to leave St. Louis. We need to draw the locals in Texas and we will work to plan the tournament around when we have the best chance to secure them, while addressing the needs of the constituent teams still playing. What happens when we move past consolation games? Or move to regional play with a smaller national tournament? We need a tournament model that draws from the area.

[CATLAX MAN]

The best way to involve the local community is to have some type of joint event in which the main event is the MCLA championship game. A few posters have already pointed out that getting a tie-in with local high schools (either an invitational one day tourney like the First Four is doing in San Diego or staging a sectional or state high school championship tourney) is probably the best thing that could be done to generate local interest.