Big South Tournament to Johnson City. Thoughts, Reactions, and Analysis.
Big South Tournament to Johnson City.
Opening Thoughts:
The Big South has worked hard to find a permanent (or something more like it) home for the Big South tournament, and now the event is headed to it's SEVENTH venue and city in the past decade. This time headed to a different state, and one that does not even have a Big South team, Tennessee. The fan reaction was less than savory to this news, some fans were mad that they chose to not give the tournament back to High Point after the decent turnout and atmosphere last season. Some fans mad over the move to Johnson City over any of the other venues in South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.
The Why?: To be honest, I wish I knew the answer, if I had to make an educated guess, MONEY and maybe something else... Johnson City according to the Big South has had the priority of hosting a premier athletics event again and now they will have the opportunity to do so. I truly would have to believe the Big South only made this move because Johnson City officials made an offer that the Big South couldn't in their mind turn down.
The Good:
Neutral Site:
To start off our good section, I have the one thing most people can agree on is good and that is that the event is now at a neutral site. For the 6th time since the iteration of the Big South conference and the Big South tournament, we will have a neutral site (a few of the neutral sites were in the same city as a Big South college). The last time the Big South tournament was at a neutral venue was when the tournament was in Charlotte and the attendance for the Big South final usually hovered around 2,500.
For reference I picked 7 other Mid Major/Low Major conference tournaments that were held at neutral sites for the 2023-24 season and list their attendance figures.
Big West- 1,623 (Henderson, NV)
CAA- 1,954 (Washington, DC)
CUSA- 4,541 (Huntsville, AL)
MAAC- 2,477 (Atlantic City, NJ)
OVC- 1,421 (Evansville, IN)
Summit League- 8,268 (Sioux Falls, SD)
SWAC- 2,108 (Birmingham, AL)
WAC- 4,019 (Las Vegas, NV)
These figures would suggest that the Big South actually wasn't underperforming when they played in Charlotte and that this might just suggest a bigger issues of Mid Major/Low Major fans do not want to travel these massive distances for conference tournaments.
For reference here are attendance figures for tournaments held at a campus location, or "neutral site" that is a campus location inside the conference.
ASUN- 2,328 (Stetson)
America East- 3,000 (Vermont)|
Ivy League- 2,278 (Columbia , Only holds 2,700)
NEC- 2,214 (Merrimack, 2023 data no 2024 data)
Patriot- 1,533 (Colgate, Only holds 1,750)
Southland- 4,200 (McNeese)
It seems with relative success, hosting at campus sites works, obviously some Big South schools wouldn't be able to get anywhere near these figures just do to lack of size in their arena. So I have to believe you need to run the tournament like the Southland. Choose a host site that is close to/on campus and host it there, or if they are focused on the whole "neutral site" plan, choose a place closer to every school and host the tournament there.
Venues I'd like to see:
North Charleston Coliseum in North Charleston, SC
TD Arena in Charleston, SC
Greensboro Coliseum Complex in Greensboro, NC
Dorton Arena in Raleigh, NC
Winston Salem Fairground in Winston Salem, NC
Berglund Arena in Roanoke, VA
The "Something Else"
ETSU to the Big South?: Time for me and everyone to put on their tin foil caps for a pretty farfetched idea. What if the Big South is using this as a way of testing how adding ETSU to the Big South would work? One reason the Big South might want ETSU is because it's a football school, giving them one more football school, another reason is to add a 10th school. Do I think this is realistic? NO. Am I optimistic that it could happen? Yes.
Conclusion
Thoughts and Conclusion: When I originally started writing this piece, I like many Big South fans and just fans of Mid Major basketball in general was very angry and confused, and while I still am confused on why we chose ETSU, with both my research on other tournaments, and my own thoughts about ETSU. I'm cautiously optimistic about the Big South heading to ETSU for the Big South Tournament.