If you ask me, an event like the NCAA Wrestling championship is a bigger coup for Omaha and MECA than getting the NCAA basketball tournament. Wrestling brings visitors in from out of town and increases tourism. Basketball merely lines the pockets of greedy Creighton fans who hoard and scalp tickets.
Speaking of Creighton fan, they had to play their CTI game at the Civic Auditorium since the Qwest Center was being set up for NCAA wrestling. So how did they get their devoted fans that pack the Qwest Center to squeeze into the much smaller Civic? Turns out that wasn't an issue; only 4,348 tickets were sold, and even fewer bothered to show up. To quote UNO's Red Army:
"Oooh! Ahhh! Smaller than a Knights Crowd!"
Don't make the same mistake the BCS made by stretching the tournament out. Fans don't really want those weekend games moved to Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Give fans a reason to pay attention to those additional 32 "opening round" or "play in" games by jamming them into one day and turning it into a smorgasbord of basketball excess. (Remember what New Years Day used to be like before the BCS stretched out the bowl season over a whole week?) That might make a 96 team tournament palatable.
Probably won't happen, because this plan might only add two or three timeslots for the networks to sell ads. ESPN or CBS probably would prefer to drag it out as long as possible. Heck, let's spread the first round over the entire weekend, and just drag it out... play the Final Four on Memorial Day weekend. Good for fans? Hardly, but that seems to be the fashion in this sports economy.
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