It's interesting to see quite a bit of overall discussion on where conference tournaments are held. On some of the other boards it seems that some look at it as a way to grow or promote the conference brand or following.

I guess I look at it more of a way to serve alumni and fans of the schools and to make it more convenient to see your school play. How much do you think goes into either of those prospectives or maybe another?




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The B10 spreads over 11 states. Just rotate through the largest metro areas for each state (with Rutgers going to NYC and Maryland going to DC).

Though some locations are better than others. Many minor league grounds don't have the capacity for a crowd like the one for the championship game, and scheduling a MLB park for a tournament would depend on the club being scheduled for a road trip during tournament week. Even if the MLB head office was willing to accommodate, a club might not wish to be on the road for every single Memorial Day weekend for several years in a row.

So it might be better with something like a four year rotation between Eastern and Western divisions ... say, Omaha, Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, and repeat.

(05-30-2014 10:52 AM)Strut Wrote:  It's interesting to see quite a bit of overall discussion on where conference tournaments are held. On some of the other boards it seems that some look at it as a way to grow or promote the conference brand or following.

I guess I look at it more of a way to serve alumni and fans of the schools and to make it more convenient to see your school play. How much do you think goes into either of those prospectives or maybe another?




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It varies by sport. In general, the leaders have talked about living in 2 regions and I think they break a lot down right now as simply Midwest or Northeast.

1. Football: This is obviously the biggest sport and the one they can get the most money in sponsorship and in very high price ticket sales. There's only a week's notice and only 2 teams going though. All those facts means you want to maximize the sell out abilities and keep centrally located every year (there are several quotes from the conference indicating this).

2. Basketball: Basketball has all 14 teams coming and everyone knows the date a year in advance. While they can probably more easily sell out in central location, they can make the tournament work elsewhere particularly every once and awhile. They seem to view the basketball tournament as the most high profile way to integrate the east coast experience into the Big Ten (since football is a no go and since the others sports aren't big enough). I saw a quote somewhere saying about 20% in the east (so probably about once every 5 years) and 80% in the Midwest which makes sense given the conference membership.

3. Olympic sports: The models vary by sport, but you can't expect big traveling fanbases with these, so in all you want to put the touranment places you can get decent local support. Largely this means some rotations, but putting emphasis on places that disproportionately support a sport. Hockey will generally stay in the western part of the conference, lacrosse in the east, and baseball will be closer to Nebraska more.

If IU has to win the thing in Nebraska, I say Indy gets one. 15,696 with lawn seating, another 500 or so from the JW Marriott.

(05-30-2014 09:14 PM)SeaBlue Wrote:  If IU has to win the thing in Nebraska, I say Indy gets one. 15,696 with lawn seating, another 500 or so from the JW Marriott.

I like this idea A LOT. Much better than Wrigley.

As a Chicagoland resident, the drive to Indy is very doable (~3 hours).

Indy is a great town for the B1G. The AAA Baseball stadium is beautiful, Lucas Oil and the basketball arena are all downtown and brand new. Plenty of hotels downtown and decent to good restaurants and bars.

From a selfish point of view, I would like to the B1G football championship played at Soldier Field every once and a while.

They certainly wouldn't have to black out the championship in Indianapolis if Indiana was in it ... the place would be sold out ... not just in the final, either.

Even though baseball is not played in divisions, I like the idea of if alternating between Eastern Division and Western Division (it would have been silly to alternate between divisions under the Lederhosen and Legless division days). Indianapolis would be an Eastern Division location.

And if we don't want a MLB park because it would look too empty on TV, Indianapolis is pretty much the biggest Minor League park in the Eastern Division footprint. The only bigger one in their minor league is Buffalo, and all the east coast Minor League parks seem to be 6,000-10,000.

Its a five hour drive from here in NE Ohio, southeast of Cleveland, so a bit of a stretch from the three Eastern schools, but from Columbus, Lansing and Ann Arbor, its three to four hours.

The Omaha people mentioned once that Indy is a strong competitor for the tourney, so apparently Delany did/does shop the tournament.

Now that that basketball is on a rotation and football might be headed that direction I wouldn't be surprised to see Indy land the baseball tourney. And as mentioned, it would be quite an atmosphere downtown if IU was a strong contender.

There might be logistical issues with the Indy 500 taking place the same week. Or, perhaps it could be a good thing to have all that going on at the same time.

(05-31-2014 10:25 PM)SeaBlue Wrote:  There might be logistical issues with the Indy 500 taking place the same week. Or, perhaps it could be a good thing to have all that going on at the same time.

Yet another reason to slide the baseball season three weeks later on the Calender.

Football: Rotate among indoor stadiums and every fifth year play outside. Indianapolis, being the most central location and most veteran Big Ten championship host, should get the most games.

year 1 - Indianapolis
year 2 - Detroit
year 3 - Indianapolis
year 4 - Minneapolis
year 5 - Chicago
year 6 - Indianapolis
year 7 - Detroit
year 8 - Indianapolis
year 9 - Minneapolis
year 10 - New York

Basketball: Rotate among four primary locations and play somewhere different every fifth year.

year 1 - Chicago
year 2 - Philadelphia
year 3 - Indianapolis
year 4 - New York
year 5 - Detroit
year 6 - Chicago
year 7 - Philadelphia
year 8 - Indianapolis
year 9 - New York
year 10 - Washington

Hockey: Same as basketball.

year 1 - St. Paul
year 2 - Detroit
year 3 - Chicago
year 4 - Pittsburgh
year 5 - Cleveland
year 6 - St. Paul
year 7 - Detroit
year 8 - Chicago
year 9 - Pittsburgh
year 10 - Milwaukee

Baseball: Rotate among the best (largest/newest) minor league like stadiums and every fifth year play in a Major League park.

year 1 - Omaha
year 2 - Indianapolis
year 3 - Columbus
year 4 - Allentown
year 5 - Wrigley Field
year 6 - Omaha
year 7 - Indianapolis
year 8 - Columbus
year 9 - Allentown
year 10 - Yankee Stadium

I would stagger these years so that year 5 isn't the same year for any sport.

(05-31-2014 11:09 AM)Waterloo Wrote:  

(05-30-2014 09:14 PM)SeaBlue Wrote:  If IU has to win the thing in Nebraska, I say Indy gets one. 15,696 with lawn seating, another 500 or so from the JW Marriott.

I like this idea A LOT. Much better than Wrigley.

As a Chicagoland resident, the drive to Indy is very doable (~3 hours).

Indy is a great town for the B1G. The AAA Baseball stadium is beautiful, Lucas Oil and the basketball arena are all downtown and brand new. Plenty of hotels downtown and decent to good restaurants and bars.

From a selfish point of view, I would like to the B1G football championship played at Soldier Field every once and a while.

I'd like to see it at Lambeau as a one off, just for the sheer history of it. But not regularly for obvious reasons. I'd definitely like to see it at Soldier Field sometimes too for the same reasons as Lambeau, but unlike Lambeau something semi-regular would work out. If you did Indianapolis 50% of the time, Chicago 25% of the time and a rotation of everywhere else 25% of the time I think it would work really nicely. So let's say in 4 years Indianapolis gets it in years 1 and 3, Chicago in year 2 and perhaps Minneapolis or Detroit or Baltimore get in in year 4.

(06-03-2014 10:16 AM)brista21 Wrote:  I'd definitely like to see it at Soldier Field sometimes too for the same reasons as Lambeau, but unlike Lambeau something semi-regular would work out. If you did Indianapolis 50% of the time, Chicago 25% of the time and a rotation of everywhere else 25% of the time I think it would work really nicely.

I think it may be best to alternate between Eastern Division and Western Division, with the Eastern Division playing the majority of the time in Indianapolis and the Western Division playing the majority of the time in Chicago ... but if either division wanted to take one in three or one in four elsewhere, I guess that would be OK.

Indeed, I'd alternate it so its in the West in the year that the Western Division has four home games, five away and in the East in the year that the Eastern division has four home games, five away.

Within the options I expect the conference to consider, I'd do the following:

For football, I'd probably keep them all in Indianapolis. The only exception I'd make to that would be a Chicago appearance, but I don't think the conference will consider an outdoor venue as they want this game in prime time.

For basketball, I'd go on a 5 year cycle

Year 1: Indianapolis
Year 2: Chicago
Year 3: Indianapolis
Year 4: Chicago
Year 5: East coast city (Washington/New York)

Now if we ignore what I think is possible and go simply with what I'd like, I'd say move the football championship to the home of the team with the best Big Ten record.

(06-04-2014 09:00 AM)ohio1317 Wrote:  For basketball, I'd go on a 5 year cycle

Year 1: Indianapolis
Year 2: Chicago
Year 3: Indianapolis
Year 4: Chicago
Year 5: East coast city (Washington/New York)

Works for me.

(06-05-2014 02:01 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(06-04-2014 09:00 AM)ohio1317 Wrote:  For basketball, I'd go on a 5 year cycle

Year 1: Indianapolis
Year 2: Chicago
Year 3: Indianapolis
Year 4: Chicago
Year 5: East coast city (Washington/New York)

Works for me.

Agreed. I don't want to see the conference tournament out of the league core more often than that. And in terms of the "East Coast" cities I'd throw Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and the Prudential Center in Newark into the mix too.

http://www.bigten.org/genrel/060514aae.html

Some announcements from the home office... the football championship game is staying in Indy through 2021. The basketball tournament will continue to rotate between Chicago and Indy from 2019 through 2022 after a two year break in 2017 (DC) and 2018 (TBD).

(06-07-2014 11:18 AM)prp Wrote:  http://www.bigten.org/genrel/060514aae.html

Some announcements from the home office... the football championship game is staying in Indy through 2021.

Never would have believed it when I moved to this town in '88.

Thank you Mr. Delany.

Big Ten Announces Dates and Sites for 2015 and 2016 Men's and Women's Lacrosse Tournaments

http://www.bigten.org/sports/m-lacros/sp...14aaa.html

(06-12-2014 02:27 PM)Transic_nyc Wrote:  Big Ten Announces Dates and Sites for 2015 and 2016 Men's and Women's Lacrosse Tournaments

http://www.bigten.org/sports/m-lacros/sp...14aaa.html

Makes sense all the big lacrosse schools hosting. I'd probably keep something like that going. Maybe add Penn State in here and there.

2015: Maryland (men), Rutgers (women)
2016: John Hopkins (men), Northwestern (women)