(02-24-2018 12:42 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-24-2018 12:17 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  Can't blame Delany for pushing the envelope by putting it in New York, but moving the tourney up a week should have been recognized as a bad idea from the start. It was bad for their regular season and tournament.

It was pure hubris. Delany wanted to be in MSG because he thought the Big Ten would overshadow the Big East in "its" building.

I'm not sure. I don't think Delany sees the Big East as the main foe here. It's the ACC. And the ACC is also doing the same thing, holding its tourney in NYC and DC as well for a couple years.

I was in DC last year when the B1G was being held there, and it felt weird. Basically, there was little to no "buzz" in the area about the tournament and IIRC, overall attendance was down significantly compared to when they hold it in their traditional mid-western footprint.

Delany is playing a longer game here. He thinks it's worth losing 25,000 fans by holding it in DC or NYC, if it advances the larger goal of building the B1G brand in that potentially insanely lucrative DC-NYC corridor.

Delany is in an all-out battle with the ACC for hegemony in NYC-DC. Adding MD and Rutgers was part of that, and matching the ACC's efforts to hold its tournament in DC and NYC is too.