I found this article today concerning the possible changes in the Big Sky Conference:
There’s got to be a better way
http://www.pocatelloshops.com/new_blogs/kellis/?p=4589
If Big Sky athletic directors have their way, basketball teams across the conference will struggle to arrive on time for road games next year.
They also will have to do without their full scholarship roster while traveling and need a fourth-place finish in the conference standings just to make the league tournament.
In an all-out effort to save money in this terrible economy, the conference’s nine athletic directors recently voted heavily in favor of changing the Big Sky’s game rotation from Thursday/Saturday to Friday/Saturday, lowering the maximum allowable travel party from 21 to 18 and turning the postseason tournament into a four-team affair.
The votes were made via conference call and mean nothing at the moment, but they will be presented to conference presidents as recommendations later this year. They will then decide whether or not to implement them.
Idaho State interim athletic director Jeff Tingey said he was the only AD to vote against the majority of those changes, and Bengals coach Joe O’Brien has already said he’s “completely against” all three proposals.
You can count me on the “don’t do it” side, too.
Just because times are so tough that Northern Arizona’s athletic department is dealing with massive budget cuts that could eventually threaten the Lumberjacks’ football program and Eastern Washington is currently on an out-of-state traveling freeze doesn’t mean the conference should turn its basketball product into a dollar menu-operation.
There are better ways to save money.
I’ll get to that part in a bit, but first allow me to explain why the athletic directors’ proposed cuts are unacceptable.
The first, and all-around dumbest, of the ideas is forcing teams to play on back-to-back days throughout the conference season. A Friday/Saturday game rotation may work for the Ivy League, which values sports so little that it doesn’t offer athletic scholarships, but there’s a reason no other Division I conference uses it.
In the Big Sky, that system would create enormous travel problems for the away team, traveling media and officials.
Teams around the league already complain that the Big Sky travel schedule is too tough on them and say that’s the main reason none of them can consistently win road games. Just try imagining how tough it will be for them without a day off between games.
Coaches will have to talk game strategy on the bus, players will have to practice during pre-game warm ups and sleep will have to take place in moving vehicles.
Even then, there’s no guarantee teams will show up to games on time. With Friday/Saturday games in the middle of winter, it’s not hard to imagine away teams sitting in an airport on a Saturday evening when they’re supposed to be taking the court in another city.
When you fly only cheap, commercial flights like every team across the conference does, there is always a chance for delays. I’m not sure how many times Big Sky athletic directors have tried to attend a game in Flagstaff, Ariz., on a Thursday night, drive two hours to the Phoenix airport the next morning, catch a flight to another conference city, collect your bags and rent a car with enough time to drive to another game by 7 that night, but it can be difficult and exhausting.
Sometimes, bad weather happens or a mechanical malfunction occurs, and it’s impossible.
To avoid those late arrivals, teams will have to stop flying Southwest and start flying much more expensive flights directly into small cities like Flagstaff and Pocatello and take marginally more expensive non-stop flights into bigger cities.
I’m not sure how many times Big Sky athletic directors have compared flight prices, but you can fly from Salt Lake City to Phoenix or Sacramento, Calif., for as low as $35 a person on Southwest. If you have time for a drive to Flagstaff or time for layovers, it is by far the cheapest way to fly. But if you have to get there as quickly as possible, it is not even an option. You have to upgrade to Delta or some other airline that charges much, much more.
Now that I think about it, I’m confident a Friday/Saturday game rotation would actually raise costs. Under no circumstances can that plan go into effect.
If the Big Sky is serious about saving money, it should keep the current Thursday/Saturday rotation and start all Saturday games in the afternoon. With a noon or 2 p.m. tip, away teams could head straight to the airport after games and avoid staying in a hotel that evening. I seriously doubt attendance would suffer with the earlier start times, and teams would suddenly have eight fewer nights of hotel rooms to pay for.
Sounds better, doesn’t it?
The idea of shrinking the Big Sky tournament doesn’t hold water, either. If league coaches had their way, the tournament would be expanded to include all nine teams. Trimming it down to four simply means it will be harder for teams to make the field and easier for coaches to lose their jobs.
The tournament is fine the way it is, and it rewards teams every step of the way. But if Big Sky athletic directors insist that it costs too much money to play five postseason games then why are they even hosting tournaments? If you think about it, conference tournaments are nothing more than needless events that give losers a second chance to make the NCAA tournament. If they really want to save money, they could just eliminate them altogether and award the conference’s automatic berth in the Big Dance to the regular-season champion.
Nobody would go for that on the men’s side, because the Big Sky tournament title game is televised nationally on ESPN2 and is the league’s best shot at money/exposure all year. But there is no such reward on the women’s side. Aside from a nice crowd for the host team’s games, it is nothing but a money pit.
Let me be clear: I am in favor of the Big Sky tournament. But if the conference wants to copy the Ivy League, it might as well go all the way and have no tournament. I would rather see one tournament or no tournaments than a pair of four-team tournaments.
The league could also cut costs by dropping its Big Sky Game of the Week arrangement with Altitude TV. The games inconvenience fans by being played on Sunday, portray the conference in a bad light when the television cameras reveal thousands of empty seats at the arenas and only a handful of people regularly watch the games. Worst of all, the league has to pay Altitude TV to televise the games. This should be stopped immediately.
And while I’m on the topic, the conference should actually start charging people to watch Big Sky TV. It makes no sense to give away your product like your that.
If worst comes to worst, the conference could even call off its summer kick-off/media day sessions in Park City, Utah. That’s one of my favorite events of the year, and I hope that doesn’t happen, but I would shed no tears if losing it meant Big Sky basketball teams didn’t have to endure this newest round of cost-saving proposals.
Anything would be better than that.
