|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NCAA WOMEN'S FINAL FOURApril 6, 2009Sue DonohoeJacki SilarST. LOUIS, MISSOURI AMY YAKOLA: Pleased to be joined up at the podium by the chair of the Division I Women's Basketball Committee, Jacki Silar, as well as from the NCAA staff, Sue Donohoe. Jacki, if you could, just give us a brief opening statement and then we'll take questions. JACKI SILAR: Just want to say on behalf of the Division I Women's Basketball Committee and the NCAA staff, we're excited to have our host of the city of St. Louis and the Missouri Valley Conference take a part in this fabulous tournament. They have done a great job over the last year to prepare for this, and we're really excited to have UConn and Louisville participate in the championship game tomorrow night, on Tuesday night. I think throughout the championship tournament we've seen some outstanding games. We've had some upsets, which is exciting in the women's game. We've taken our game to I think a new level with 16-sites format that has enabled more of our fans to take part in cheering on their teams, as well as having a better experience for our student-athletes. So we are continuing to look at different ways to grow our game and we always need the help of our women's basketball coaches as well as our media folks to help us propel this fabulous sport into everybody's homes, as well as getting new people into our stands to enjoy this fabulous game. AMY YAKOLA: Questions for either Sue or Jacki. Q. This is a couple of attendance questions. The stands weren't full, and I know that some groups had cancelled. What kind of groups had cancelled for this? SUE DONOHOE: What we have, we have different groups that get allotments. We have the local organizing committee that gets allotment. Then the Women's Basketball Coaches Association and then the four participating teams, then the NCAA. And so those are your primary allotments. And there's no doubt the local organizing committee, they had some tickets out of their allocation. Our NCAA allocation we had some tickets. WBCA. And the teams that traditionally have needed 15-, 1600 tickets, they didn't need that many tickets. And so you did see some holes, particularly in the upper level last night. I think it's a reflection of the difficult economic times right now. And I think the local organizing committee and the Coaches Association did a great job in trying to move their tickets as well as they could. But I think it just reflects the economic challenges that we're in right now. Q. Do you think that not having a Tennessee or somebody like that there could also hurt? Would that have helped to sell more tickets or not? SUE DONOHOE: I'm not sure. Because, I mean, traditionally when we've had a program like a Connecticut or an Oklahoma in, they will simply tell us we'll take everything that you've got. And I think that they were a little bit surprised that the demands weren't as great as they probably anticipated. Having Louisville, which is four and a half hours from here, certainly you would think that folks could hop in a car, come over, drive over, and I think we can anticipate having a lot of that happen on Tuesday evening. So I don't even know that a traditional attendance driver like Tennessee, that we would have seen anything any different. I do, I truly believe it's a little bit of a reflection of folks have so many discretionary dollars right now and didn't choose to use it on tickets. Q. You mentioned the first- and second-round games going to 16 sites. Do you have figures on that? Did you get a boost from that versus the eight sites over the last few years? JACKI SILAR: Again, a reflection of what has happened here at the Final Four. Our numbers were slightly down. But we also out of our 16 sites we had six of them that were totally neutral sites, which didn't have a home team playing. Where, in '04, when our attendance was the highest ever, we only -- out of the 16 only two were neutral. So it's kind of a combination. SUE DONOHOE: And it's difficult, there's no doubt about it. You look at higher seeds playing on lower seeds' floor. And I don't think any of us that walk in the world of women's basketball want that, but where we are with the game right now, that's the reality of it. And there are a lot of coaches that understand, you know what, if I'm a 2 seed and I'm playing an 8 or a 9 on their floor, hopefully a 2 seed's going to be the stronger team. Sometimes that's not always the case. But I think the committee made the decision a few years ago to try eight sites with eight teams. You know what, it was a risk. And after three or four years and evaluating it, it didn't do what we needed it to do. So you've got to say, okay, that didn't work. The most successful format we've been in, bar none, eight sites, eight teams, 16, top 16 seeds, the best format from an attendance standpoint, a logistical and operational standpoint, is 16 predetermined. There's some folks that say, well, let's go back to the top 16 seeds and announce that on Monday night. If we do that, ESPN's ability to be able to televise and produce 63 games, we won't have those opportunities in first and second rounds. So as difficult sometimes as it is, it's where we are right now. Is that where we ultimately want to be? No, probably not. But you look at some of our sites this year that didn't have a team there, and that's not the championship experience that you want. So it's something that we've all got to keep working on together. Q. Is it never going to be considered that it's not worth the television getting every single one of those games televised to avoid situations? I'm just curious if that door's just shut, you're never going back there? SUE DONOHOE: I think that's a great question. And I think I'm not one that will ever say never. So I always believe there's always a door open now. You know, how far your foot is stuck in it, I don't know right now. I think there are a lot of people that for years worked so hard to get the television exposure that we now are lucky to have, and I think we all benefit from that. And they did a great job at the negotiation table. I think we would have to really, really look at it. Certainly our contract with ESPN, we're entering into a phase here over the next 18 months where we will start renegotiation. And I think we've got to consider what's best for the overall good of the game. It's interesting, if you talk to a coach that is from a high-profile program that they are on television every week all regular season, they'd say, you know, get rid of those early rounds on TV and let's get to a format that's better for us. If you talk to some of those programs that the only time they're ever on television is that first-round game or that second round game, that exposure for them, there's not enough dollars in their marketing budget that buys them that kind of exposure. So you've got to look at it, I think, what's good for the best, and what's good for all. But to say will we ever consider that, certainly I think as we move into this next negotiation of our contract, we'll have some good dialogue and discussion about what's best for us. JACKI SILAR: What I would like to see is I would like to see the growth of the game. I would like to have the fan that is just the fan of women's basketball, not the fan of that particular university or institution, and that's where we have to take our game. It's a fabulous game. It's a different game than the men. It's played below the rim. And when a regional or first-round site is determined for the men, within a year the tickets in that city are already sold, and they don't know what teams are going to be there. But they sell those seats already, because those people are fans of the game of men's basketball. And that's what we have to develop. You know, we're young. We haven't been around that long, if you really think about it. We have time to grow, and we have time to get there. And that's what we have to develop. And we need everybody to help do that. Q. It's been more than two decades since two men were coaches in the national championship game. What significance do you put on that, if any? And it's okay if there is no significance to it. JACKI SILAR: I would have never known that. I put no significance on it whatsoever. Q. To go back to what you were saying about growth of the game. I think everyone wants that, but wanting it and actually seeing it happen are two different things. When you have a crowd -- a fortunate crowd like you had out in LA, and unfortunately Raleigh was not well attended, how do you look at those things and try to avoid them, saying I understand you want growth of the game, but there are places in this country that have consistently, for more than a decade, produced crowds in the Midwest as opposed to some other places? JACKI SILAR: Well, I think when we have to put forth our sites, our predetermined sites for first and second rounds and regionals, I think the committee has to really, really examine where you're going to put those sites. Now, TV does dictate that we have four in the Pacific and Mountain time zone and four in the Central time zone and the other eight in the Eastern time zone for the first and second rounds. But we as a committee, we've talked about that. And we have criteria. And in the summer, when we meet, we examine those types of things. And I think that will be one of our discussions about how can we help this, how can we ensure that the institutions that do get the first- and second-round bid for their institution, that they do have a marketing plan in place prior to submitting that bid, that they really are committed, even if their team doesn't make it, that they are committed to getting people, new people, new fans, as creative as they can be. And the NCAA -- Myles Brand is an exceptional pioneer for women's basketball. And he's put forth so much money towards marketing our sport. And I can't tell you how much that means to this game. And it will benefit down the road. SUE DONOHOE: And I would add to that. Because from a staff standpoint we've been working with these host sites now for 18 months, 24 months, and I feel like we had really good host staffs this year. They worked hard at it. For instance, we did struggle out in LA. What we need is we need more, some more sites in the Pacific time zone, the Mountain time zone, to be part of the bid process. The other thing that I think that's really important is a host institution and their staff will work really hard and put a lot of energy and effort into it, and then when those teams are sent to that site, getting the fans to travel with their teams. We require each of our teams to purchase a minimum of 100 tickets. 100 tickets. And we've got some institutions that don't purchase that full allotment. And so you got a lot of host institutions that do a great job and they may presell 2,500 or 3,000 tickets, and then you've got to partner that with teams bringing people with them. We will go into another bid cycle late spring, mid-summer, and it's our hope that we'll have a strong group of institutions submit bids so that we've got some good choices to make for the future. Q. You see that staying at 16. Are you guys committed for the next -- can you say how many years you feel like you're committed to 16 predetermined years? JACKI SILAR: I think any time you make changes you need to stay with it. I rotate off the committee, but I would hope that the committee will stay with it for a four-year cycle. I think until you really figure out if it's going to work, you can't make a switch after a year or two. Q. The other question is, does NCAA set ticket prices? Because ticket prices in Raleigh are $50 and I think you unfortunately did get caught by a bad economy. And you have tickets sold in advance so you can't like lower the price. But how does that set up and how do you revisit to try to make those -- especially if the economy isn't improving, to make those more attainable? SUE DONOHOE: That's a great question. We've got minimum ticket prices for first and second rounds and for regionals. So we tell them, okay, here's the bottom of the range. And then we allow the host institutions to set what their price is going to be as long as they meet the minimum, because they know their marketplace better than we do. And so you might have a ticket priced at one price point in the Raleigh regional and it might be different than the Berkeley regional. And it's based on market. I think one thing that we've done over the last several years, and I would venture to say more than ever this year, in light of the economic landscape, we got as creative as we could. I mean, we worked with our hosts and we simply said: If you've got an idea that you believe will help us with ticket sales, send it to us, shoot it to us and let us review it and take a look at it. And we did things like special baseline ticket sales. We did things like family four-packs. We did a lot of group sales that typically we've never done in the past. And I felt really good about the efforts and the collective efforts that the host and our staff put into it. But, again, it's a difficult time. But I do think that we've looked at how we can be more creative and be more effective in our marketing efforts to help our sites. Q. This is a follow-up to the Final Four prices. The NCAA sets those. In light of what's happened this year, this might have happened with the men, too, if Michigan State hadn't ended up in the Final Four there, has there been any consideration to maybe lower prices next year for the Final Four in light of the economics this year? JACKI SILAR: I don't know. Sue, you do the prices. SUE DONOHOE: We have not. Because Final Four tickets for 2010 are already on sale. They've been on sale now about a month and a half. But I will tell you, we've got an opportunity next year with us being in the dome, and we're really looking at some kind of neat things that we can do, because we can set the seating capacity at, say, 25,000 or thereabouts. And that building gives us some flexibility. So if we want to offer like a special student price so that teams can bring their students in, and we sit them court-side or something like that, we've got some neat ideas and I think you'll see some things put in place for next year's Final Four. Although the ticket prices are set, I think we'll see some structure. We'll put a model in that kind of gives some folks an opportunity to experience it in a different way. And we're excited about trying it. AMY YAKOLA: Thank you, both. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|