The NCAA says
it wants to create a bigger buzz for the opening of the season, and that's
probably pretty smart. The pre-season NIT will be part of it, and in some
ways so will the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, although it's not a part of the NCAA's
plan. But it helps to kick off the season already.
The ACC - or most likely the Big Four - can plug into this idea by recreating
a holiday tournament.
Think about it. With the round-robin gone, and with two enormous gyms
in Raleigh and Chapel Hill, and the dearth of reasonable basketball over the
break, the conference could completely own the time spot. And also
sell 100,000 tickets with no problem. The TV rights would be enormous, but
100,000 tickets, at say $30.00 a pop, adds up.
Between them, the RBC and the Deandome seat 41,294 people. With a 16
team field, that's potentially 578,116 tickets. At $30 a ticket, that's
$17,34,3480 on ticket sales alone. That's a lot of cash to split up, and
that doesn't even begin to count ancillary benefits.
Note: our math is always suspect.