On-campus NCAA regionals

[adamw]

TV ratings would surely be higher for on-campus regionals though? The atmosphere is so bad, it's not a good tv product.

I've yet to see any evidence that seeing the stands full on TV, would make more people watch the game.

There's an argument to be made that it would make TV ratings worse. Since all the people who want to see it but couldn't make it, would be at the arena now instead of watching on TV.

Adam,
Do you know whether the monetary impact of the Regionals is a net positive for the NCAA.  Do the well attended Regionals offset the clunkers? I'm thinking the NCAA would never release the number$.

Pretty sure it's a net positive, because they also get some sort of guarantee from the host. But note that the NCAA would still make its money on campus.  Just like the ECAC takes a cut of all ECAC playoff games, regardless of site.

[BearLover]

Overall, I prioritize fairness and excitement. On-campus regionals are more fair and more exciting.

on-campus Regionals may be a lot of things - but more fair is not one of them.

On-campus regionals seems quite a bit fairer to me than the current system. Under the current system, we have 4 seeds hosting 1 seeds, and we have teams being paired to maximize attendance rather than based on seeding. With on-campus regionals, hosting is based on an objective criterion (computer ranking), rather than which schools paid to host or where the committee wants to send you to make more money.

An imperfect (far from perfect) "objective" criterion is not necessarily more fair - any more than something being legal automatically makes it legally right. As I've written about approximately 11 billion times, the whole reason many neutral site Regional proponents like it is because of the inequity with home ice Regionals. You take flawed math and you compound it by giving that team home ice.  Note: "flawed" does not mean bad.  It just means that you take meaningless differences, based upon arbitrary weightings, and give a team an enormous advantage.  It's wildly unfair.  I've heard all the arguments the other way a zillion times.

"Well, NHL teams do it" ... a) the NHL has fully objective standings with relatively balanced schedules against similar competition ... and b) the NHL gives best-of-7 series where 3 of the 7 games are played at the lower seed. In college, the proposal is that all 3 games be played at the higher seed. Big difference. ....

"Well, it's good enough for selecting the teams" ... another hollow argument that I've addressed a ridiculous amount of times. The difference between selection and seeding is clear ... with selection, the alternative (very flawed humans deciding) is far worse than any computer algorithm. However, with seeding, we have an alternative to granting home-ice - which is the current neutral site system.  This difference is glaringly obvious, yet I hear this trope repeated constantly as a way to "zing" me. Nope.

As for the inequities you describe -- I am on record as saying that those things should never happen either.  They are relatively rare.  I believe those issues can and should be solved. The solution is not to throw out the system and do something even more unfair to everyone.

Many arguments can be made in favor of on-campus Regionals. Fairness is not one of them.

If you could get rid of regional host schools, and not allow the committee to pair teams based on maximizing revenues, then I would agree with you that such a system would be fairer than on-campus regionals. But until that happens, I believe on-campus regionals are quite a bit fairer than the current system. I understand PWR* is imperfect, but it's a math formula that is a function of win percentage and strength of schedule. Those are the right inputs, even if they may be weighted incorrectly. And so basing home ice off of that is infinitely fairer than basing it off of other factors like which school is hosting, or which matchup would maximize revenue. Given Cornell has been screwed by this several times in the last couple decades, it's not as rare as you say it is.

*or whatever new thing we have now

[Chris '03]

Overall, I prioritize fairness and excitement. On-campus regionals are more fair and more exciting.

on-campus Regionals may be a lot of things - but more fair is not one of them.

On-campus regionals seems quite a bit fairer to me than the current system. Under the current system, we have 4 seeds hosting 1 seeds, and we have teams being paired to maximize attendance rather than based on seeding. With on-campus regionals, hosting is based on an objective criterion (computer ranking), rather than which schools paid to host or where the committee wants to send you to make more money.

An imperfect (far from perfect) "objective" criterion is not necessarily more fair - any more than something being legal automatically makes it legally right. As I've written about approximately 11 billion times, the whole reason many neutral site Regional proponents like it is because of the inequity with home ice Regionals. You take flawed math and you compound it by giving that team home ice.  Note: "flawed" does not mean bad.  It just means that you take meaningless differences, based upon arbitrary weightings, and give a team an enormous advantage.  It's wildly unfair.  I've heard all the arguments the other way a zillion times.

"Well, NHL teams do it" ... a) the NHL has fully objective standings with relatively balanced schedules against similar competition ... and b) the NHL gives best-of-7 series where 3 of the 7 games are played at the lower seed. In college, the proposal is that all 3 games be played at the higher seed. Big difference. ....

"Well, it's good enough for selecting the teams" ... another hollow argument that I've addressed a ridiculous amount of times. The difference between selection and seeding is clear ... with selection, the alternative (very flawed humans deciding) is far worse than any computer algorithm. However, with seeding, we have an alternative to granting home-ice - which is the current neutral site system.  This difference is glaringly obvious, yet I hear this trope repeated constantly as a way to "zing" me. Nope.

As for the inequities you describe -- I am on record as saying that those things should never happen either.  They are relatively rare.  I believe those issues can and should be solved. The solution is not to throw out the system and do something even more unfair to everyone.

Many arguments can be made in favor of on-campus Regionals. Fairness is not one of them.

If you could get rid of regional host schools, and not allow the committee to pair teams based on maximizing revenues, then I would agree with you that such a system would be fairer than on-campus regionals. But until that happens, I believe on-campus regionals are quite a bit fairer than the current system. I understand PWR* is imperfect, but it's a math formula that is a function of win percentage and strength of schedule. Those are the right inputs, even if they may be weighted incorrectly. And so basing home ice off of that is infinitely fairer than basing it off of other factors like which school is hosting, or which matchup would maximize revenue. Given Cornell has been screwed by this several times in the last couple decades, it's not as rare as you say it is.

*or whatever new thing we have now

The host stays home bit is imperfect. But it's not as if they host in their own building (anymore). I think they should be required to stay at a hotel and not have access to team facilities like was the case with PC. But that is solvable. If the screw job is that the host team has a fans advantage, the number of teams for which that creates a material difference feels relatively small and less significant that the home ice issues Adam points out.

[Trotsky]

Jesus Christ, I agree entirely with BearLover, both in conclusion and in his reasoning.  

Is this how dementia is?  Schizophrenia?  Garden variety neurosyphilis?

[Tcl123]

I was at Michigan (12 hour train ride from Syracuse) in 1991. Although we lost in a best of 3, there's zero doubt on campus regionals are better. I'll take that ride again any day over going to a half empty Albany