On-campus NCAA regionals

I think NCAA regionals should be on campus. I’ve consumed a lot of media on this topic recently and I see the main points as follows:
* attendance at regionals is embarrassing currently. It’s a terrible atmosphere and bad look on TV
* it’s not hard to accomplish: change the tournament from two weekends to three. First weekend, 1 hosts 16, 2 hosts 15, etc. Second weekend, top remaining seed hosts bottom remaining seed, etc.
* it’s fair. Hosts are chosen based on seeding. Yes, 8 versus 9 is decided on tiny margins. But so is the last at-large bid versus the first team out, where the cost to being a lower seed (missing the tournament entirely) is far worse. Seeding is decided on objective criteria within a team’s control (winning more games), as compared to the current system, where 4 seeds often host 1 seeds due to the insane “host school” structure

There are legitimate counterarguments. I see them as follows:
* some schools have tiny rinks. Attendance thus may be small at some regionals. BUT on the whole attendance I believe will be higher, as we are splitting each regional into 3 separate locations/weekends, each giving local fans a chance to attend. Also, the teams with tiny rinks usually aren’t good enough to be seeded 1-8
* many rinks (possibly including Lynah and certainly including places like St. Lawrence, judging from their broadcasts) may not have suitable sight-lines for TV. I’m not sure if this can be remedied by ESPN bringing more cameras or something like that
* possible logistical issues re: television crews having to get to remote places like Western Michigan or Clarkson. BUT with a week to prepare, this doesn’t seem like a big problem
* perhaps there is an opportunity to get rid of the “host school” structure without moving to on-campus regionals
* schools are often on spring break during regionals, which would diminish the benefit of a better atmosphere. This is the best counterargument IMO. BUT perhaps not that big of a problem depending on the school, and maybe it’s possible for college hockey to shift its schedule to accommodate not having regionals fall during break

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

On the other hand, from a selfish POV, I’m actually wary of growing college hockey. I think the bigger college hockey gets, the harder it is for teams like Cornell to win.

Cornell could host now if they put in a bid. But that requires prep and money and they dont find it worth the effort.

I do agree if would cool to see best of 3 regionals though

With a new AD, Cornell may aim higher and seek to host more NCAA regional events. Hockey would be obvious. So would lacrosse regionals. OTOH, playing at Hofstra May 2025, it's almost like home field.

I think this has been litigated to death, it's not happening at least anytime in the near to mid-term future...

617BigRed
I think this has been litigated to death, it's not happening at least anytime in the near to mid-term future...

I actually think there’s way more momentum for on-campus regionals than there has been in a long time.

upprdeck
Cornell could host now if they put in a bid. But that requires prep and money and they dont find it worth the effort.

I do agree if would cool to see best of 3 regionals though

It would be wonderful for Cornell to host a regional. We could do it in the Syracuse War Memorial (home of our 1967 championship). We could start by working to bring back the Syracuse Invitational home of many Harkness and Bertrand era legends and memories. (In that '73 game against Colorado College I remember we were being crushed until someone speared Dave Elenbaas and we came roaring back on the five minute major.)

I believe in the regionals. They bring fans from four schools together. They centralize coverage, which brings in a better more polished broadcast team. And they prepare teams for the bright lights of the tournament championship. I believe the biggest impediment to women's hockey today is they play their full tournament on campus.

-sorry for this "extra" post, but it kept telling me I was refused because I sound like a bot (if only I had that level of even artificial intelligence). And then it wouldn't let me delete this.

Is the time between when the seedings come out and the regionals are played sufficient for TV crews, visiting teams and fans, etc.? Also, will local hotels and restaurants have enough time to raise their prices?

Old Red
-sorry for this "extra" post, but it kept telling me I was refused because I sound like a bot (if only I had that level of even artificial intelligence). And then it wouldn't let me delete this.

The bot thing happens to me when posting from my Android phone. Something wonky in the software doesn't consistently handle the communication.

Troyfan
Is the time between when the seedings come out and the regionals are played sufficient for TV crews, visiting teams and fans, etc.? Also, will local hotels and restaurants have enough time to raise their prices?

I suspect that in a world with eight first round campus games, the "TV" would be ESPN+ and host school crews or campus video with off site play by play from Charlotte or something. I don't see ESPN sending crews to eight random campuses.

I continue to back regionals. And continue to think finding (imaginary?) fixed sites to host eight teams would solve many of the issues. At a minimum, having conferences host and putting conference champ at "home" would eliminate some of the host unfair advantage argument.

• Conference tournament champion auto bids. The rest PWR, KRACH or whatever.
• 1-to-16 seeding
• On campus 16 @ 1, ... 9 @ 8. No exceptions or alterations.
• Single game elimination
• 1-to-8 reseeding
• On campus 8 @ 1, ... 5 @ 4. No exceptions or alterations.
• Single game elimination
• Frozen Four as now, with 4 @ 1 as early game, no day off

Trotsky

• Conference tournament champion auto bids. The rest PWR, KRACH or whatever.
• 1-to-16 seeding
• On campus 16 @ 1, ... 9 @ 8. No exceptions or alterations.
• Single game elimination
• 1-to-8 reseeding
• On campus 8 @ 1, ... 5 @ 4. No exceptions or alterations.
• Single game elimination
• Frozen Four as now, with 4 @ 1 as early game, no day off

That’s right. Seems like a much more compelling product than what we currently have.

ESPN could send TV crews to some sites, and maybe put the others on ESPN+.

Every NCAA sport except basketball does their national tournament on campus.

(But I’m not sure this really helps Cornell win a national title, which is what I care about the most.)

BearLover
(But I’m not sure this really helps Cornell win a national title, which is what I care about the most.)

The more games Cornell gets to play at Lynah, the better. Obviously there's no guarantee Cornell will be in the top 8 or top 4 to guarantee postseason home games, but the risk seems worth it if Cornell can even get a postseason berth.

Will

BearLover
(But I’m not sure this really helps Cornell win a national title, which is what I care about the most.)

The more games Cornell gets to play at Lynah, the better. Obviously there's no guarantee Cornell will be in the top 8 or top 4 to guarantee postseason home games, but the risk seems worth it if Cornell can even get a postseason berth.

I generally agree. I do note though that we’ve been a lower seed more often in recent years: seeded 4,3,4 in 2023,24,25. I’m expecting that to happen more often in the future given the new advantages of the top programs in the country.

I think overall it will help us but I just hate the regionals as a relic of when we were bending over for Bristol thinking we were going to be the next hoops.

Fuck that and fuck them, return the sport to the campuses and the barns that make it great. If it means we play in NoDak whatevs.

It will also tend to take the air out of the balloon for expansion, and we won't have to tolerate Alabama playing USC for the title someday. That was always just a fever dream by the college hockey media to puff themselves up. Fuck that and fuck them.

Keep it cold, exclusive, and intimate. Anybody comes to you selling hype shoot first ask questions never.

Will

BearLover
(But I’m not sure this really helps Cornell win a national title, which is what I care about the most.)

The more games Cornell gets to play at Lynah, the better. Obviously there's no guarantee Cornell will be in the top 8 or top 4 to guarantee postseason home games, but the risk seems worth it if Cornell can even get a postseason berth.

I'm wondering whether the regionals are generating NCAA money that would work against this type of a change. The "just as good as a Viagra" commercials notwithstanding there is also decent attendance at some of the locations.

marty

Will

BearLover
(But I’m not sure this really helps Cornell win a national title, which is what I care about the most.)

The more games Cornell gets to play at Lynah, the better. Obviously there's no guarantee Cornell will be in the top 8 or top 4 to guarantee postseason home games, but the risk seems worth it if Cornell can even get a postseason berth.

I'm wondering whether the regionals are generating NCAA money that would work against this type of a change. The "just as good as a Viagra" commercials notwithstanding there is also decent attendance at some of the locations.

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

BearLover

marty

Will

BearLover
(But I’m not sure this really helps Cornell win a national title, which is what I care about the most.)

The more games Cornell gets to play at Lynah, the better. Obviously there's no guarantee Cornell will be in the top 8 or top 4 to guarantee postseason home games, but the risk seems worth it if Cornell can even get a postseason berth.

I'm wondering whether the regionals are generating NCAA money that would work against this type of a change. The "just as good as a Viagra" commercials notwithstanding there is also decent attendance at some of the locations.

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

While that’s generally been true, our regional last year had lots of juice with all the MSU fans

Troyfan
Is the time between when the seedings come out and the regionals are played sufficient for TV crews

For NCAA football the networks sometimes don't get to pick their Saturday matchups until the Sunday before. If you have crews hired ahead of time to cover those on campus regionals you just send them where they need to go once the seedings are set. They usually only need one day to set up the TV truck so that leaves many days to get to any of the remote locations in the lower fifty states. Not sure what would happen if Alaska were to host.

They also have to send 2x the number of crews that they do now if you do the 1-8 seeds getting home games. I’m still in favor of home regionals and I think that 1-8 home games makes more sense than doing the current system just hosted by the 1-4 seeds but there are certainly some hurdles that are out of the control of even the NCAA.

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.

Trotsky
I think overall it will help us but I just hate the regionals as a relic of when we were bending over for Bristol thinking we were going to be the next hoops.

Fuck that and fuck them, return the sport to the campuses and the barns that make it great. If it means we play in NoDak whatevs.

It will also tend to take the air out of the balloon for expansion, and we won't have to tolerate Alabama playing USC for the title someday. That was always just a fever dream by the college hockey media to puff themselves up. Fuck that and fuck them.

Keep it cold, exclusive, and intimate. Anybody comes to you selling hype shoot first ask questions never.

It's pretty funny that you want to go back to campus as a way of stopping "progress" - while all the advocates inside the sport want to go back to campus sites in order to "grow the game." So - they believe it does the exact opposite of your wishes. I, however, have made your arguments - as a reason to not do it.

BearLover
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.

adamw

BearLover
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$.

adamw

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.

adamw

BearLover
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.

We haven’t conducted a controlled experiment for this, but I would note that during the pandemic (empty stadiums), TV ratings of sports were very bad, even though everyone was stuck at home without anything better to do.

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.

This is a tiny number of people (a few thousand).

This is actually wrong

Viewership was not down during covid, It was actually up.

The issue is that it was spread wider, so individual sports had lower numbers

Like we had 20 million people watching over 200 events.
we before we had 15 million over 100 events.

adamw

Trotsky
I think overall it will help us but I just hate the regionals as a relic of when we were bending over for Bristol thinking we were going to be the next hoops.

Fuck that and fuck them, return the sport to the campuses and the barns that make it great. If it means we play in NoDak whatevs.

It will also tend to take the air out of the balloon for expansion, and we won't have to tolerate Alabama playing USC for the title someday. That was always just a fever dream by the college hockey media to puff themselves up. Fuck that and fuck them.

Keep it cold, exclusive, and intimate. Anybody comes to you selling hype shoot first ask questions never.

It's pretty funny that you want to go back to campus as a way of stopping "progress" - while all the advocates inside the sport want to go back to campus sites in order to "grow the game." So - they believe it does the exact opposite of your wishes. I, however, have made your arguments - as a reason to not do it.

Then we're in agreement!

If there is one lesson of the last 50 years it's that size kills. The more you grow things the more they distort and hollow out inside. Bigger is worse.

The ideal metaphor for growth is cancer.

BearLover

adamw

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.

BearLover

adamw

BearLover
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.

We haven’t conducted a controlled experiment for this, but I would note that during the pandemic (empty stadiums), TV ratings of sports were very bad, even though everyone was stuck at home without anything better to do.

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.

This is a tiny number of people (a few thousand).

how many people you think are actually clamoring to watch NCAA ice hockey Regionals?

marty

adamw

BearLover
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.

adamw

BearLover

adamw

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

BearLover

adamw

BearLover

adamw

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

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.

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

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

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