For part 1 of “Sprucing Up the State Tournament”, click here.

DROP THE PRICE  OF UPPER BOWL TICKETS

One thing that I have noticed over the last few years at the Ohio boys basketball state tournament is that there are much less groups of teenagers roaming  in and out of the arena. For decades, many coaches would bring teams, and/or dads would bring sons and buddies for a weekend of basketball.  Not so much nowadays.  Why?  I say one reason is simple financial math.  The lowest ticket is $12 for the cheap seats in the upper bowl.  For my two sons and I, that adds up to $144 to see a full day of four games.  If I bring a vanful of 6 teenagers along, I am in for $336 for the day.   That’s a lot of money to drop for high school hoops.  And that’s just for one day of action.  Include and 2nd or 3rd day, and your wallet gets quite a bit lighter.

I say you cut the price of the upper bowl tickets in half to $6.  That would make it much more appealing for families or teams to make the state tourney a day trip destination.  What would be lost in current ticket income would more than be made up in additional sales.  Let’s  face it.  There were hardly any people in the upper bowl for most of the semi-final games, and not that many for the finals.

PROS:  more people = more tickets sold = more atmosphere = more concessions = more souvenir sales =more restaurant eats = more hotel rooms…

CONS:  less money per ticket; worries that some economical guys (a.k.a. tight wads) might buy the cheap seats and then sneak down to the good seats  (hmmm….  never thought of that).

PREDICTED ATTENDANCE BUMP:  19%.  Discounts bring out the masses.  Just ask Kohl’s, the official outfitter of Mac Aljancic…

CHANCE OF HAPPENING:  14%  This is an easy change to make for the OHSAA, but it takes some courage and vision to take this chance.  Cutting prices are not for the faint of heart, but as they say in big business (but not in the offices of the Cleveland Indians), ‘You gotta spend money to make money.”

ADD SOME PIZZAZZ TO THE GAME ATMOSPHERE

Basketball is a beautiful sport, but the OHSAA needs to get with the times and add some glitter to the game.  I have been to middle school games with more atmosphere.  At least pay some teenager $15 to hook his iPhone up to the sound system for some tunes.  Let’s get a party going!  Get some more video crowd shots.  The current highlight of the entertainment is once per game, a student gets to shoot some hoops for a gas card.  Lets do some more of that kind of stuff.  They did let the cheerleaders chuck out a few T-shirts this year!   Last year, they even had some guy in a tie try to shoot one of those T-shirt guns.  His loading time was comparable to one of those 1770’s British soldiers loading a muzzle…  Unfortunately, ‘tie guy’ and his weapon weren’t back this year.

PROS:  Fun, fun, fun!!

CONS:  it takes some money, creativity, and effort.  And if we can’t get pull off that Von Kaenel halftime show (see part 1 of this blog), everything else will seem like a big letdown.

PREDICTED ATTENDANCE BUMP:  9%.   People don’t initially come to high school hoops games for the bell and whistles, but they might get parents to believe they can get their kids to sit through another game.

CHANCE OF HAPPENING:  48%  This is a VERY easy change to make for the OHSAA, but it takes some courage and vision to take this chance.  Probably the biggest obstacle is getting the old-guard OHSAA leadership to take a youthful vision to the tourney. And remember, YOU GOTTA SPEND $ TO MAKE $!!!

CREATE A HOOPS EXTRAVAGANZA FESTIVAL

A primary goal for the OHSAA is to get fans to stay for multiple games and days, instead of just coming to support one team.  A current problem for the tourney that there isn’t much to do between games.  You can tailgate, but that takes planning.  Some fans used to walk to the nearby Holiday Inn, but that’s gone now. Most restaurants are a 15-minute walk away.  And getting to your car to drive somewhere and still be back for the next game isn’t very feasible.

I say you create a hoops festival for fans.  Have food vendors, inflatibles, various basketball carnival-type games and attractions.   That  would make the tourney more of  a destination.  You could  have it right outside The Schottenstein Center, but there is one glaring problem:  the wonderfully unpredictable Ohio weather.  Hmmm….  What can we do about that?

How about St. John Arena!!!  I am betting we can get Ohio State to cut us a deal to use that grand old cathedral of basketball.   Put stuff inside and outside.  Charge either an entrance fee or a just a fee for the carnival games if you want.  Get a fee from vendors to cover expenses. Fans and families would flock there.  I would much rather spend time and money at ‘High School Hoops Heaven” than waste $50 at Dave and Buster’s playing video games to win a $3 piece of junk.

PROS:  a strong magnet to keep fans and families at the tourney site; showcases a historical arena; keeps me from Dave and Buster’s

CONS:   it takes some money, creativity, and effort.

PREDICTED ATTENDANCE BUMP:  27%.  By making the state tourney a 21st century destination, you will attract a 21st century crowd.

CHANCE OF HAPPENING:   22%  This is another VERY easy change to make for the OHSAA, one that would likely provide the biggest bang for the investment buck.  But once again, the biggest obstacle is getting the old-guard OHSAA leadership to take a youthful vision to the tourney.   Don’t forget, And remember, YOU GOTTA SPEND $ TO MAKE $!!!

The most significant attendance loss for this year’s state tourney were the two unnoccupied seats of Bob and Julie Jones.  Bob and Julie were pretty much my second parents as a youngster in Louisville when I hung out with their four sons on a daily basis.  I was crushed as a 3rd grader when they moved to Cambridge, but we continued to stay in touch, and I even ended up going to the Harvard of the Midwest (a.k.a. Muskingum College) with Rob and Shane!

Bob has been to 57 state tournaments, 35 of them with his beautiful bride by his side.  It has always been a highlight for me each year to bump into them during one of the games to catch up on things.  And I was thrilled when they moved back to their native Dover a few years back.

Unfortunately, the brackets this year had Bob matched up with major surgery, forcing him to break his state tourney attendance streak.  Thankfully, Bob has been able to follow the tournament motto of  ‘survive and advance’.  So Bob and  Julie, the OHSAA and I have you penciled in–make that Sharpie permanent markered in– for a return to your usual seats next March.

Just be on the look-out for these  wild and crazy guys…

 

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Follow the author on twitter:  @macaljancic

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For me, late March is a very special time of the year.  I love to see the emergence of Spring from its long hibernation.  Mother Nature shows its rebirth through the sights of colors bursting out from winter’s dead, the sounds of birds chirping in the sky, and the smells of flowery fragrances lingering in the wind.  Drafting on Spring’s rear bumper (pretty good NASCAR metaphor) are several other gems on the calendar:  March Madness, baseball fields re-populating, short sleeves, and…

THE STATE TOURNAMENT!

This year marked my 20th pilgrimage to Columbus.  I can remember my first trip as a young teacher in 1995 arriving at St. John Arena for a sold-out semi-final match-up between Zanesville and Westerville North.  I was without a ticket, and thus at the mercy of the scalpers. The few tickets available were going for at least $20, except for one guy who only asked $10.  Being the economical guy that I am (a.k.a. tight wad) , I jumped all over that deal and got in line.  As I just about to go through the turnstiles, I noticed that I had a ticket for the wrong game!  But they tore my ticket anyways (no scanners back then), and I haven’t looked back.

For many years after, I would join my college buds for the weekend.  I spent a few nights sleeping on the floor, and more than a few nights sleeping in hotels that fell well short of earning any endorsements from this Travelocity employee…

Let’s just stay that the buddy that served as ‘travel agent’ weighed the price well before he looked at any star ratings.  We did get a free breakfast, though!  As we got older,  we started bringing our kids down.  The trip is a now a yearly highlight for my two boys and me.

One thing that I have noticed over the past decade of so is the drop in attendance.  A recent Columbus Dispatch article by Bob Hunter documents this decline.   The record attendance for the tournament was 2003, which averaged 16,577.   I wonder why so many people went that year?

I heard that guy didn’t amount to anything as a college player, though.

#2 in attendance was Lebron’s junior year, so he obviously helps sells tickets.  But #3 was 2004, the year after LBJ.  The average that year was 14,830.  And as recent at 2007, the average was 14,617.  This year’s average, though, was 9,339.  The Division IV final was the first championship game to have an attendance under 10,000 since the games were moved to Value City Arena in 1999.

So what has happened?  There are many variables that can be factored in, many of which deal with the fact that is that  there is increased competition for our attention and dollars.  But my amateur analysis points to that last strong attendance year of 2007.  If you don’t remember well, the following year was when the big economic crisis hit.  And that led to people, and school districts, tightening their financial belts.  For years, most school districts would buy multiple ticket books for their coaching staffs.  After that financial pinch, many schools dropped that practice.  I haven’t conducted any thorough investigations to get exact numbers, but it is evident in the lack of tickets being scalped, especially for the lesser attended games.  In the golden years, tons of tickets would be available on the sidewalks for those games at dirt cheap prices.  For the last few years, though, that ticket sales market has shrunk dramatically since no one is buying those extra tickets to sell.  Now, you just go up to the ticket booth to get the games you want.

So, aside from crossing their fingers and waiting 5 years for Lebron James, Jr. to reach high school, is there anything else that the OHSAA can do to change this attendance tide?  Here are a few proposals:

MAKE SEMI-FINAL GAMES DOUBLE HEADER SESSIONS:

Longtime Dover hoops coach Bob VonKaenel mentioned this idea to me.  Have each division play its semi-final for one ticket, with a 30-minute break in-between.  Many high school regional semi-finals are done this way, so it is nothing new to the OHSAA.

PROS:  increased crowds for games, better atmosphere for participants and fans, more affordable for fans to attend, doubleheader more appealing  to attract fans.

CONS:  much less money for OHSAA.  While you would attract a few more fans, the full tournament would be only 8 sessions instead of 12.  I am guessing the OHSAA still sells a bunch of all-session books of tickets, and cutting four sessions would mean big $$$ lost on those sales.

PREDICTED ATTENDANCE BUMP:  20% per session, but -20% for overall attendance.

CHANCE OF  HAPPENING:  3%.  Too much money to lose for what there is to gain.

BOBBY V. HALFTIME SHOW!!!

Anyone that is an annual state tourney attender probably knows that Coach Von Kaenel often appears during  halftime to hand out awards on behalf of the Ohio High School Basketball Coaches Association.  That has to boost attendance by at least 7%.  I say we tap into this underused natural resource.  Let’s give Bob the entire halftime for song and dance.   I envision it as part Elvis, part Kenny Rogers, and part Bruno Mars!

PROS:  too many to list.  Think about what this performer did for the Super Bowl.  Then multiply it by 100.

CONS:  The Schott is a bit small for Bob’s talent, as well has his appearance  fee.  We might have to move the games to the Horseshoe to make it financially feasible.  Plus, he hopefully will have coaching duties that day.

PREDICTED ATTENDANCE BUMP: 86%. (I think would be the right number, figuring he would  likely sell out 12 straight sessions). He is already pretty entertaining to watch on the sideline.  Just imagine how he would be with a  mic, tap dance shoes, and Sharks as background dancers!  Plus, he is a native of Stras-Vegas, so entertainment must be in his blood!

CHANCE OF  HAPPENING:  8%   Coach VK is a grandparent now, so we can only hope he is looking for some extra income.

Click here to read part 2.

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You can also e-mail him:  macaljancic@yahoo.com