Re: What's up with Gonzaga?
Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 3:39 pm
NJRedman wrote:Bill Marsh wrote:
Of course it's my opinion,
Nonetheless, it's an opinion supported by fact. An earlier post presented the idea that each school would have to fly dozens of teams to Spokane every year. That's overblown. It's factually incorrect. It's typical of the exaggerations that are encountered on this topic.
The situation is treated as if it's unique. It isn't. The WAC spans 2100 air miles from McAllen, Texas, outside Brownsville, to Seattle, the same distance as NY to Spokane. But. Even more common were the trips of hundreds of miles in. The Ivy League, Big Ten, SEC, PAC-8, etc 50-100 years ago when transport was by bus or train. This is the 21st century when planes travel 10 times as fast as buses and even faster as compared with trains. Bus trips can take 6-10 hours over those distances. But they did it.
I said that travel is overblown. You disagree by citing TV markets, recruiting, and attendance. None of those have anything to do with travel issues, which are in fact overblown. as far as attendance I'd oncerned, Gonzaga sells out every game and has a waiting list of 1000 names. They have a civic arena available for the increased demand that Big East games would inevitably brings.
You're concerned about them making a down turn. Okay, give me a better candidate.
Omaha is easier to fly into than Spokane? I don't have any experience with either. But I do know that Spokane has an international airport and Omaha does not. So what makes one easier than the other? Regardless, the way to do this would be via charter, which makes ease of airport access irrelevant.
You are talking about north south travel which isn't the same as east west travel which deals with crossing time zones.
Nope. I gave the example of Hawaii, which is 3 time zones removed from the West Coast, same as we are.
Speaking of time zones do we want Gonzaga hosting weeknight games at 4pm? Are they going to see out those games? Are they going to help the rest of the leagues ratings watching our local 7pm start times?
Why would Gonzaga start games at 4:00? Since when do all our games start at 7:00? I already explained in an earlier post in this thread that Gonzaga already plays most of its games at 6:00, which is a 9:00 broadcast in the East and 8:00 in the Central. You have a problem with that? I've watched many Big East games at 9:00.
Also you act like the WAC is the norm.
No, I don't. I used it as an example of the fact that the Gonzaga is not unique. And they're doing it with a lot less money than the Big East. What the WAC and the Mountain West show is that it can be done.
That is a conference of connivence made up of transient programs trying to stay at the D1 level. We are a power conference who has options.
What better options do we have than Gonzaga?
If your opinion was backed by fact it would just be fact, it is not fact.
The facts I stated are not facts? You're confusing me.
This discussion isn't new and has been hashed out every few months the last four years. You don't know anything we don't already know and you don't know more than the presidents who declined to add Gonzaga 5 years ago.
Absolutely true.
Yes, Spokane has an international airport without a single direct flight from NYC.
So?
One more thing, those guys weren't traveling for Wednesday night games. Weekend games by train 100 years ago with much shorter schedules aren't that hard. Also i'd use a different analogy than the Ivy league, they are all very close to each other.
So don't schedule Gonzaga on a Wednesday night. No big deal.
Do you have any idea how long it takes to travel the 360 miles from Philadelphia to Hanover, NH by train? Or from Boston to Ithaca? Or either by bus. I don't care how short the schedules were. It's about speed and distance.
I used the Ivy League because we're all familiar with it here in the East and have probably driven the roads they have to drive. Yes, it's compact compared with the PAC-12 Yet, it still takes a long time to get around. How long does it take you to get to Smuggler's Notch for a ski weekend? Or to Lake Placid? Those are long drives and no shorter than a flight to Spokane.
If you don't like the Ivy as an example, I also mentioned the Big Ten and others. Try taking a bus from Minneapolis to Columbus. And that's a conference that had teams traveling around the Midwest in the 19th century.