| Another Confusing Cody Column |
State Panic
Button Hit?
Button Hit?
Can March Madness Continue to Play in Peoria?
Pride and joy is what best describes the Boys Basketball State Tournament in the
minds of the Illinois High School Association.
They bill it as “America's Original March Madness.” They even went as far as to file a
lawsuit in order to obtain a trademark of the phrase “March Madness” from another
company.
No other state tournament run by the IHSA has an “experience” exhibit, where fans can
take in games related to the particular sport. The Boys Basketball State Tournament,
held at Peoria's Civic Center, is the second-oldest IHSA tournament – the oldest being
the Boys Track and Field finals – and made a big deal about the tournament's 100th
anniversary. Track and Field's 100th went largely unnoticed.
High school basketball is very popular in Illinois, much like Indiana. Why not improve on
it and make it better? That's what the IHSA did with creating a dual-classification system
in 1971. That worked. So expanding from two to four would make it even better?
According to fans, attendance numbers and financial returns, apparently not.
Ticket sales fell 16% for the 2010 small-school session from the 2009 session. The
percentage increases to 19.5% with the large-school session. These statistics are
according to a report from the Peoria Journal Star. In 2009, Peoria public schools
Manual (2A) and Richwoods (3A) were in the state championship game in their
respective classes. This tends to bring more fans out.
The news was alarming enough to make the IHSA send out surveys, with help from
graduate students from Illinois State University, at the March Madness Experience last
weekend. They were trying to figure out the the tournament's “downfall” in popularity
was a result of the economy.
Questions ranged from: how much fans are willing to spend on food (and where at),
where do fans spend the night at during the weekend, what do fans do for enjoyment
outside the tournament in the Peoria area, and how much money fans budget for the
weekend.
Nowhere in the survey were any questions about the quality of games compared to
years' past.
That's the problem.
Technically, there are still 16 teams competing at the Peoria Civic Center – there were
16 teams in the 2007 tournament (the last under the two-class system), and 16 teams
in the 2008 tournament (the first under the new four-class system). While the number of
teams remains the same, the number of schools experiencing the State Tournament for
the first time went up. This creates a spike, evident in the crowds from Scales Mound in
volleyball and River Ridge/Scales Mound in girls basketball. Both roughly took up half
of Normal's Redbird Arena stands alone.
What's missing are the die-hard fans who go there to see good basketball, and not root
for a particular team.
Class 1A doesn't quite have the excitement of Class 2A, as teams rely on defense to
win games. Newark's 1-2-2 zone itself made it hard for both Deer Creek-Mackinaw and
Winchester West Central to pass the ball to an open person. Countless minutes were
spent along the top of the key without a shot going off. This type of basketball, while
very beneficial to the state champion Norsemen, doesn't quite resonate with fans who
look for movement and excitement.
Chicago Hales Franciscan best exemplified movement and excitement in Class 2A, with
five dunks and terrific ball-handling against then-unbeaten Rockford Christian in the
semifinal. Christian had to play a stalling game at times just to figure out how to
penetrate the Hales defense. When teams stall, there's not much excitement going on.
However, Christian did what it had to do to try to win.
We can't tell Newark and Rockford Christian to change the way they play basketball for
financial sake.
People wonder why basketball and wrestling have a lobsided following in terms of the
number of fans. Basketball involves more eye-movement and fewer breaks, whereas in
wrestling there are plenty of breaks in the action and a lot of staring. Basketball
involves a lot of brain stimulation, and what's why fans come to see basketball games
(but not one fan will admit that directly).
These die-hard fans, who have witnessed the not-so-stimulating 1A game in the past,
are reluctant to come back to see it again. Since the event then turns into something
that is not an all-day thing, these fans are less likely to make the drive to Peoria.
Instead, they'll tune in – or tube in – to the NCAA Conference Basketball Tournaments.
So how about Class 3A and 4A? This dropoff has to do with the arena's atmosphere. In
particular the representation of the Chicago teams.
Prior to 2003, the Chicago Public League champion was given an automatic berth into
the Class AA field, meaning only one public league team was in the tournament every
year. Six times since then, there has been more than one public league team at Peoria.
Simeon and Farragut lost in the first rounds of 2004; Simeon and Marshall met in the
semifinals, with Simeon beating Richwoods 31-29 in overtime in the Class AA
championship game; Simeon and Marshall met again in the 2007 semifinals; the two
teams met again in the Class 3A title game; and Simeon and Whitney Young met in the
Class 4A title game. Gwendolyn Brooks is this year's Class 3A representative, while
Simeon once again will be in the 4A hunt.
Add to that the multiple appearances of Hales, Leo and North Lawndale, and
attendance doesn't figure to be much.
If the jist hasn't been told yet, fans from Chicago do not tend to travel a whole world
away to see their respective teams go at it. The arena is thus a shell of its capacity, and
there is not much noise to stimulate the brain.
Travel is also a broader concern, especially with the recent spike of gas prices. Prices
around Peoria averaged around $3.65, which is ten cents more than the current
average in our area. As of this writing, the website IllinoisGasPrices.com lists a Clark
station less than a mile from the Civic Center at $3.39.
The financial crisis has a trickle-down effect on the way fans spend their money,
especially at Civic Center concessions. Fans are finding out that they can save a
couple of dollars by eating at places outside the venue. When they eat before their
arrival, their stomachs are too full to buy anything at the game.
This is the overall effect of what four-class basketball has done the “America's Original
March Madness.” As the years continue to pile up, more and more people are noticing
this – including promoters. Each year The Integrity Group puts on two shootouts
designed to be the best boys basketball event in Illinois, and they get better every year.
This year's City-Suburban Shootout pitted two top two teams in the West Suburban
Conference against each other, No. 2 Rock Island against No. 3 Chicago Morgan Park,
and two nationally-ranked teams – Lisle Benet and Simeon – going against each other.
The Benet-Simeon game on February 19 at the UIC Pavillion in Chicago drew just over
8,100 fans, which is about 2,500 less than the all-time attendance record for a regular
season basketball game (oddly enough, between Pekin and Manual at the Civic Center
in 1984). Last year's meeting between the two happened at the supersectional level,
and this year's would have happened in the first round of the 4A state tournament if it
wasn't for Benet's upset loss in the sectional round against East Aurora.
Fans have been making the case for the “two best teams meeting for the title” even
before America's No. 1 Manual faced No. 2 Harvey Thornton in the 1997 Class AA
State semifinal. The IHSA, specifically upholding Policy No. 19 (the one regarding
geographical representation at state tournaments), has refused to change the
tournament to please these fans. They won't. There's no logical way to make this
happen except for a BCS-style system – one that has itself been under scrutiny.
So what can be done in order to rectify the concerns regarding March Madness? From
these observations is a non-specific list of ideas. They are non-specific in order to
generate a wide array of specific thoughts of each idea:
1. Go back to two classes – Before anyone throws their kids in front of me, read first.
This idea alone will horrify several 1A and 3A fans, but their horror only means they do
not have faith in their team going against larger opponents. Such fans you really are!
It will also create more local regional venues and sectional venues, instead of having to
travel so far for one of these. It will also relieve all of the “what ifs” created when trying
to compare 1A teams with 2A teams, and 3A teams with 4A teams.
More importantly, it will teach the kids that it shouldn't matter exactly who you go up
against. If they already fear the opponent because of an enrollment number, then have
they already lost the game? Looking at enrollment numbers is silly when playing a
basketball game; the two student bodies are not playing against each other. Rather,
there are five people going against five other people on the court.
To point this out further, I have never heard an athlete tell me after a game that their
team lost because the school was bigger than theirs. The fans rather cram this theory
down these athletes' minds. It's not their fault they lost, so they say. The more free
passes we give out ... well, what does that really do to the kids?
2. Reinstate the CPS automatic bid for Class AA – This would put the tournament at
pre-2002 status. But more importantly, it reduces the number of Chicago public league
teams down to just one. The second spot will thus be filled with another school with
some sort of following. Point two-and-a-half would be to brew up more support in
Chicago, in the form of shuttle buses. In fact, make it more than just the basketball
game; make it a basketball game, shopping trip, and an otherwise Peoria experience.
There is a shopping mall in Peoria, as well as the theater inside the Civic Center.
Comedian Ron White was performing at the Civic Center theater at the same time as
the small school basketball tournament.
3. Pamphlets, pamphlets, pamphlets – There are several that go unused at Civic
Center tables, each informing people about what's around town. Send a bunch to the
schools participating at the tournament, and mail them through the schools to the
families. This wouldn't really fix the die-hard problem, but would get more people in the
seats.
4. Move the first-session game times up one hour – But do not alter the second-
session schedule in order to accommodate the media and its deadlines. Twelve-fifteen
in the afternoon seems early, but 1:00 p.m. doesn't.
5. Put up a trivia contest in the March Madness Experience – If there's any trait
about die-hard fans, its their knowledge of the tournament and their desire to be the
best at what they're at.
6. One more Rainbow Shot contest – This has proved to be better than the now-
defunct Slam Dunk Contest. A local company puts this together, where kids line up to
make a free-throw shot, a three-pointer and keep moving back as far as they can go.
There are kids that make half-court shots, and even shots from the opposite free-throw
line. The thrill of the unlikely continues to be a moment to remember for quite some time.
Wethersfield junior Terry Yelm has become an expert at this. Two years ago, Yelm won
the contest (and $250 for him, and $250 for Wethersfield) by draining a shot from the
back free-throw line. He nearly won again this year, hitting a shot from the back three-
point line. However, he was beaten out by someone else with ten seconds left in the
event.
7. “A fan's guide to ...” - Mail this small magazine along with the pamphlets, or put the
entire version up on the Internet.
All ideas are far-fetched, but if implemented properly there should be no panic button
pressed as March Madness continues to play in Peoria.
Cody Cutter is Publisher of Northern Illinois Sports Beat. He can be reached at
northernillinoissportsbeat@yahoo.com. --- Talk about what's written on our Message
Boards!
minds of the Illinois High School Association.
They bill it as “America's Original March Madness.” They even went as far as to file a
lawsuit in order to obtain a trademark of the phrase “March Madness” from another
company.
No other state tournament run by the IHSA has an “experience” exhibit, where fans can
take in games related to the particular sport. The Boys Basketball State Tournament,
held at Peoria's Civic Center, is the second-oldest IHSA tournament – the oldest being
the Boys Track and Field finals – and made a big deal about the tournament's 100th
anniversary. Track and Field's 100th went largely unnoticed.
High school basketball is very popular in Illinois, much like Indiana. Why not improve on
it and make it better? That's what the IHSA did with creating a dual-classification system
in 1971. That worked. So expanding from two to four would make it even better?
According to fans, attendance numbers and financial returns, apparently not.
Ticket sales fell 16% for the 2010 small-school session from the 2009 session. The
percentage increases to 19.5% with the large-school session. These statistics are
according to a report from the Peoria Journal Star. In 2009, Peoria public schools
Manual (2A) and Richwoods (3A) were in the state championship game in their
respective classes. This tends to bring more fans out.
The news was alarming enough to make the IHSA send out surveys, with help from
graduate students from Illinois State University, at the March Madness Experience last
weekend. They were trying to figure out the the tournament's “downfall” in popularity
was a result of the economy.
Questions ranged from: how much fans are willing to spend on food (and where at),
where do fans spend the night at during the weekend, what do fans do for enjoyment
outside the tournament in the Peoria area, and how much money fans budget for the
weekend.
Nowhere in the survey were any questions about the quality of games compared to
years' past.
That's the problem.
Technically, there are still 16 teams competing at the Peoria Civic Center – there were
16 teams in the 2007 tournament (the last under the two-class system), and 16 teams
in the 2008 tournament (the first under the new four-class system). While the number of
teams remains the same, the number of schools experiencing the State Tournament for
the first time went up. This creates a spike, evident in the crowds from Scales Mound in
volleyball and River Ridge/Scales Mound in girls basketball. Both roughly took up half
of Normal's Redbird Arena stands alone.
What's missing are the die-hard fans who go there to see good basketball, and not root
for a particular team.
Class 1A doesn't quite have the excitement of Class 2A, as teams rely on defense to
win games. Newark's 1-2-2 zone itself made it hard for both Deer Creek-Mackinaw and
Winchester West Central to pass the ball to an open person. Countless minutes were
spent along the top of the key without a shot going off. This type of basketball, while
very beneficial to the state champion Norsemen, doesn't quite resonate with fans who
look for movement and excitement.
Chicago Hales Franciscan best exemplified movement and excitement in Class 2A, with
five dunks and terrific ball-handling against then-unbeaten Rockford Christian in the
semifinal. Christian had to play a stalling game at times just to figure out how to
penetrate the Hales defense. When teams stall, there's not much excitement going on.
However, Christian did what it had to do to try to win.
We can't tell Newark and Rockford Christian to change the way they play basketball for
financial sake.
People wonder why basketball and wrestling have a lobsided following in terms of the
number of fans. Basketball involves more eye-movement and fewer breaks, whereas in
wrestling there are plenty of breaks in the action and a lot of staring. Basketball
involves a lot of brain stimulation, and what's why fans come to see basketball games
(but not one fan will admit that directly).
These die-hard fans, who have witnessed the not-so-stimulating 1A game in the past,
are reluctant to come back to see it again. Since the event then turns into something
that is not an all-day thing, these fans are less likely to make the drive to Peoria.
Instead, they'll tune in – or tube in – to the NCAA Conference Basketball Tournaments.
So how about Class 3A and 4A? This dropoff has to do with the arena's atmosphere. In
particular the representation of the Chicago teams.
Prior to 2003, the Chicago Public League champion was given an automatic berth into
the Class AA field, meaning only one public league team was in the tournament every
year. Six times since then, there has been more than one public league team at Peoria.
Simeon and Farragut lost in the first rounds of 2004; Simeon and Marshall met in the
semifinals, with Simeon beating Richwoods 31-29 in overtime in the Class AA
championship game; Simeon and Marshall met again in the 2007 semifinals; the two
teams met again in the Class 3A title game; and Simeon and Whitney Young met in the
Class 4A title game. Gwendolyn Brooks is this year's Class 3A representative, while
Simeon once again will be in the 4A hunt.
Add to that the multiple appearances of Hales, Leo and North Lawndale, and
attendance doesn't figure to be much.
If the jist hasn't been told yet, fans from Chicago do not tend to travel a whole world
away to see their respective teams go at it. The arena is thus a shell of its capacity, and
there is not much noise to stimulate the brain.
Travel is also a broader concern, especially with the recent spike of gas prices. Prices
around Peoria averaged around $3.65, which is ten cents more than the current
average in our area. As of this writing, the website IllinoisGasPrices.com lists a Clark
station less than a mile from the Civic Center at $3.39.
The financial crisis has a trickle-down effect on the way fans spend their money,
especially at Civic Center concessions. Fans are finding out that they can save a
couple of dollars by eating at places outside the venue. When they eat before their
arrival, their stomachs are too full to buy anything at the game.
This is the overall effect of what four-class basketball has done the “America's Original
March Madness.” As the years continue to pile up, more and more people are noticing
this – including promoters. Each year The Integrity Group puts on two shootouts
designed to be the best boys basketball event in Illinois, and they get better every year.
This year's City-Suburban Shootout pitted two top two teams in the West Suburban
Conference against each other, No. 2 Rock Island against No. 3 Chicago Morgan Park,
and two nationally-ranked teams – Lisle Benet and Simeon – going against each other.
The Benet-Simeon game on February 19 at the UIC Pavillion in Chicago drew just over
8,100 fans, which is about 2,500 less than the all-time attendance record for a regular
season basketball game (oddly enough, between Pekin and Manual at the Civic Center
in 1984). Last year's meeting between the two happened at the supersectional level,
and this year's would have happened in the first round of the 4A state tournament if it
wasn't for Benet's upset loss in the sectional round against East Aurora.
Fans have been making the case for the “two best teams meeting for the title” even
before America's No. 1 Manual faced No. 2 Harvey Thornton in the 1997 Class AA
State semifinal. The IHSA, specifically upholding Policy No. 19 (the one regarding
geographical representation at state tournaments), has refused to change the
tournament to please these fans. They won't. There's no logical way to make this
happen except for a BCS-style system – one that has itself been under scrutiny.
So what can be done in order to rectify the concerns regarding March Madness? From
these observations is a non-specific list of ideas. They are non-specific in order to
generate a wide array of specific thoughts of each idea:
1. Go back to two classes – Before anyone throws their kids in front of me, read first.
This idea alone will horrify several 1A and 3A fans, but their horror only means they do
not have faith in their team going against larger opponents. Such fans you really are!
It will also create more local regional venues and sectional venues, instead of having to
travel so far for one of these. It will also relieve all of the “what ifs” created when trying
to compare 1A teams with 2A teams, and 3A teams with 4A teams.
More importantly, it will teach the kids that it shouldn't matter exactly who you go up
against. If they already fear the opponent because of an enrollment number, then have
they already lost the game? Looking at enrollment numbers is silly when playing a
basketball game; the two student bodies are not playing against each other. Rather,
there are five people going against five other people on the court.
To point this out further, I have never heard an athlete tell me after a game that their
team lost because the school was bigger than theirs. The fans rather cram this theory
down these athletes' minds. It's not their fault they lost, so they say. The more free
passes we give out ... well, what does that really do to the kids?
2. Reinstate the CPS automatic bid for Class AA – This would put the tournament at
pre-2002 status. But more importantly, it reduces the number of Chicago public league
teams down to just one. The second spot will thus be filled with another school with
some sort of following. Point two-and-a-half would be to brew up more support in
Chicago, in the form of shuttle buses. In fact, make it more than just the basketball
game; make it a basketball game, shopping trip, and an otherwise Peoria experience.
There is a shopping mall in Peoria, as well as the theater inside the Civic Center.
Comedian Ron White was performing at the Civic Center theater at the same time as
the small school basketball tournament.
3. Pamphlets, pamphlets, pamphlets – There are several that go unused at Civic
Center tables, each informing people about what's around town. Send a bunch to the
schools participating at the tournament, and mail them through the schools to the
families. This wouldn't really fix the die-hard problem, but would get more people in the
seats.
4. Move the first-session game times up one hour – But do not alter the second-
session schedule in order to accommodate the media and its deadlines. Twelve-fifteen
in the afternoon seems early, but 1:00 p.m. doesn't.
5. Put up a trivia contest in the March Madness Experience – If there's any trait
about die-hard fans, its their knowledge of the tournament and their desire to be the
best at what they're at.
6. One more Rainbow Shot contest – This has proved to be better than the now-
defunct Slam Dunk Contest. A local company puts this together, where kids line up to
make a free-throw shot, a three-pointer and keep moving back as far as they can go.
There are kids that make half-court shots, and even shots from the opposite free-throw
line. The thrill of the unlikely continues to be a moment to remember for quite some time.
Wethersfield junior Terry Yelm has become an expert at this. Two years ago, Yelm won
the contest (and $250 for him, and $250 for Wethersfield) by draining a shot from the
back free-throw line. He nearly won again this year, hitting a shot from the back three-
point line. However, he was beaten out by someone else with ten seconds left in the
event.
7. “A fan's guide to ...” - Mail this small magazine along with the pamphlets, or put the
entire version up on the Internet.
All ideas are far-fetched, but if implemented properly there should be no panic button
pressed as March Madness continues to play in Peoria.
Cody Cutter is Publisher of Northern Illinois Sports Beat. He can be reached at
northernillinoissportsbeat@yahoo.com. --- Talk about what's written on our Message
Boards!
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