In all the “world is coming to an end, the sky is falling” blather, I may have missed any other discussion around fans reaction to the new venue. Compared to the BJCC in Birmingham. Most likely due to the fact many posters clearly not invested enough in MT to make the trip to Dallas.
From a purely selfish standpoint was disappointed to see it move from Birmingham to Dallas as it was an easy 3 hour drive from ATL. That said, we have family 25 minutes from Frisco so it ended up being win/win for us. I tried going into this with an open mind, but deep down, hoped I wouldn’t like it so they would move back to B’ham.
The Frisco facility, along with the immediate area, is first class all the way. Tons of restaurants & bars immediately across the street. The conf office did a GREAT job creating a festive atmosphere as you walked to the venue. There is an Astro turf football field outside the entrance, and they had vendors lined up on both sides of the field. During the day had the pep bands & cheer squads performing on a stage in the end zone.
Was pretty sure I was not gonna like the 2 court setup due to the obvious distractions it would cause. Candidly, once our games got going I pretty much forgot what as going on next door. At least for me was never really an issue. And for today & Saturday it’s a non-issue. Because you always had 2 games going on, plus teams/fans hanging around from their just finished game, or arriving for their upcoming game, it helped the facility to have more buzz/energy than the BJCC had. Always felt like the BJCC had a morgue like feel to it. Plus the Ford Center is much newer, VERY open design, and much brighter & cheerful.
Tickets were pretty disappointing. Guess we got spoiled somewhat in B’ham. Yes, I realize we could have bought conf passes but right now we look pretty genius for going day-to-day.
GA end zone were $20 each, good for just the afternoon. Then another $20 each for the evening session. Bleacher, courtside, were $35 each. Courtside, chairback, were $50 each. After I bought 6 tixs for our family Thursday nite, my daughter said if we had brought some can goods they could have gotten in free. They even had a discount for their neighborhood, which is 25 minutes away.
So, other than ticket pricing, this venue, IMO, was a major upgrade over B’ham. Plus, a ton more to do in Dallas.
All that said, when your conference geographic footprint is a triangle which goes from Norfolk, VA, across to El Paso, down to Miami, then back up to Norfolk, having any tourney near the corners of any of those 3 triangle points is very short sighted. Especially when for the past 3-4 years men’s basketball has skewed toward UAB, East & North. La Tech, Rice, & El Paso have had some decent teams but not much consistently. ODU/Marshall/W Ky/UAB/MT have been consistently good and to schedule a tourney where the closest of those 5 schools is 9 hours away is financial suicide.
For me, I applaud the conf leadership for exploring new options; this 2-year contract was the wrong time, given where the balance of power in men’s basketball currently resides.
I have some thoughts on possibly a better way to structure the tourney, kind of a hybrid of games on campus/neutral site I may discuss in another thread.
My guess is, most who came here had a good time and will return next year. After next year is anyone’s guess.
From a purely selfish standpoint was disappointed to see it move from Birmingham to Dallas as it was an easy 3 hour drive from ATL. That said, we have family 25 minutes from Frisco so it ended up being win/win for us. I tried going into this with an open mind, but deep down, hoped I wouldn’t like it so they would move back to B’ham.
The Frisco facility, along with the immediate area, is first class all the way. Tons of restaurants & bars immediately across the street. The conf office did a GREAT job creating a festive atmosphere as you walked to the venue. There is an Astro turf football field outside the entrance, and they had vendors lined up on both sides of the field. During the day had the pep bands & cheer squads performing on a stage in the end zone.
Was pretty sure I was not gonna like the 2 court setup due to the obvious distractions it would cause. Candidly, once our games got going I pretty much forgot what as going on next door. At least for me was never really an issue. And for today & Saturday it’s a non-issue. Because you always had 2 games going on, plus teams/fans hanging around from their just finished game, or arriving for their upcoming game, it helped the facility to have more buzz/energy than the BJCC had. Always felt like the BJCC had a morgue like feel to it. Plus the Ford Center is much newer, VERY open design, and much brighter & cheerful.
Tickets were pretty disappointing. Guess we got spoiled somewhat in B’ham. Yes, I realize we could have bought conf passes but right now we look pretty genius for going day-to-day.
GA end zone were $20 each, good for just the afternoon. Then another $20 each for the evening session. Bleacher, courtside, were $35 each. Courtside, chairback, were $50 each. After I bought 6 tixs for our family Thursday nite, my daughter said if we had brought some can goods they could have gotten in free. They even had a discount for their neighborhood, which is 25 minutes away.
So, other than ticket pricing, this venue, IMO, was a major upgrade over B’ham. Plus, a ton more to do in Dallas.
All that said, when your conference geographic footprint is a triangle which goes from Norfolk, VA, across to El Paso, down to Miami, then back up to Norfolk, having any tourney near the corners of any of those 3 triangle points is very short sighted. Especially when for the past 3-4 years men’s basketball has skewed toward UAB, East & North. La Tech, Rice, & El Paso have had some decent teams but not much consistently. ODU/Marshall/W Ky/UAB/MT have been consistently good and to schedule a tourney where the closest of those 5 schools is 9 hours away is financial suicide.
For me, I applaud the conf leadership for exploring new options; this 2-year contract was the wrong time, given where the balance of power in men’s basketball currently resides.
I have some thoughts on possibly a better way to structure the tourney, kind of a hybrid of games on campus/neutral site I may discuss in another thread.
My guess is, most who came here had a good time and will return next year. After next year is anyone’s guess.
