Not as many there – again

It takes awhile for the dust to clear at the end of every basketball season in Kentucky and there are a few more things still rising to the surface as we are now two weeks past having crowned our two KHSAA champions.

According to figures released last week by Mike Fields of the Lexington Herald-Leader, this past boys’ Sweet 16 in Rupp Arena, while offering many good match-ups through the week, just somehow didn’t measure up for most fans.

The eight session tournament proved to be the lowest attended “Greatest Show In Hoops” in the past 20 years, and the second lowest since the tournament was last held in Louisville.

The announced attendance this year for the Sweet 16 was 94,464 which falls short by some 30,000 from the announced numbers just two years ago. This year’s numbers were just 10,000 more than the 1994 tourney last held in Louisville’s Freedom Hall which totaled only 84,278 fans.

Since the event moved back to Lexington on a permanent basis, it has enjoyed some pretty impressive numbers, most times far surpassing the 100,000 mark.

Fields, in his weekly high school roundup column, surmised that the reason for the drastic drop was likely just a case that the teams who made it to the event and the teams that advanced, simply didn’t generate great crowd support.

Could be, but you also have to couple that with the unpopular decision a few years ago by KHSAA Commissioner Julian Tackett to alter a format that had proved successful for years – no – decades.

In an effort to appease UK Coach John Calipari one season, the traditional Saturday “two-game” lineup for the championship squads was changed to eliminate the Saturday morning rounds completely, play semi-finals on Saturday night, and move the traditional Saturday night championship game to a Sunday afternoon format.

I said it then that it was bad idea.

“If it ain’t broke – don’t fix it,” the old saying goes.

While a good number of fans attending the event throughout the week are team fans from the towns and cities where each respective school is located, a more significant number of fans are like myself and most of the Clinton County fans who head up each year to simply enjoy the week of good high school basketball action.

The altered schedule, including a later game-start for all of the evening game sessions, has done more damage to the event than Fields (and apparently Tackett) are realizing (or caring to admit).

Later evening game starts result in games not being over sometimes until 10:00 p.m. or even later if an overtime or two is encountered, leaving fans exiting Rupp Arena with little to do other than simply head back to hotel rooms and catch up on Sports Center with the NCAA results.

Then take the altered Saturday schedule with no morning session and a Sunday championship game.

Up until the change was made a few years ago, I hadn’t missed a Saturday night championship game in years – at least going through the turnstiles to catch the traditional pre-game show, watching some of the game, then leaving. Ticket used.

Now faced with hanging around Lexington through the entire morning on Sunday, then heading to Rupp after checking out of our hotel. Not seen a championship game since the change has been made.

Further, with no Saturday morning games at all, many fans are finding it too easy to scan the four teams remaining, load the car Saturday morning, and head for the four corners of the Bluegrass State each calls home.

No tickets used Saturday or Sunday.

Sure, the KHSAA isn’t suffering monetarily as much as it might appear at first. They still sold many of those tickets that aren’t being used and are instead traveling back home in patron’s back pockets. But concessions, hotels, restaurants, souvenirs all are suffering. More importantly, the “Greatest Show in Hoops” is playing it’s final two games to ghost crowds – as was the case this year.

Commissioner – you made the change and it ain’t working!

It’s broke – time to fix it. Back to the original format before it’s too late.