The WCHA's Attendance Problem

Now that St. Cloud State and Western Michigan have accepted their spots in the NCHC, it's re-introduced all the arguments and conversations that we had upon the league's "formal" announcement.

("Formal" gets quote marks because that event looked about as formal as a pig roast. Just didn't strike me as the kind of event I thought we were going to get when these details started coming together.)

This move is seen as either the latest inevitable turn of events, or another sign of the end of college hockey. All depends on your perspective.

I'm not here to say that people shouldn't be worried about the futures of programs that have struggled. I'm also not here to insult anyone's intelligence. However, one of the major arguments that has been brought forward deals with attendance at home games for the teams not involved in either the Big Ten or NCHC.

Let's look at the list of teams we're talking about.

Alabama-Huntsville
Alaska
Alaska-Anchorage
Bemidji State
Bowling Green
Ferris State
Lake Superior State
Michigan Tech
Minnesota State
Northern Michigan

I'm not an expert on all these local markets. However, I have talked to a few people, and I have looked at attendance figures for recent seasons.

More than anyone else, I think Minnesota State stands to be hurt the most when it comes purely to gate revenues. Bowling Green could also run into some issues there, but I'm mostly concerned about Minnesota State.

(None of this takes into account conference tournament revenue, where I think all the WCHA teams will suffer, and I question the NCHC teams until we know what their tourney plans are.)

Minnesota State averaged 3,711 fans per game last year at Verizon Wireless Center. The Mavericks drew five crowds of over 4,000 fans. Two came against Minnesota, one against North Dakota, one against UMD, and one against Bemidji.

Games against other WCHA teams averaged roughly 3,500 fans per game (estimate). There's no doubt that a struggling MSU program will have issues drawing fans with the home slate becoming what it will become in the new WCHA.

What we don't know is how Minnesota State would draw in this new WCHA if it becomes a perennial top team in the league. The Mavericks haven't had a winning season since 2007-08, and that was the team's only winning season since its only NCAA Division I Tournament berth in 2002-03. We don't really have any idea how the Mavericks would do at the gate if they could contend for an NCAA berth every year, and that's something that could become a reality in the new WCHA.

No matter the market, winning draws. Field a winning hockey program in any of these markets, and you'll put butts in the seats. No one wants to pay to watch a team constantly get its ass kicked by Michigan, North Dakota, or whoever.

Bowling Green averaged 2,169 fans per game last year. Early-season games against Michigan only averaged about 1,600 fans per night. Notre Dame averaged 2,300 or so. Miami drew 2,700 per night. A series against Ohio State averaged 2,500. Two versus Alabama-Huntsville drew an average over 2,000. With a team that hasn't won in years, it's really hard to figure out Bowling Green, largely because I don't live there and all. It seems they have struggled to draw for certain opponents you would think they might draw better for. Part of that might be because the Falcons simply haven't won much lately (again, what fun is it to watch your favorite team get stomped?).

The problem here is that you're taking Bowling Green out of a conference that has in-state programs Miami and Ohio State, and nearby Notre Dame, and big-timers Michigan and Michigan State. I think they'll have some issues that could only be cured by winning more games.

Alaska-Anchorage hasn't drawn well in years. That won't get taken care of until the Seawolves taste some serious success. Alaska does a'ight, from what I can tell, no matter who they play.

I think the Upper Michigan teams (Lake, Tech, Northern) will do better because of the regional rivalry they now have no choice but to develop. None of them have drawn appreciably better for "big-time" programs in their respective leagues in recent years.

In the end, the WCHA will be fine. It will be a competitive league that produces at least one NCAA team each year. But there is a lot of money that has to be made up for some of these programs to survive long-term. There lies the challenge for Bruce McLeod and the league's members as we move forward.

St. Paul Mayor Offers to Trade Vikings Back to Minneapolis for Timberwolves, Lynx

Chris Coleman is the mayor of St. Paul, the largest city in Ramsey County.

Keep that in mind when reading the latest developments in the Vikings stadium saga.

Coleman was conspicuous by his silence as the Vikings announced their deal with the county to build a new stadium in Arden Hills, a suburb of the Twin Cities. The deal calls for a sales tax in Ramsey County to help fund the facility's costs.

The majority of people who are keeping tabs on this drama took his silence as some sort of odd opposition to the plan.

Wednesday, Coleman confirmed those suspicions. Not only did he make clear he didn't like the plan the Vikings are pushing, but he offered a rather ... um, interesting? ... plan of his own.

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman floated a jumbo-sized plan Wednesday that would address Minnesota's stadium dilemma with a new statewide tax of 2 cents per alcoholic drink while keeping the Vikings in Minneapolis and moving pro basketball to St. Paul.

Coleman said his plan would raise $48 million a year for sports facilities. He said a Vikings plan to move to Ramsey County doesn't make sense; his plan would not move the team but send the Timberwolves and the Lynx to St. Paul to share the Xcel Energy Center with the Wild. Target Center in downtown Minneapolis would become a practice facility.

Coleman also would use the per-drink tax at bars and restaurants to build a St. Paul Saints ballpark in Lowertown and upgrade recreation facilities throughout the state.

In essence, Coleman just offered to trade the Vikings to Minneapolis for the NBA's Timberwolves and WNBA's Lynx.

Of course, this isn't really what Coleman is trying to do.

Coleman said he was trying to end competition between the Xcel and Target Center for tax subsidies and concerts. "My primary concern is there not be additional taxpayer investment [in Target Center] because it just exacerbates the competition," he said.

And Minneapolis not jumping at this idea shouldn't be taken as a sign they don't want the Vikings back. There's more meaning to it than that.

Minneapolis City Council President Barbara Johnson said that as much as the city wants the Vikings to stay, she called it "ridiculous'' to give up Target Center. "It provides us with events many, many times a year, many more than the Vikings playing at the Metrodome,'' she said. "We're a big enough metro to support two" arenas.

Despite the fact that this plan seems absolutely bizonkers, it might actually have some traction.

The mayor was smart on a couple fronts. First, he made this a statewide tax, appealing to those in Duluth and Hinckley and Virginia and Two Harbors and International Falls and St. Cloud and Mankato and other places in this great state that love the Vikings, Wild, Timberwolves, and Lynx, and want them to play in top-notch facilities.

It also throws a bone to those who don't care what kind of facilities the state's pro teams play in, by adding the provision that uses some of this money to build and upgrade recreation facilities in the state to help kids find places to play. There's a sales tax increase in St. Paul thrown in to help with bond payments and libraries.

The Wild played the nice guy, issuing a statement welcoming the idea of sharing the XCel Energy Center.

This proposal from Mayor Coleman, for the Xcel Energy Center to host the Timberwolves and Lynx, is a new idea in this discussion. It is certainly possible from a facility standpoint.  Multiple tenants in one building is common and is the case in most major markets around the country including Dallas, Denver, Chicago, and Los Angeles, where the Staples Center hosts three major league sports teams. While we haven’t discussed this idea with the Timberwolves, we would be happy to do so if the Wolves were interested in discussing this proposal.

Over the past few years, the Wild has developed plans for building improvements to keep the Xcel Energy Center a state of the art facility, including a multi-level expansion on the building’s north side. We have also supported the City of St. Paul’s work to build an Amateur Sports Center of Excellence on 7th Street across from the arena, which could also be used as a practice facility for the Wild.  Those existing plans could easily be modified to accommodate the needs of the Timberwolves and Lynx, including additional locker rooms, lower bowl modifications and additional retail and office space should the Wolves and Lynx decide to move to St. Paul.

In the end, Coleman is arguing that the Twin Cities aren't big enough for both Target Center and the XCel Energy Center. He's also saying that there isn't anywhere in St. Paul to host a Vikings stadium, and he believes the Arden Hills location benefits other locations outside Ramsey County more than it would the county or the city of St. Paul.

The Vikings want no part of Coleman's plan, but in the end, the Legislature gets to have a say in this, too. We'll see in the coming days how politicians react to this proposal, and how the citizens react. Those are probably more significant moving forward than how the Vikings feel.

You have to understand the team's perspective. They have a sweetheart deal with Ramsey County, and they don't want to cede any of the perks or control they're being given in order to back one of these other proposals.

It sounds selfish, but it's part of negotiating. When you get something you want, you don't offer to give it up.

Sign of the Times in Media

Couldn't help but notice this gem of a story about sports media. Turns out The Washington Post has subtly changed the name of the blog that covers the NFL team based out of their fair city.

Here's the skinny from Dan Steinberg of the Post, who notes that the team asked the newspaper to rename its blog, which was called "R******s Insider" (sorry, but we don't want to get in trouble here). The paper now calls its blog "Football Insider," which should incense officials in the National Football League.

After all, you're stretching the brand and potentially damaging the NFL name.

For such a crappy football organization to spend time worrying about something like this is kind of funny.

Steinberg unloaded in his blog post about the move.

Well, that’s cool. Well played, Washington Football Team. I only wish the Washington Nationals, Capitals and Wizards were as forward-thinking about protecting their brands from the scarcy specters of the Nationals Journal, Capitals Insider and Wizards Insider Web logs.

This is not the only shot being fired by sports teams or organizations at the media.

The WIAA happens to be embroiled in their own controversy.

And lawsuit.

The case stems from an agreement between the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association, which represents high schools, and a video production company called American Hi-Fi. The contract gives the company the right to stream high school sports events in Wisconsin over the Internet.

The agreement, however, precludes newspapers and other media organizations around the state from freely streaming the games themselves. To do so, they must first get a license from the WIAA, which charges as much as $1,500 per game for the privilege. A Wisconsin newspaper owned by McLean-based Gannett Co. challenged these restrictions as a violation of its First Amendment rights, prompting the WIAA to go to court last year to seek a declaratory judgment.

A federal district court decided in the WIAA’s favor last year. “Ultimately this is a case about commerce, not the right to a free press,” the court wrote in its decision. “The principal reason the WIAA granted an exclusive license to stream its games over the internet is not to promote discourse, but to create and grow an additional source of revenue.”

That is indeed why the WIAA says its contract with American Hi-Fi is exclusive; by giving the company “exclusive” rights to the games, it increases the value of the rights, much like an NFL or Olympics TV deal. WIAA spokesman Todd Clark says the streaming contract is part of a package of sponsorships that raise about $300,000 a year for the association. “Instead of raising ticket prices so that they’re unaffordable for families,” he said, “we chose to [offset expenses] through these contracts.”

This is a dangerous line for sports organizations to cross. Revenue is important, but so is the media's right to report on the events. The threat of raising ticket prices -- as if that's the only other source of revenue for the WIAA -- is kind of comical. It's not like the games cost much now, and raising ticket prices a couple bucks across the board isn't suddenly going to take a half-full arena and make it less than that. The people that want to go will still go.

Cheerleading on Trial

Women have -- rightfully so -- been fighting for their rights for so many years now. It's actually ridiculous that the "Get in the kitchen" and "Make me a sandwich" crowds have lasted as long as they have.

It's proof that even human beings can be completely insensitive and stupid.

Title IX -- a law not designed for sports -- has helped women come a long way toward gaining equal footing in the athletic world. The law mandates equal opportunity for females, and it has been interpreted -- right or wrong, mind you -- to mean colleges have to even up the competitive opportunities and scholarships based on their overall student population.

Argue all you want about its ups and downs. That's a different subject for a different day. It's for real.

Schools have been looking to figure out how to comply without cutting a ton of men's sports for years. In the meantime, sports like wrestling, swimming, and sometimes hockey and football have gone away to help save money and get a university in compliance.

But what happens when a school wants to cut a women's sport to save money?

They have to find a cheaper women's sport to spend scholarship money on.

This is what happened at Quinnipiac University. The powers-that-be wanted to save a few dollars, so they decided to do away with women's volleyball. They needed a cheaper alternative to replace those scholarships and keep the school in Title IX compliance. Luckily for them, there was -- they thought -- an option.

Cheerleading.

Yes, I said cheerleading.

Volleyball players were incensed. They sued the school, claiming that cheerleading is not a sport.

Now, the case is in court, and a federal judge is charged with deciding if it's a real sport. It's one of the more interesting cases involving sports we've seen in court for some time.

... the university says is a less expensive program that serves more women, the New Haven Register reported.

Five volleyball players and their coach sued the university, alleging that cheerleading is not a real sport and the university improperly counts or exaggerates its number of athletes to get around Title IX requirements.

... Expert witness Jeff Webb, chief executive of Varsity Spirit, testified that making cheerleading a competitive college sport would threaten "classical sideline cheerleading," according to the Associated Press. He added that cheerleading is as much of a sport as chess.

Except I don't remember the last time someone tore an ACL playing chess.

Something being dangerous and athletic doesn't make it a sport. However, where do we draw the line? There are competitive cheerleading championships. Surely, you've seen them on ESPN before. The people on these teams put a lot of time and effort into what they do, and while there isn't any kind of professional equivalent to it for anyone to go in after college, there isn't a professional equivalent for a lot of college sports, but yet we label them as sports.

Sanctioning cheerleading as a college sport could be bad for the cause of women's athletics. Cheerleading involves more people and is cheaper than most any other sport a university can sponsor. If you think there aren't enough women's hockey, volleyball, or softball programs now, wait until Quinnipiac wins this lawsuit, and schools look to drop expensive, money-bleeding non-revenue sports for cheerleading.

The quality and visibility of cheerleading will rise, but is that really a good thing?

Reports of Big 12's Demise Were Apparently Exaggerated

I wrote Friday about the impending demise of the once-great Big 12 Conference.

Spoke too soon.

Instead, the Big 12 is alive and very well Monday night, thanks to a decision by Texas to stay put, pushing aside the advances of the Pac-10 conference.

It wasn't long after that we found out lapdogs Texas A&M and Oklahoma will also stay in the Big 12.

(OU fans are probably cursing me. With all due respect to Texas, I never thought I'd see the day that A&M and Oklahoma just bowed their heads and went the way of the Longhorns. Rivalries be damned, it just looks stupid to me.)

In the end, Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe has found a way to at least keep a ten-team league together. That's big, because most people who have fake Twitter accounts created in their name aren't having it done for the good of the world.

(The latest, by the way, from the "Fake Dan Beebe" account? "OK, I'm actually a little worried now. UT, A&M and OU all have announced they are staying. KSU, BU and ISU are oddly silent."

Good times.)

This is good for a number of reasons. The Big Ten can stay at 12 teams, with the addition late last week of Nebraska. They fit the Big Ten, and they'll benefit from losing 14-13 to Iowa and Wisconsin all the time, as opposed to losing at home to Iowa State or having Kansas beat them by like six touchdowns.

(How stupid is Nebraska going to feel after that first 7-6 overall, 3-5 Big Ten season? And you know it's coming. Nebraska stopped being this elite, unbeatable, legendary football power like a decade ago. It's just that no one bothered to tell Nebraska. The Big 12 North can cast quite a spell. Hell, look how competent Kansas looked for a few years.)

How close did we come to the end of the Big 12? Dr. Saturday sets the timeline.

Thus concludes the dramatic, week-long Big 12 Missile Crisis, just hours before the apparent dismemberment of the league: By all accounts, the Texas Board of Regents was fully prepared to vote the Longhorns into the Pac-10 on Tuesday, followed by Texas Tech and then Oklahoma and Oklahoma State on Wednesday. Don't let the stunning reversal over the last 24 hours paint that narrative as mere smoke: Larry Scott was in Lubbock, Oklahoma City, College Station and Austin over the weekend with invitations in hand. Texas A&M's commitment was in flux, but as for the Longhorns, Sooners, Cowboys and Red Raiders, the wagon train West was packed and ready to roll.

That's close. And it didn't happen.

Congrats to Beebe, because he figured out a way to make it work.

The math nerds in college sports are probably having a field day with this. The Big 12 has ten teams. The Big Ten has 12. The Pac-10 has 11. The Atlantic 10 has 14 teams in many sports and 15 actual members.

Of course, conference names are nothing but a form of branding. The Big Eight changing to the Big 12 was the last major league to go through a name change.

(Stop it, Conference USA fans. You're not that big, yet.)

We might not be done with change.

The Big Ten should stay put. So should the Big East, ACC, SEC, and WAC. But the Mountain West may lose Utah (to the Pac-10) after gaining Boise State. The ripple effect of that could send TCU packing back to Conference USA, where they have a better TV deal and the Horned Frogs could reunite with Houston, SMU, and UTEP.

Would there be more movement among the BCS leagues? It's possible, but not likely.

As for Texas, don't salute their nod to tradition or their smarts for not wanting to schedule regular trips to Corvallis, Pullman, Eugene, and Berkeley. They are getting a lot of money from the Big 12, thanks to their stupid unequal revenue arrangement that acts as if their league would exist in its current form without the likes of Missouri, Iowa State, Baylor, and Kansas State.

(Does Northwestern pull in less coin than Ohio State? Nope. Nor should they. Leagues are a partnership, and giving the big dog special treatment only makes it more difficult for others to emerge as a contender.)

Texas is doing this for money. They'll get more money from the Big 12, and they'll have the right to start their own television network, with a chance to make even more money. Had they joined the Pac-10, they would have been forced to turn their video inventory over to the league for the Pac-10/16/whatever Network, which was to launch in 2012 and probably still will.

Beebe pulled this together, but he had to get on his knees for the Longhorns to make it happen. Give him credit for that, because it had to be a pride-killing move.

Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and the rest of them are just pawns.

Texas is the king, and don't you ever forget it.

Brewers Can't Make the Easy Decision

Let's make one thing abundantly clear.

Being a baseball general manager is not easy. It often involves making unpopular moves, tough decisions, and doing things that fans don't understand.

Very rarely is anything truly easy, and usually it then involves spending oodles of someone else's money on a player who might be great, but also might badly underperform and make you feel stupid for spending all that money. Oh, and that's someone else's money. Don't forget that.

For the Milwaukee Brewers, decisions are almost always tough. General manager Doug Melvin has to juggle a pretty tight player budget. It's not like the club has unlimited funds, though owner Mark Attanasio is aggressive and will spend right to the top of his revenue to win.

Attanasio isn't here to make a ton of money, but he's also not stupid. You don't want to run a losing operation. Attanasio tows the line as best he can, with the help of Melvin.

One of those tough money-spending decisions Melvin made came in the winter of 2006, when he signed veteran pitcher Jeff Suppan to a four-year deal.

Needless to say, it's been a disaster.

Suppan's numbers with Milwaukee are awful, and they get worse every time he pitches. Sunday, as he allowed the game with the Mets to get out of hand, Suppan was lustily booed practically every time he took a breath.

While fans can't dictate the final decisions made regarding players, their frustration here is notable. Melvin and Attanasio pulled off a bad signing, and the fans feel like management refuses to cut bait.

There is probably a small percentage of them who are booing Suppan directly, but this isn't his doing. He signed a contract to be paid a certain amount to pitch. He hit the wall and has regressed, largely because he wasn't that good to begin with. But there's no reason to think he didn't try as hard or that he doesn't care.

This isn't on Suppan. It's on Melvin and Attanasio.

Their responsibility to this franchise is to pay Suppan's contract off and let him become a free agent. Simply put, the team is out of options with Suppan. He won't be effective in the rotation, and he's nothing but mop-up quality as a reliever. You can't just keep a guy as a mop-up pitcher, especially when he's making $12 million, but it's not desirable under any circumstances.

The easy decision here -- the obvious one -- is to DFA Suppan. It would make the team better to have him no longer be a bullpen option. It would make the fans a bit less on edge, because they're not worried about him coming into the game. It would take some heat off everyone in management, as no one would be calling for Soup's head anymore.

So why won't the Brewers do it? They've had a couple chances recently, and they've gone other directions. Chris Capuano and Kameron Loe joined the club from Triple-A, and the team chose not to DFA Suppan in either instance.

Is this the ego of Melvin, or the ego of Attanasio? Or both?

It's doubtful that manager Ken Macha has wasted much time trying to convince management that Suppan can be useful out of the bullpen. For starters, it's hilariously false. It's also not worth anyone's energy, because he hasn't proven he's better than any replacement-level major-league player you can come up with. Why would Macha handcuff himself by arguing for an inferior player?

Again, you can't expect Suppan to voluntarily cut himself. There might be a chance he'd settle for deferred money on at least some of what he is owed, but the Brewers will have to eventually pay up.

Why not do it now and at least give the impression that winning is more important than "making him earn that money (that he'll never truly earn)?"

AMSOIL Arena

The DECC expansion finally has a name.

Tuesday morning, it was announced that Amsoil, a local manufacturer of synthetic lubricants, has agreed to purchase the naming rights for the new building.

The deal, for $6 million for 20 years, means the arena that houses UMD hockey starting in December will be called AMSOIL Arena.

Here is the press release:

Thanks to the generosity of a locally-based national corporation, the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center’s addition won’t simply be called “the new arena” when it opens this December. It will be called AMSOIL Arena.

On May 11, 2010 the DECC Board approved awarding naming rights for the new facility to AMSOIL INC., a world leading manufacturer of synthetic lubricants and a major Twin Ports employer.

“Throughout the planning and construction process, the DECC Board has always sought ways to make this great new arena even greater for residents of the entire region,” said Mark Emmel, the DECC's board chair. “One important way of doing that is through a naming rights agreement, and we wanted to team up with a company that’s local, has a reach far beyond this area, and has a reputation for excellence. AMSOIL not only met but greatly exceeded all of those criteria, and we’re looking forward to an exciting, long term relationship with them.”

Albert J. Amatuzio, AMSOIL’s founder, president and CEO, said a partnership with the DECC is a perfect fit.

“Although AMSOIL produces products that are used throughout the world, the vast majority of our employees live and work right here in the Twin Ports. This is our home,” said Amatuzio.

“We’re honored to be associated with a facility that is so critical to the community’s economy and image.

AMSOIL Executive Vice Presidents Alan Amatuzio and Dean Alexander echoed that sentiment.

“We have worked closely with the DECC for many years and have established a great relationship,” said Alan Amatuzio. “I think both sides of this partnership realized from the start that this was a good opportunity for everyone, and that includes the entire region.”

“We’re proud to be involved,” said Alexander. “We’ve had many opportunities throughout the years to relocate the company but have chosen to stay here. We’re committed to the area, and our decision to step up and do this deal reflects that commitment.”

The agreement calls for the DECC to receive $6 million over a 20 year term.

One way AMSOIL’s investment will enhance AMSOIL Arena is that it will provide funding that allows the arena to achieve the LEED Gold Standard, making AMSOIL Arena only the second in the nation with this important designation for environmental responsibility. AMSOIL’s funding will also allow the DECC to update AMSOIL Arena as upgrades are needed in coming years.

Great news, in that a local company stepped up and made this happen.

The building is still coming along quite nicely, and should be more than ready for the opening events at the end of the year.

Corey Hart Wears Sunglasses at Arbitration Hearing, Wins

For some reason, this rubbed me the wrong way Friday morning.

Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Corey Hart, by all accounts a pretty decent guy, and probably best known for letting his daughter get beer dumped on her after he was named to the 2008 All-Star Game, took his team to an arbitration hearing this week.

This is not a crime, and no one is looking down on Hart for fighting for the salary he feels he deserves. Yes, it's Monopoly money, but they have a right to get what they feel they have coming to them.

Last year, Hart was terrible. His average slipped, he couldn't hit consistently, he didn't generate much power, had a poor year of run production, and was injured for a time.

Despite the fact that arby hearings usually boil down to comparable players and not so much individual performance in a single season, it made sense that Hart would fail to win his arbitration hearing.

He won.

Give both sides credit. You figured the Brewers wouldn't have any hard feelings about the deal, but Hart was extremely classy in victory.

When told there was some fan backlash over his big raise from a $3.25 million salary after an off year, Hart said, "That's just one of those things you have to deal with. I didn't have a good year last year. I'm sure they don't think I deserved a big raise.

"I've just got to win them back over. I always play hard. I'll try to put up good numbers and get them back on my side."

Asked if the big salary puts more pressure on him, Hart said, "I don't look at it as pressure. I always want to do my best. I want to prove that I'm a better player than I showed last year. I want to be a big part of this team and do everything I can to help us win."

While it irked many Brewer fans that Hart sought such a big raise, it's heartening that he seems to understand why that is. If Hart follows through on his pledge to prove that he's a better player than the .260/.335/.418 he put up last year, he could be in for a huge 2010.

If that happens, he probably won't have to worry about his salary for a while.