a10nick

WIKI says the capacity for basketball is 3,750 and pictures of its inside bring to mind an airplane hangar. Perhaps Fordham and LaSalle could team up with the Q to form a Conference where their playing venues could be more compatible. Actually, from the pix of the interiors of Gola and Rose Hill that I have seen, FU and LU might have to look elsewhere for partners that have arenas that measure up to their level!!!

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I just want the team I support to be in a stronger conference. I'd prefer it to be a stronger A-10! To me that would mean every member would have at least 2 trips to the NCAA Tourney and 5 winning seasons during each 10-year cycle. It would also be great for every program to seriously challenge for a league title (either regular season or Tourney) at least once during that same period of time.

Medford

Miami has trouble filling their stadium unless they're playing Florida, FSU or an key opponent like Ohio State that is going to travel well. I don't think there's much more room in that part of the state for "big time" football.

ace93

UM drew a lot better when their home stadium was actually in Miami rather than the Dade/Broward border and when they were good. *this actually does not seem to be true, so was just perception on my part.

Miami is extremely fair weather, so the key would be that the program is truly big time. Take a look at any of the pro teams and you'll see they draw well when they are winning and fairly poorly when they are not. UM is no different. I'd like to see FIU give it a real shot, but perhaps I'm biased. I went to high school with their coach and I have a lot of friends who are graduates from there. I might have been too had I been good enough to play soccer there.

p.s. what type of attendance is needed to be deemed appropriate for a "big time" program?

X-band '01

Unless you're the Marlins who couldn't draw jack when they played at the Dolphins' stadium.

It will be a lot better this year in a retractable-roof park in downtown Miami (where the old Orange Bowl used to be). Still, I wonder what their attendance will be once the novelty wears off next year.

Bona84

After Reyes pulls a hammie...

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Bona84

ace93

Dolphins' stadium is horrifically situated which I think is much worse for baseball than for football since baseball is multiple games per week. Terrible stadium for baseball too. I saw 4 games there, one their opening season and 3 during the 2003 WS. My seats for game 5 required binoculars to be able to see and I have perfect vision. I will be at the new stadium on Monday and by pure coincidence they happen to be playing the Yankees, fortuitous timing on a trip "home" for me.

I do think attendance will dwindle once the novelty wears off and will only improve once they get the Metro-Rail to go out there. And to call it downtown Miami is a bit of a misnomer as it's close to the city center, but that area is still very residential.

(sorry for the off topic)

MudFlap

Should have been the second thing they did after buying a team many, many years ago. Almost torture watching a day game there.

X-band '01

Outside of Sundays, I don't think they even schedule that many day games in Miami simply because of the weather.

The Rangers are similar from a weather standpoint - attendance isn't a problem for them but you'll rarely see a day game for the Rangers during the summer months (100-degree heat will do that to a team). Even their Sunday night games would be played at night regardless of whether or not AL EaStPN would be televising the games.

Medford

Good question, not sure there is an "exact" answer. In hoops, Duke does very well despite playing in a much smaller arena than most of its peers, the same can be said of some football program I'm sure, just not sure who.

Who is "big time" in football? Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama, USC, Florida State, Florida, LSU, Penn State, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma, Notre Dame etc.. USC, like Miami, can be hit or miss on attendance compared to the others on this list, I'd venture that most, if not all of those schools play to 80k+ fans every home game. Quite a few of them play in front of 100k+ fans each home date.

Attendance isn't the only metric, as I said (though % of capacity in combination with size might be a good indicator), but I think it reflects interest pretty well. Football, more than any other school takes money, lots of money to run. From booster donations, to ticket sales, TV deals and T-shirt sales, it takes a ton of money to continually cover the costs of coaches, scholarships, recruiting trips, facilities, etc... FIU could potentially flash for a season or two, but it will be very tough to keep up with the historic powers in football. They have more presence, and have the money to ensure that their presence remains near the top, even during scandal or down periods. How many programs could just brush off all the issues of the last 2 years the way that Ohio State did this offseason or USC has done? Not many, that's for sure.

ace93

Yeah, the more I think aout it the less I think FIU could get it done. The interesting thing about the big time programs you mention is that the two that you mention that struggle appear to be the ones in the bigger cities. Something about big cities and big time college sports just don't seem to mix, but it's not as if in the smaller cities it's just locals, people drive from far away for those games. I went to the Alabama @South Carolina game a few years back and on the highway from Charlotte you saw a very good number of fans heading down. That was a huge game, but I was told by some locals that they get a big number of fans that drive in from far away places. That game was a blast.

xudash

Back on thread track: No CAA schools for now: http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebaske...e-been-for-unc

ace93

The bigger news there to me is Kelsey to Winthrop. Did I miss that mentioned elsewhere.

LaSalleFan

Glad to see that you're back to your old obnoxious self, Nick. I was worried about you when you virtually disappeared during the first 2/3 of the A10 schedule when Xavier was struggling. Didn't have much to say about La Salle then, did you? I guess if you can't find a reason to trash their team, seeing as how they beat Xavier head to head and finished tied for fifth, you'll pull out the arena card again. I also loved your post where you put together your dream A10 and completely ignored La Salle, a team that over the last 7 years has finished 3rd, tied for 5th twice, 7th, and 10th. Not saying that I'm satisfied with those finishes, but the point is, there are a number of A10 teams who've finished behind La Salle since Giannini took over the program and he has at worst put them in the middle of the pack and out of that "bottom-feeder" status that you love to post about.

And they return all but one player from their roster and add a very good ACC transfer to take his place, so they should be good again in 2012-13 and beyond.

Hate to break this to you, but La Salle isn't going anywhere, no matter how much you want it to happen. Nobody with any say in the matter could give a rat's a$$ what you think. And at least Snipe and the majority of the X posters were man enough to stay on the board during the rough stretch and actually give credit to the teams that were playing well, unlike you who crawled under a rock for a couple months.

UDGhetto

You have to stop with this Siena talk. They are not on the same level of the A10. There facilities are terrible. Please do not tell me how great the Pepsi center is. Taking Seina would be a huge step back for the A10.

njlsufan

Excellent post LaSalle Fan. I have to agree, ol' Nick pulled a disappearing act when things weren't going X's way. Magically, he showed up again once X seemed to right the ship; but that's the typical M.O. of a cyber bully, so I'm not too surprised.