Ended up being two 1s and two 2s as Baylor was not able to beat A&M for the fourth time this season.

BTW how foolish is it to set up a bracket with a #1 and a #2 seed in a Regional from the same conference? It would seem to make sense to switch the #2 with one of the #2s from another Regional.

Ya see, parity! ;)

Foolish or really really smart? Two teams from the same conference and the same state playing in Dallas in front of a sold out arena...foolish or smart?

ESPN reports the attendance as 11,508. Let's say that the ticket price was $100. I know that the men's tickets were $90, so I am clearly high here, but it will help prove the point.

That is $100 x 11,508 for a total gate of $1,150,800.

The site gets the concessions, so the NCAA has to pay the facility rental and the people who staff the game, plus the money which is given to each school for participating out of the above.

After that really how much is left as profit? Does it really matter if 10,000 or 5,000 or 2,000 people are at the game? (I know that on the mens side if only 5,000 seats were available more demand would be created and it would be easy to double the ticket price, thus generating the same revenue. Would the case be the same for the women? Not sure.)

My point: I seriously doubt that the NCAA is making money from the on-site attendance. I contend that the major revenue stream comes from the TV contract. Compared to that the on-site money is a drop in the bucket.

(Just saw the USA article today with this quote: "But as the NCAA basketball tournament's Final Four gathers here this week — capping a three-week showcase that generates more than $771 million a year in television rights alone..."
Source: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/colle...terstitialskip)

Yet another reason why the NCAA sites these games at places where they know they will be able to sell a lot of tickets...at least this way they do make some money, rather than losing money at neutral sites.

Yep, and I highly doubt they're making $771 million on TV contracts for the women's tournament.

Perception Too?
 

Even for the men's early tourney, afternoon games, there were very few people in the seats in some arenas.

It is also about the building being full for TV!

Part of that is due to the fact that tickets were sold in blocks and some fans leave when their game is over....or don't arrive until thier game begins.

Other issues I heard mentioned for some games is that they cleared the arena between the first pair of games and the 2nd pair of games but had little time to admit everyone for the 2nd sessions. They scheduled the sessions too close together. Some games started with nearly empty seats and slowly filled up as they got people through.

Camron - while these are nice "alibis" and "excuses" and I concur to a point, I would also opine that having games in the middle of the day, far from home, in large arenas, between non-local teams that no one really knows about, don't generate a lot of excitement and therefore show lackluster attendance - boys or girls (and girls is obviously much worse).

True. I would bet it wouldn't be more then $758 million !

There are lines for the Women's games in the Final Four this season.

Stanford is favored by 5 and UConn is favored by 7.5

To me, this would be like betting on the Pro Bowl.

I don't even understand that comment, but it's still funny.