A Sea Of Red

I was thinking about that earlier today, as I was thinking about past Thanksgivings and me staying up all night to watch LU get slaughtered by Duke. By sheer coinsidence, Luke Winn wrote an article on Tuesday that addressed exactly what happened to them, and many other early season tournaments. Pretty interesting stuff. Basically, the NCAA indirectly and maybe unintentionally made ESPN a tournament godfather. Maui will probably be next on the chopping block since ESPN doesn't own it.

here's a pretty sweet quote excerpt:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/w ... index.html

The other 21 tournaments, unable to use TV as a lure in booking teams, fight for the scraps. Says Lee Frederick, the president of Milwaukee-based Sport Tours, which ran the San Juan Shootout from 1987 until it died in 2008, "ESPN is the gorilla that's coming after all of us, trying to eat us all up."

Frederick is bitter -- obscenely bitter -- on the subject of ESPN's push into the tournament market. He still runs two multi-team events, the Glenn Wilkes Classic in Daytona, Fla., and the Las Vegas Holiday Hoops Classic, but neither is on TV. "F--- ESPN," he says. "Print that. F--- ESPN. They think history started with them. Well, they didn't create s---. They just have more money than God."

On a side note, Luke Winn is probably one of the best sports writers out there these days. He's a straight shooter and seems to do a lot of research and digging in the articles he writes. A refreshing change from most of the other hack jobs trying to be edgy.

Thanks for the link. Frankly the entire holiday tourney "industry" has always been a bit on the shady side from my perspective. But they are what they are.

Is this the tourney that RD had us scheduled for, but RM dropped it from our schedule for a more glamorous venue (with weaker competition) in Las Vegas?

Yep ... obviously Coach Dunton had strong ties in Anchorage.

Cider Jim wrote:Is this the tourney that RD had us scheduled for, but RM dropped it from our schedule for a more glamorous venue (with weaker competition) in Las Vegas?

Actually, no.

We went to Vegas in McKay's second year. The first year we got out of the Alaskan Shootout and went to that tournament in Fresno instead.

I forgot about that. I was just thinking about the one we actually played in where Mantlo chipped his tooth. Man, I remember that tournament director was pretty mad because we canceled too late for them to get a decent replacement. Guess he had a lot more to worry about than us.

That's a good read, and I agree with you on Winn, LUConn. I'm also a pretty big Dan Wetzel fan.

I'm glad they stopped calling many of these things "tournaments" and started calling them "multi-team events." They aren't tournaments. Liberty could have beaten Northwestern and Notre Dame and still would have been playing MVSU today. I understand why that happens. The only way to sell these things at neutral sites is to promote the big-name teams. Even then, a lot of these joints are empty. I was stunned to see so many empty seats in St. Louis for that Kansas-Memphis game. Lots of KU fans in that area.

LUconn wrote:here's a pretty sweet quote excerpt:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/w ... index.html

The other 21 tournaments, unable to use TV as a lure in booking teams, fight for the scraps. Says Lee Frederick, the president of Milwaukee-based Sport Tours, which ran the San Juan Shootout from 1987 until it died in 2008, "ESPN is the gorilla that's coming after all of us, trying to eat us all up."

Frederick is bitter -- obscenely bitter -- on the subject of ESPN's push into the tournament market. He still runs two multi-team events, the Glenn Wilkes Classic in Daytona, Fla., and the Las Vegas Holiday Hoops Classic, but neither is on TV. "F--- ESPN," he says. "Print that. F--- ESPN. They think history started with them. Well, they didn't create s---. They just have more money than God."

FWIW, Lee's a good guy. I traveled w/ him to Costa Rica in May '08. I suppose he has obvious personal reasons for his animosity towards ESPN. I've seen one of ESPN's tourney run each of the last 2 years in Charleston, South Carolina. Well-run and relatively well-attended. The final this year was South Carolina vs Miami on ESPN2.

the Alaskan shootout is on CSS right now. i'm watching san diego and houston