Low Attendance For Women's Tournament Leads To Site Changes

The NCAA women's basketball tournament Greensboro Regional Final between Connecticut and Rutgers drew 4,623 fans, while the Tennessee-Texas A&M Regional Final in Oklahoma City drew 9,341. Monday's New Orleans Regional Final featuring LSU-North Carolina drew 5,067 fans, while the Stanford-Maryland Spokane Regional Final drew 6,821 people (THE DAILY). In Greensboro, Robert Bell reported the women's tournament this year "has struggled to attract a paying audience," and next year in a "bid to move forward ... the tournament will switch back to 16, four-team sites instead of the current setup -- eight cities with eight teams each." NCAA Committee Chair Judy Southard said the move "will certainly help us with attendance and the atmosphere at arenas." UConn coach Geno Auriemma indicated that many coaches "were not happy with the tournament's setup." He added that returning to play first- and second-round games "at sites that are historically supportive of women's basketball is a good one -- even if those sites are home to many of the nation's stronger women's programs." Auriemma: "We're trying to grow the game, make it a profitable endeavor" (Greensboro NEWS & RECORD, 4/1).

ATTENDANCE INDICATIVE OF INTEREST? In Virginia, Dave Fairbank wrote of attendance figures for the women's tournament, "The easy answer is that it's simply an accurate reflection of the interest in women's hoops. ... The question is whether basketball fans will venture across the street to see games played by women's teams with which they have no affiliation, regardless of how good they are?" Auriemma last weekend "pondered an idea that has been floated: the men and women holding joint Final Fours, at the same site, as a means of increasing exposure." Auriemma: "It's an interesting concept that I think may have some merit in some ways." But he added, "It does have the chance to just get completely obliterated by the men's tournament" (Newport News DAILY PRESS, 4/1).