Hartford Must Keep Proving Itself As Host Of Women's Big East Tournament

This much we know.

The Big East women's basketball tournament is staying at the XL Center for at least the next two seasons and, for the eighth successive year, all-session ticket packages remain at $99.

This much we also know.


Nine area corporations have combined to buy $80,000 worth of tickets for both years, which annually equates to 800 all-session packages.

"Yes, it was part of our presentation," said Chuck Steedman, senior vice present and general manager of the XL Center. "And, yes, I think it made a huge difference."

This much we don't know.

Exactly which venues bid on the tournament? Exactly which Big East schools objected to the tournament moving to the Mohegan Sun Arena? And although associate commissioner Danielle Donehew confirmed the decision on "multiple venues' was made by a vote of the athletic directors, we don't know whether that vote required a majority, two-thirds, three-fourths or unanimous consent.

"Those are internal decisions," Donehew said Tuesday at the XL Center press conference to announce the two-year deal. "I will say when we make a decision, we're united behind it — unanimous or not."

The reason it's important to establish some facts here is because two strong and divergent opinions emerge. Call it a separation of our city and our state:

-It is terrific for Hartford that the XL Center retains the event and that nine corporations would band together. Now area leaders must continue strong, concrete steps toward making the tournament a permanent fixture in our city's sports landscape. Permanent like the men's tournament is in New York. If the loss of the Whalers and the save of the Travelers Championship have shown us anything, it's that once you lose the best stuff, man, it's hard to get back.

-The conversation on the relationship between college athletics and gambling casinos must continue and it should, for the benefit of all of us, take place with transparency. The Big East and its schools, in this case, clearly have no interest in a public dialogue and that's disappointing.

There was a lot of bragging Tuesday how since the Big East parked at the XL Center in 2004 the women's tournament has averaged bigger crowds than any conference in the country. This is a case where the numbers speak louder than the truth. There have been bumps. Out of the gate, the conference tried gouging $150 for an all-session package and while it didn't kill the golden goose, it riddled that goose with bullets. The record average of 10,322 in 2004 dropped wildly to 8,268 in 2005. Fan ire was raised. Tickets were lowered to $99.

The next year, the average jumped to 9,566. Yet in the five years since, the average has been between 8,656 and 9,223; the 2011 average was 8,835. Given Connecticut's reputation as the hub of women's hoops, those numbers are OK, nothing great. Donehew talked about badly wanting to improve attendance in the early rounds for the good of all athletes, and that's noble. Yet after individual session tickets have been made available, the title game has drawn between only 9,036 and 10,040 since 2005. UConn, which has had a number of sellouts of 16,294 over the years, has been in all but one of those finals. And some have been Final Four previews.

UConn fans sometimes seem to look past the Big East tournament, or at least save their dollars, for the opening-round NCAA games or to attend the Final Four. Last year, of course, the opening-round games at Storrs had lousy attendance, too. Maya Moore's final game there drew 5,729.

The games tend to blend into each other that time of year. That's why the city and the XL Center have to continue to attack this event. Define it. Promote it. Make sure parking is affordable. Make sure restaurants stay open late. Notre Dame figures to play UConn for the Big East title on March 13, 2012. If you can't sell that powerhouse matchup, well, the XL Center deservedly has to prove itself vs. other bidders every two years.

There's no real support for building a new arena in Hartford right now, but someday there will be a new one, a retrofitted one or no arena at all. An arena needs important events to be a player and the XL Center, in fierce competition in its own state with Mohegan Sun, needs to attract important events to make the capital city a destination point.

If the bottom line was the only line, you've got to figure the casino would have emerged victorious for the Big East tournament. It cost plenty to put on an event at the XL Center. The Mohegan Sun has another motive, of course, and arena rent is no hurdle.

There has been resistance to putting the tournament in Uncasville. Notre Dame has been blamed. A bloc of Catholic schools has been blamed. Some non-Catholic schools have been blamed. But not one has identified itself and said why.

Since UMass-Central Connecticut in 2001, there have been hundreds of college games at Mohegan Sun. Ivy League Yale has played there. Fairfield, Sacred Heart, Holy Cross and Marist, Catholic schools, have played there. Since the CIAC moved the state high school championships there, all sorts of Catholic schools have, too. Even the Hall of Fame Tip-Off, eight schools from eight conferences, private, public, Catholic and, yes, Big East, will be there in November.

There are few grand social experiments left for modern man. Legalized gambling, the pros, the cons, the goods, the evils, is our generation's challenge. In 2003, when the WNBA went to Mohegan Sun, I flashed a big yellow light. I had hard questions. Eight years down the road, I have seen the people there do a strong, honest job with sports. Has a fan lost his paycheck, lost his shirt, hurt his family at the casino after a sports event? Of course. I don't have empirical data. Yet my anecdotal experience is that the casino, at least as far as corrupting sports fans who otherwise would never have gone there, isn't the beast I feared.

Leaders at Big East colleges with concerns deserve to continue to ask questions. I'm not even sure they're wrong. What I don't understand is why do they hide? College presidents are going on a retreat this summer to discuss major NCAA issues. This ought to be on the docket.

And while there is every economic reason to keep the tournament in Connecticut, coaches such as Jeff Walz of Louisville and Muffet McGraw at Notre Dame would like to move it for competitive reasons. UConn has won it six of the past eight years. But you know what? Considering the Huskies' relative strength, they would have won six of eight in the XL Center of Muffet's backyard.

"In two years, we'll definitely have another thorough process," Donehew said.

Good.

By that time, Hartford can put itself in position to make itself the tournament's permanent home, or Big East schools can show the courage to publicly demonstrate why or why not a casino is worthy of their basketball games.

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