Divisional placements and Regional Assignments to be released today for Boys Hoops

tcgobucks said:
That's not going to happen. By the time you get to the semi-finals you'll still have two or 3 of the 4 teams being ones that bring no fans. Picture a Lutheran East - Harvest Prep D5 semi-final lol. You could pick any junior high gym anywhere between Columbus and Cleveland and put the game there....and there would still be empty seats :)
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So how is that a money grab then?
 
SWOHHoops said:
Best case scenario: More teams that travel like Russia/OG/Hayes are in the semis and the games are packed

Worst case scenario: More teams that are lightly followed, but are really good, play good teams with a good following. This is essentially what the state tournament has become and more of that would be awful.
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So if the games are not putting more fans in the seats, the money grab is where?
 
I don't think there's much of a question about increasing late tournament attendance via bulk.

Even with the teams many like to whine and complain about, there will still be 56 schools competing for regional titles, 28 advancing to the state semifinals, and 14 playing for state titles. They've pretty much guaranteed having more schools that will sell tickets at a decent to good clip by significantly increasing the supply of teams playing late into the tournament.
 
spirit454 said:
So if the games are not putting more fans in the seats, the money grab is where?
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Very basic, non-scientific example.....Lue-Harvest Prep had 3,359 and very little atmosphere. Add seven more of those games and you get more people buying tickets (more money), but the atmosphere is the same at those seven games.

I sincerely hope I am completely wrong and the games are sold out and have great atmosphere.
 
SWOHHoops said:
Very basic, non-scientific example.....Lue-Harvest Prep had 3,359 and very little atmosphere. Add seven more of those games and you get more people buying tickets (more money), but the atmosphere is the same at those seven games.

I sincerely hope I am completely wrong and the games are sold out and have great atmosphere.
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But you are losing the early round games that all of the locals would have gone to. With 7 divisions a team may lose their first game where in the past they may have played 2 or 3 games with their community support.

The number of teams play in the OHSAA tournament last year and this coming year will be about the same. So the total number of games will be about the same. The ONLY way this is a major money grab for OHSAA is if their are thousands of more tickets sold during the 2025 tournament.

I do not hope you are wrong or right I just don't see much of a change. You cannot say it will be a major money grab unless the volume of total tickets sold increases in a major way.
 
nwwarrior09 said:
I don't think there's much of a question about increasing late tournament attendance via bulk.

Even with the teams many like to whine and complain about, there will still be 56 schools competing for regional titles, 28 advancing to the state semifinals, and 14 playing for state titles. They've pretty much guaranteed having more schools that will sell tickets at a decent to good clip by significantly increasing the supply of teams playing late into the tournament.
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But as many say, the team that advance do not carry ticket sales. So the community teams that used to win 2-4 games beginning in sectional semi could now be gone after a single game. So the larger ticket gates early could be gone after a single night.
 
FlightCrew said:
Tbh prolly not.
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Tbh, the declined ticket sales and tournament attendance is due to each fan's lost interest in following a team or the game. The bracket, the opponent or the division should have little to do with that. It's just fans not wanting to go to a game. Nothing can be done by OHSAA to change that. It's all a choice of the former fans.
 
spirit454 said:
Tbh, the declined ticket sales and tournament attendance is due to each fan's lost interest in following a team or the game. The bracket, the opponent or the division should have little to do with that. It's just fans not wanting to go to a game. Nothing can be done by OHSAA to change that. It's all a choice of the former fans.
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There is also the fact that there hasn't been any generational star's in the Final Four since Sullinger. & he was the last in a long line of them...LeBron, Lavender, Morgan, Mayo/Bills, Diebler, Sullinger. That was an incredible decade long run for OHSAA basketball that filled the seats of the VCA and I doubt we see that kind of run again. Is Ohio still producing players at that level or is it that social media has made the players not "must see" like the previously mentioned players?
 
Round_Ball_Fan said:
There is also the fact that there hasn't been any generational star's in the Final Four since Sullinger. & he was the last in a long line of them...LeBron, Lavender, Morgan, Mayo/Bills, Diebler, Sullinger. That was an incredible decade long run for OHSAA basketball that filled the seats of the VCA and I doubt we see that kind of run again. Is Ohio still producing players at that level or is it that social media has made the players not "must see" like the previously mentioned players?
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They leave or go to prep schools to play against tougher competition and play more games.
 
Round_Ball_Fan said:
There is also the fact that there hasn't been any generational star's in the Final Four since Sullinger. & he was the last in a long line of them...LeBron, Lavender, Morgan, Mayo/Bills, Diebler, Sullinger. That was an incredible decade long run for OHSAA basketball that filled the seats of the VCA and I doubt we see that kind of run again. Is Ohio still producing players at that level or is it that social media has made the players not "must see" like the previously mentioned players?
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2021-2024 the final four's/State Championship have had at least each year's Mr Basketball playing. Two of which faced each other in 2022. That's not too shabby of a run.
 
Dayride said:
2021-2024 the final four's/State Championship have had at least each year's Mr Basketball playing. Two of which faced each other in 2022. That's not too shabby of a run.
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Ehhh….. come on. Neither of those guys were must see players ….
 
spirit454 said:
Tbh, the declined ticket sales and tournament attendance is due to each fan's lost interest in following a team or the game. The bracket, the opponent or the division should have little to do with that. It's just fans not wanting to go to a game. Nothing can be done by OHSAA to change that. It's all a choice of the former fans.
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It has a lot to do with it. I’ve been to State every year since 1987 and watched MANY reg season and tourney games along the way. This has killed my interest in the state tourney so I’m likely done going.
I enjoy seeing the semi’s and talking about the finals matchups. I love hitting multiple district and regional games in the same day. If those opportunities don’t present themselves, and it looks like they won’t, I won’t be going. So why watch regular season games?
 
spirit454 said:
Tbh, the declined ticket sales and tournament attendance is due to each fan's lost interest in following a team or the game. The bracket, the opponent or the division should have little to do with that. It's just fans not wanting to go to a game. Nothing can be done by OHSAA to change that. It's all a choice of the former fans.
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This is so true. I went to the state tournament for 26 straight years until the year that COVID killed it and due largely to personal finances, I haven't been back since and I don't know that I will ever go back. This may be me painting a broad brush, but I just think that in general, it has simply become much easier for people to come up with reasons not to go to games. It's no longer something that people feel like they HAVE to do.
 
spirit454 said:
But you are losing the early round games that all of the locals would have gone to. With 7 divisions a team may lose their first game where in the past they may have played 2 or 3 games with their community support.

The number of teams play in the OHSAA tournament last year and this coming year will be about the same. So the total number of games will be about the same. The ONLY way this is a major money grab for OHSAA is if their are thousands of more tickets sold during the 2025 tournament.

I do not hope you are wrong or right I just don't see much of a change. You cannot say it will be a major money grab unless the volume of total tickets sold increases in a major way.
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Remember, the OHSAA doesn't get money from the Sectional and District games. They get money from the Regional and State games. So by increasing the number of those they "theoretically" make more money.
 
FlightCrew said:
It has a lot to do with it. I’ve been to State every year since 1987 and watched MANY reg season and tourney games along the way. This has killed my interest in the state tourney so I’m likely done going.
I enjoy seeing the semi’s and talking about the finals matchups. I love hitting multiple district and regional games in the same day. If those opportunities don’t present themselves, and it looks like they won’t, I won’t be going. So why watch regular season games?
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My sons/I have been going since they were 3rd graders. One is now 27 and the other is 24. I think we're done going as well given that it would just be the finals. Most of the teams we were rooting for this season lost in the semis, so we wouldn't have even seen the teams we wanted if we just get to watch the finals. We're going to hit up the 1st weekend of March Madness instead, either in Cleveland (and stay at my place) and a road trip to Lexington.
 
Round_Ball_Fan said:
There is also the fact that there hasn't been any generational star's in the Final Four since Sullinger. & he was the last in a long line of them...LeBron, Lavender, Morgan, Mayo/Bills, Diebler, Sullinger. That was an incredible decade long run for OHSAA basketball that filled the seats of the VCA and I doubt we see that kind of run again. Is Ohio still producing players at that level or is it that social media has made the players not "must see" like the previously mentioned players?
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I think it can be a little of both. Obviously we do not have a Lebron or Diebler in high school every year but players are seen now thru live stream and social media without buying a ticket.
 
FlightCrew said:
It has a lot to do with it. I’ve been to State every year since 1987 and watched MANY reg season and tourney games along the way. This has killed my interest in the state tourney so I’m likely done going.
I enjoy seeing the semi’s and talking about the finals matchups. I love hitting multiple district and regional games in the same day. If those opportunities don’t present themselves, and it looks like they won’t, I won’t be going. So why watch regular season games?
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They will all be available for you to hit. Many have been done going to the state games but they still watch regular season and tournament. If you walk away completely the division expansion has little to do with that.
 
Round_Ball_Fan said:
There is also the fact that there hasn't been any generational star's in the Final Four since Sullinger. & he was the last in a long line of them...LeBron, Lavender, Morgan, Mayo/Bills, Diebler, Sullinger. That was an incredible decade long run for OHSAA basketball that filled the seats of the VCA and I doubt we see that kind of run again. Is Ohio still producing players at that level or is it that social media has made the players not "must see" like the previously mentioned players?
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I think it is tough to follow players anymore. The local papers built players up and they remained at the same school for all 4 seasons. Now, local papers are becoming nonexistent and players are moving around forming glorified AAU teams. The worst part is that they are usually forming these teams at schools that have very little fan support. The only people that know their names are the people that are die-hard fans of the sport.

Kids are free to move around like this but I think many would be shocked to find out how famous some of the players were "back in the day."

In the past, the best players were big fish in a small pond. Today, they are small fish in a big pond. Kids today might think it's cool when someone from California knows their name. On the flipside, they could be walking down the street in their neighborhood and most have no idea who they are.
 
A team like Elder playing in D2 in stupid. They actually already play somewhat of a D2-D3 schedule outside of the GCL and completely run through those teams. They will downgrade their schedule even more with the D2 designation.

For years, the Elder blowhards thumbed their noses at anytime not D1 - now they can't be more excited because they know they will win even more and that the fear of outsiders coming in to elevate talent are now over. Win-win for the daddy ball guys over there (of which there are many).
 
SVillegrad said:
I get exactly how it happened, doesn't mean it makes sense. In basketball, schools from the top of Division I to the bottom of D4 would play between 8-12 players per non-blowout game. Yes, a school like St. Ignatius has a lot more to pick from to get that 8-12 than Ashtabula St. Paul, but in either case you need a dozen kids.

Football, you have some teams playing up to 50 kids in a normal game on the top end, to 15 on the bottom end.

When you have discrepancies like that, regardless of number of teams or CB numbers, it's silly that a school like Avon Lake can be big enough for D2 in football, but is D3 in basketball. Well, seeing how much tougher D3 in basketball will be, Avon Lake probably wishes it was also D2 in basketball.

Back to what I put above, this move was all about creating divisions to give large (but not too large) suburban publics and small town rural publics annual state title opportunities. I guess that's OK, but waters it down especially since it doesn't look like these new divisions have done much outside creating 3 meat grinders (1/3/5 ... at least at the top of 5), 3 whatever divisions (2/6/7) and one that looks like an interesting mix of urban/suburban/rural/public/private (4)
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And it gives some of the privates an even bigger advantage. Schools like Elder and LaSalle compete just fine in D1, and now they are moving to D2 and D3 respectively. That's a joke.

Elder has made tournament runs for like 5 years in a row in D1 and now they're moving to D2? And they won't petition to move up either, because the daddy ball guys see TROPHIES for everyone. I could see them submitting their lowest CB number so this could be possible for basketball. Complete sandbag job with CB. Weak.

Elder would beat teams like Harrison, Loveland, etc 100 out of 100 times. They are literally one of the best, stable, most resourced, funded programs in Cincinnati and they are D2????????????? Sandbag central.
 
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