That raises the question: does the location of the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships have a direct impact on issues such as attendance and media coverage?
These issues are worth exploring three weeks after the conclusion of arguably one of the most exciting, best-attended NCAAs in recent memory. It all comes to mind as the latest issues of the national wrestling magazines covering the latest Nationals arrived in my mailbox this past week. These magazines were chock-full of statistics and analysis of the 2016 NCAAs that went beyond the action on the mat.
The 2016 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships in New York welcomed 110,184 fans over the course of six sessions in three days, ranking third in overall attendance over the 86-year history of the event (Photo/Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)Much has been made of the location of the 2016 NCAAs. Most members of the wrestling media gave the venue and the event high marks (other than lack of accessibility for some writers located in the rafters to conduct timely interviews with athletes on the arena floor). There were some negative comments about tiny New York hotel rooms and high prices for beer and food and other basics, something that those who visit The City That Never Sleeps on a regular basis for business or fun already knew.
On a less judgmental note, more than one journalist pointed out that the crowd largely appeared to be from Eastern schools, while fan attendance from Midwestern schools appeared to be down. This may have been a product of convenience; if you live in Iowa or Oklahoma, it's no big deal to drive to St. Louis for the NCAAs. To get to New York from the heartland is a major road trip ... or involves flying. The midtown Manhattan location of Madison Square Garden also precluded driving the Winnebago and camping out nearby.
Those who had hoped having the NCAAs in the heart of THE media center of the world must have been disappointed in the lack of traditional media coverage coming out of the 2016 NCAAs. From a distance, I observed preview coverage from Newsday ... an article from the business magazine Forbes ... and a photo-feature of battered and bruised wrestler faces from The New Yorker. There was daily coverage from NJ.com (website for the Newark Star-Ledger and a number of other New Jersey newspapers) but I didn't see anything from the New York dailies. (I may have missed something; however, I am not alone in this observation, having seen reports from journalists who were at The Garden complaining about the lack of local coverage.)
In the latest issue of WIN (Wrestling Insider Newsmagazine), columnist and historian Mike Chapman again protested the "lack of respect" shown by USA Today's lack of NCAA wrestling coverage, as he has in past years. Unless I missed something, the same could be said for ESPN: The Magazine and Sports Illustrated. So ... if the hope/expectation was "let's hold the NCAAs in NYC and we'll get tons of media coverage", well, in terms of local and national reporting, it didn't seem to work.
(By contrast, lack of media coverage hasn't been as much of an issue when the NCAAs have been held in heartland cities such as St. Louis, Oklahoma City and Des Moines ... and shouldn't be an issue when the Nationals return to Cleveland, a traditional hotbed for high school wrestling.)
Lack of coverage as well as fan convenience and costs all get down to a fundamental issue: the future of the NCAA Wrestling Championships. As I wrote in a May 2015 feature for InterMat, the audience attending the NCAAs is getting older. According to a survey conducted by the NCAA at the 2014 NCAAs in Oklahoma City, the average age of attendees was 42 ... with more than one-third of fans being age 50 or better. The NCAA must do what it can to attract new generations of fans to its top collegiate wrestling event ... while making it still attractive to long-time fans who have been attending year after year.
There are also discussions of considering host cities that aren't known as wrestling hotbeds, but might attract new fans and new media coverage. (Atlanta is being mentioned as a future NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships site; Louisville and its YUM! Brands Arena -- one of the nation's largest arenas in terms of seating capacity -- put in an attractive proposal during the last round of bidding, despite being located in a state without having any NCAA D1 mat programs.)
That said NCAA attendance shows no sign of diminishing. The top ten NCAAs in terms of attendance have all taken place in the new millennium. In fact, getting a ticket to March Matness seems to be getting harder and harder. One possible solution mentioned by Mike Finn in an article in the April 8 issue of WIN: the possibility of having future NCAA mat championships in a domed stadium, a la the NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four. (The UNI-Dome at University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls was the site of the 1999 NCAAs.) A domed mega-facility with greater seating capacity would certainly open up the event to more fans ... but with the possibility of a diminished experience for those in the stands, especially for fans whose home venue is an intimate gym that puts them close to the action.
The NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships have grown in attendance over the years, especially in the past two decades, when the event has (for the most part) been held in big-city arenas with a seating capacity of at least 19,000. (For some historical perspective: 8,800 fans packed what is now Welsh-Ryan Arena at Northwestern University to see arguably the greatest upset in NCAA finals history, Iowa State's Dan Gable falling to Larry Owings of the University of Washington, at the 1970 Nationals.) There may well be pressure to continue to grow attendance for college wrestling's premier event by having it at a domed stadium.
There are two other issues that have been raised in post-mortems of the 2016 NCAA championships: the concept of a permanent location ... and scheduling.
Having a designated site for the NCAAs year-after-year has been discussed for years; WIN editor Mike Finn concluded his column in the April 8 issue with a proposal to make St. Louis the site for all future NCAAs. It's not an off-the-wall idea; Omaha has hosted the NCAA Baseball Championships for a number of years, with success.
Then there's the issue of having the biggest event in college wrestling take place during March Madness, the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. Again, this is an idea that has been discussed for many years. (One of the early proponents of moving the wrestling championships to a later date is University of Minnesota's J Robinson, one of the most promotion-minded head wrestling coaches in the country.) More recently, advocates for this shift in scheduling have tied this idea to making college wrestling a single-semester sport with a season that would basically span January- April. Again, this schedule might work to boost attendance and media coverage. It's certainly worth examining.
By most measures, the 2016 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships were a success. As with the top collegiate wrestlers, however, it's never enough to be merely satisfied with the most recent performance. The NCAA and member programs must continue to strive to make the event even better for athletes, coaches and fans -- as well as wrestling and general media.
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