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This! Have to keep anything basketball related close to Kentucky if you want decent attendance. New Orleans, Dallas, and Houston are too far away

The same can be said for W basketball except switch Tennessee for Kentucky

The problem with Saint Louis and Houston is they are too far from the biggest traveling fans. Also, it was mentioned above, but one of the biggest issues with host cities is media access. Atlanta airport has the best access of any of the SEC cities. The second biggest issue is fans driving vs flying. More fans from core core attendance schools like UK and UT will drive than fly. When the mens SEC was in Nashville they said it brought 120,000 to the city because it was just 1-3 hours (day drive) for all the folks that showed up.

Do you think 120,000 will drive to Houston, Orlando, Saint Louis, or New Orleans? Nothing wrong with these cities, just not in driving distance.

Look at mens basketball season attendance (Top 50) average attendance
#1 Kentucky : 23,100 : roughly 3 hours to Nashville
#8 Tennessee : 16,600 : roughly 3 hours to Nashville
#20 Arkansas : 13,800 : 5 hours (LR) and 8.5 hours (F) to Nashville
#29 Missouri : 12,000 : 6.5 hours (Columbia), 8 hours (KC), and 4.5 (STL) to Nashville
#31 Alabama : 11,200 : Huntsville, Birmingham, and Tuscaloosa are all in northern part of AL
#35 Florida : 10,700 : not great traveling fans
#36 Vanderbilt : 10,600 : will travel in city

Look at womens basketball season attendance (Top 50) average attendance
#1 Tennessee : roughly 3 hours to Nashville
#11 Kentucky : roughly 3 hours to Nashville
#14 Texas A&M
#24 Vanderbilt
#26 South Carolina
#28 LSU
#35 Georgia

Women drop quickly past about the Top 10 (say Tennessee, Kentucky, and Texas A&M)

Summary : for basketball the host city needs to be close to Lexington and Knoxville

This post was edited on 3/15/14 at 10:34 am