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New Classification Like or NOT


Reilavac1
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I'm a WB fan and I personally like the new classification because it means we are going to be restarting rivalries with teams we played in the past. But I can see why some people don't like it. I just look at it this way... You can't please everyone. No matter what decision the TSSAA made some people were going to find fault with it.

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The biggest problem that confronts Bradley Central is travel and expense. Being in the Region 1 Super 32 makes for long road trips, since Bradley is located in the SE corner of the state and the closest teams to us are 75 miles + away. The only teams south of Knoxville are William Blount and Maryville, and those are roughly 80 miles each way. Then you get Jefferson County at close to 150 miles and Science Hill and Kingsport Dobyns-Bennett at almost 200.

 

I read where the TSSAA thinks that the big schools can absorb that cost, but not so fast. Travel depends on gate receipts. In 40 years of following Bradley, I can say I have made a lot of long distance road trips over that time. But when the distance is that great, it's not just 'hey it's Friday night, time to head for  the game'.

 

Last Friday night Bradley made the trip up to Johnson City to play Science Hill, a projected foe in the region. That trip, with for an individual, takes between 3 and 4 hours to drive. According to what I heard Bradley had maybe 200 fans make that trip. Fans cannot always leave work in the middle of the afternoon, to make this trip. I don't expect Science Hill or Dobyns-Bennett to bring any more than that to Bradley for the same reasons.

 

Not only does it destroy many natural games where fans can make the trip after work, which means much more gate, it means probably reducing the gate from a few thousand to a few hundred with the gate receipts plumenting.

 

I know that teams visiting Bradley will bring fewer fans, and therefore less income. I know this will happen because of the experience in the 5 classification system where we were grouped in the Knoxville region and saw the reduction in fans traveling to Bradley. So we will be much more heavily dependent on the 3 possible rivalry games we can schedule locally to make enough money to cover it all, along with fundraisers.

 

Competition, we are not scared of. We showed that playing Maryville last year, and Science Hill this year in the playoffs, and scheduling Blackman and Riverdale regular season the last few years.

 

But can the program afford it?

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Alt1958,

I think you are kind of off when you say that the travel will affect gates in a negative way. Imo you will still see big crowds in this new region because most of these schools travel well. Science Hill and Dobyns Bennett will always bring a big crowd and Maryville and Bearden usually bring good crowds. Then you have schools like WB and Jeff Co that usually bring a decent crowd despite a lack of success on the field in recent years. And I was @ maryville for the bradley playoff game and I thought ya'll had a pretty big crowd. If ya'll can keep Cleveland and Mcminn on the schedule ya'll should still be bringing in plenty of gate money. IMO travel doesn't affect crowds as much as people think. The schools that have good fan support are still going to travel well and the schools that don't are still going to bring mediocre crowds regardless of the distance.

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The biggest problem that confronts Bradley Central is travel and expense. Being in the Region 1 Super 32 makes for long road trips, since Bradley is located in the SE corner of the state and the closest teams to us are 75 miles + away. The only teams south of Knoxville are William Blount and Maryville, and those are roughly 80 miles each way. Then you get Jefferson County at close to 150 miles and Science Hill and Kingsport Dobyns-Bennett at almost 200.

 

I read where the TSSAA thinks that the big schools can absorb that cost, but not so fast. Travel depends on gate receipts. In 40 years of following Bradley, I can say I have made a lot of long distance road trips over that time. But when the distance is that great, it's not just 'hey it's Friday night, time to head for  the game'.

 

Last Friday night Bradley made the trip up to Johnson City to play Science Hill, a projected foe in the region. That trip, with for an individual, takes between 3 and 4 hours to drive. According to what I heard Bradley had maybe 200 fans make that trip. Fans cannot always leave work in the middle of the afternoon, to make this trip. I don't expect Science Hill or Dobyns-Bennett to bring any more than that to Bradley for the same reasons.

 

Not only does it destroy many natural games where fans can make the trip after work, which means much more gate, it means probably reducing the gate from a few thousand to a few hundred with the gate receipts plumenting.

 

I know that teams visiting Bradley will bring fewer fans, and therefore less income. I know this will happen because of the experience in the 5 classification system where we were grouped in the Knoxville region and saw the reduction in fans traveling to Bradley. So we will be much more heavily dependent on the 3 possible rivalry games we can schedule locally to make enough money to cover it all, along with fundraisers.

 

Competition, we are not scared of. We showed that playing Maryville last year, and Science Hill this year in the playoffs, and scheduling Blackman and Riverdale regular season the last few years.

 

But can the program afford it?

I know I'm not the first to suggest, because I heard it somewhere else, that some of these Super 32 region games could be played on a Saturday evening.  With travel being the main opponent to smaller gates, these schools would need to rely on a strong, local following to strengthen attendance and make up for the small visiting crowds.  For instance, if Bradley was hosting DB or SH on a Saturday afternoon or evening, I bet you could draw fans of Cleveland, WV, Ooltewah and others in the area.  Likewise if the Bears were traveling to either one of those places.  I know the opponent for Saturday games has always been the competition with college games, but I think it would probably be worth it for 1-2 games a season.  Playing on Saturday would also eliminate the problem with many folks having to drive 3-4 hours after work or school and may help visiting fans' attendance.  

 

It will be interesting to see, but I bet Bradley will try to schedule so that they have a home/away agreement with DB/SH so that they don't make that 3-4 hour trip twice in the same regular season.  

 

HV, Bearden, Maryville, WB are all pretty close in travel time/expense for the Bears.  These games could still be played on Friday nights.  Maryville will always travel well, and for the most part Bearden and WB usually do as well.  HVA is such a new school, I don't know if they have ever had to travel far away in their program's brief history.  JC is the only school that is just kinda 45+ minutes from every school in the region, but located right off I-40 and fans usually show up when they are successful.

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Alt1958,

Just to put it in perspective for you most of the teams in WB's current region are within 30 minutes of us and the crowds have not been that great. This year we went down to LC which is right down Highway 321 from WB and LC didn't even fill up half of their homeside. I have seen that same thing at alot of our region games over the past couple of years. Personally i'm excited about the new region because most of the schools will bring a good crowd and provide a good atmosphere. When the season starts I think you will be pleasantly surprised at how well some of these schools travel. You might end up seeing bigger crowds than you have been seeing.

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