Congrats to Memphis on Spring Fling

[sourone]

I hope that anybody thatr has to go the the spring fling has lots of time.The way it is spread out it doesn't matter where you go plan on a hour and a half to get there. No place to stay anywhere around the sites they have chosen. Nothing but road construction and delays between the sites and hotels. Better pack a lunch unless you like ribs because there isn't much else.Also bring a checker board or something if you want something else to do because nothing else is available there. Memphis being chosen justs shows what I have said many times before . The TSSAA doesn't care about its members just the money that goes into their pockets.

[RealGoEagles]

you just proved my point. The Titans had a losing record last year. Every game was a sell out. The Preds were out of playoff contention by Christmas but the fans were still there. Not being the best team in the league is no excuse. Look at Cleveland. They sell out everything. The Indians are already 6 games out and the Browns had a losing record last year. Good sports towns are good sports towns regardless of the way the teams are doing. Fool. P.S. I haven't noticed alot of grizzly bears in the Memphis area. Maybe you should change that name, and the facility, and the players, and the coaches... They'll be gone in five to six years. But you will still have AAA baseball and FedEx. And Tunica.

[swamp]

KevB, not picking on you, but the western teams *lose* an hour when they cross the time line. For whoever asked, if I were to drive from Chatt to Memphis, I'd probably take US 72 -- seems a lot more direct than I-24 to I-40. The fight was in Memphis b/c neither DC nor Detroit are close to Tunica. Maybe they should have held it in Cherokee. As for the NBA, nobody cares. As for the Titans, I really like having my tax money spent on something that only Metro Nashville had a referendum on. There'll Probably be state money in the Grizzlies new facility.... For the record, I think all championships should be held in either Clarksville, Nashville, Murfreesboro, or Cookeville. Chattanooga is too far from Obion Co. or Lake Co.; Memphis is too far away from Johnson & Unicoi Counties. I've said it before and I'll say it here... Does TSSAA ever look at a road map before they make these decisions????

 

As for the Nashville vs. Memphis debate: between you, you have NBA, NHL, NFL, minor league baseball, Vanderbilt, UM, the state legislature, and Governor Sundquist. I'll take the Vols, the mountains, the lakes, and the foothills over it all!!

[RealGoEagles]

Hey Sundquist isn't ours. He's a Democrat in Sheep's clothing and most of the support for his and Naifeh's income tax is coming from.....

 

You guessed it, Memphis.

 

Anyway, the only reason Memphis was chosen was because of their promising to cover 90% of the expenses. My guess is they will opt out after one year. The TSSAA didn't chose Memphis because of it's beauty or facilities, it was because Memphis is putting up money. Exactly how they got Tyson Lewis.

 

It's kind of like those kids in high school who throws the big parties and offers to pay for stuff. No one particularly likes them, but if they're buying you can tolerate them for a little while.

 

On the bright side though, you know you can get packages sent to you during spring fling.

[RealGoEagles]

The following is a link to an article from the Tennessean. It includes excerpts from all three cities. Please pay careful attention to the last line of the article about the decision to move to Memphis.

 

Article

[Edited by coacht on 6/11/02 9:38P]

[Pantherbert]

Eagles, Naifeh is from Covington, not Memphis.

[Opperman]

CoachT, the new arena will be right next to Beale Street and across the street from the Gibson Guitar plant. It will be in the block surrounded by Linden, Third, Fourth, and Lt. George W. Lee streets. It's about 4 blocks south of AutoZone Park if you've been by there.

 

Sourone, your name is quite appropriate. Your points are quite false. Let's break down the venues. Softball is at Bellevue Baptist Church. There are egads of hotels 2 miles east and 3 miles west on I-40. Travel time: 5 minutes, absolute max. Track & Field is at Briarcrest. There aren't many hotels right around there, but there are plenty on Germantown Road in the Wolfchase area...travel time about 15 mins. Tennis is at the U of M and the Racquet Club, both in midtown. Plenty of hotel rooms in the area. Soccer is at the Mike Rose Soccer Complex in southeast Shelby County. The MRSC website lists 35 hotels within a 15-minute drive of the complex. Baseball is at Christian Brothers HS, the U of M's Nat Buring Stadium, USA Stadium in Millington, and AutoZone Park downtown. I don't know how they plan on distributing the games among these sites yet, other than the championships being at AutoZone. There are a ton of hotels near CBHS and the U of M. For USA Stadium, there are at least three good options. Stay at one of the three hotels within the city of Millington, stay in the Wolfchase area, or stay somewhere near downtown. The Millington hotels are less than 5 minutes from the stadium, the Wolfchase area ones are within about a 20 to 25-minute drive if you take I-40 east to TN 385 and take 385 to its end, where you can see the stadium on the right. Or you can stay somewhere near downtown, take I-40 west to the US 51 exit and take it until you see the ballpark on the left...takes about 30 mins or so if that much. For the championship games at AutoZone, you can get there in about 45 minutes or so from just about anywhere in town, less if you're near downtown. There's a slight chance it could take an hour and a half to get from USA Stadium to Mike Rose if you try to take the wrong roads at the wrong time of the day (don't try to fight I-240 at rush hour...it's a lot quicker to take the city streets that parallel it). It's never taken me an hour and a half to get ANYWHERE in the Memphis area...and Bartlett is not exactly centrally located.

 

Swamp, as far as I know, the state money involved in the Grizzlies' arena project is for infrastucture...I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's what I remember reading.

 

RGE, I proved no point of yours. The NFL sells out almost all of its games in almost all of its markets regardless of team quality. Almost all ticket sales for the NFL are well before the season kicks off...or, in the case of last year, before anyone had any idea the Titans wouldn't be any good. The Preds and Grizz's attendance figures were comparable, and the Preds were much closer to contention than the Grizz were...the Grizz were out of contention before the season started. Funny you mentioned Cleveland as being a great sports town. How was the Indians' attendance at the Mistake by the Lake? I'll give you a hint: they didn't sell out. P.S. fool, I haven't noticed many Titan gods in the Nashville area. Maybe you should change that name...you're already going to have to change the name of Chapter 11 Coliseum. The Grizzlies will move about 2 miles south in 3 years or so, and that's the only geographic move they will be making for a long time. The TSSAA chose Memphis because of facilities AND money. Let's check out these quotes from Ronnie Carter in the article you quoted: "Financially, there was a huge difference. Obviously that was a major thing," Carter said. "Another major piece was the soccer facility and the number of baseball facilities. That allowed us to expand soccer and baseball so the board's action was to expand soccer to bring in eight teams to the tournament instead of four in each class and baseball to bring eight instead of four." "Nashville did not have the facilities to expand. The expansion was not something that we said 'OK, we're looking to expand' but it was something Memphis brought to it." "With everything, they just had the best package. All the things that we looked at, all the things that were there — in comparison with the four cities — they had the best total package." (my emphases)

 

As for the state income tax, I'm looking for a list of the May votes but haven't found it yet. I'm sure there are several representatives from Memphis that voted for it, but I'm just as sure there were quite a few from Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and other random places. For the record, I'm very much opposed to an income tax, as are most of my peers. That said, this isn't a political board and I'd rather not see it turned into such.

[OSHSman]

The expansion issue should have been a moot point. Carter never said they were looking to expand, how could Nashville or Chattanooga or Jackson try to intergrate expansion in their bids if TSSAA didn't tell them they wanted to expand. I'm sure the other three cities could have tried to put an expansion package together as well. The thing that still blows me away is geographical impact the Board of Idiots has made. Unicoi Co., a very frequent participant in the state baseball tournament, will now have to drive 11 hours to attend. It figures though. Tennessee: 1st in roads, 50th in education. I wonder if Carter paid attention in his high school geography class. I can tell you one thing him and his cronies understand, though. The almighty $$$.

[sourone]

Opperman, I'm from East Tennesse my son lives in Millington which is 20 miles from Memphis . I've been to your fair city numerous times. During rush hour when most of the games will be paid you can't go 2 blocks in 15 minutes much less 2 miles

How far is it to Bartlet from Memphis or Germantown. You know as well as I do Memphis getting the Spring Fling just shows what the TSSAA is wanting money. They care nothing about the schools or participants as long as they get their money.

[CoachT]

The more I read different articles and opinions it seems to me that the following scenario is the most likely. There is no "insider" message here. Just theory:

 

Once the Spring Fling was put up for bids it was going to come down, primarily, to a business decision. How else could it play out? Even if I wanted the Fling in Nashville, for example, I have to let other cities bid. Once I do I've got to take the best bid.

 

If I look through the bids and see that Nashville is 2nd or 3rd, how do I justify giving it to them? I have to give the bid to the city with the best bid. I might want Chattanooga to have it but, if that is the case, why did I allow bids in the first place?

 

Then you say, "Well, Memphis is too far." At that point it doesn't matter. Memphis is the same place after the bids as it was when I allowed them to bid.

 

Once the bid process was allowed then the only option was to give the Fling to the city with the best bid. Period.

[rollredroll]

This thread has evolved somehwat into a "Nashville vs. Memphis" thread. Anyone surprised? All I can say is that, as a native Tennessean, I am very excited that our state, which ten years ago didn't seem to have a much of a chance of landing any professional team (outside of minor league baseball), now is home to the NFL, NHL, and NBA, and just hosted a major professional boxing match, and I don't care what cities in the state get to claim them as their own. We can have our city rivalry, but let's not forget that all of this has been good for TENNESSEE.

 

Opperman, I find it rather ironic that you keep mentioning that the Grizzlies didn't have more sellouts in part because of the age and condition of The Pyramid, yet in another breath you make a pot shot at the Nashville Sounds for their low attendance. Do you know how old Greer Stadium (home of the Sounds) is? It's 25 years old and extremely dated. When it opened, so many people use to come to games that they had to seat the overflow on the warning track and along the foul lines. I agree about The Pyramid, but you can't claim arena/stadium condition as a reason for low ticket sales for the Griz yet not attribute the same factor to an arena/stadium and its team outside of Memphis. Also, isn't the baseball park in Memphis downtown where people can walk to the games? Greer Stadium doesn't have the same benefit in regards to location.

 

Also, the NBA should fare better in Tennessee than the NHL. I don't care what Craig Leipold and the talking heads on the radio will try to tell you about hockey, but it's a tough sell in Tennessee. Don't get me wrong - I love Preds games and think it is a good "product" - but with the dearth of high school hockey in Tennessee, and no significant college hockey programs in the state (and in the South for the most part), it's hard to draw fans in at an earlier age and get them familar with players and their career paths, collegiately and professionally (please, no comments about the Carolina Hurricanes - they had troubles when their teams were bad, too). With the NBA, although the "product" may not be as strong, people in Tennessee can relate to basketball more easily - they're watching games from the peewee level and beyond, and they can actually follow players all the way to the pros, including stops at Memphis, VU, UT, MTSU, etc. along the way. My point is this - the Grizzlies are set up to do "better" than the Predators; if they don't, and time will tell if they do or don't, that's a worse black eye for Tennessee than if the Preds fail.

[Edited by rollredroll on 6/11/02 10:24P]

[OSHSman]

Yes, Memphis put together a good bid, they took care of all the fiancial ends of Spring Fling. However, when Nashville and Jackson put their bids together it should have been noted that they have one benefit that neither Memphis nor Chattanooga have, geographic location. To me, this factor should be near or at the top of the list of amiable qualities to look for when determining a host. Obviously it was over looked in this case. If it stood that w/ Nashville's or Jackson's bids TSSAA would loose money rather than make it, I could understand the Board's decision, the factor of HOW MUCH profit will be turned should not be taken into accout as long as TSSAA stands to break even under the potential host's bid. Let's not forget that we're dealing w/ high school atheltics. It's about building character in young athletes, not monetary gain. Besides, the people who are losing money are the ones who are going to have to travel 500 miles to attend, but the TSSAA doesn't care, that money isn't coming out of THEIR pocket.