I was told that the host school gets to keep the gate receipts and concessions when hosting the Tournament. If that's true, I wonder if Loyola turned a profit? Other revenue would include parking and sales of Loyola gear. On the other hand, there were plenty of expenses associated with hosting the Tourney.

I think regardless whether Loyola made any money, the amount of exposure and goodwill generated made the decision to host the Tournament an unqualified success.

Not to mention a National Championship!

Back of the napkin: 4,500 tickets X 2 sessions X $17.50 average price = $157,500. (Would have been $157,520 if swellafelon had paid for his championship match ticket.)

I'd be shocked if Loyola gets 100% of the revenue. Great if true.

I also don't know what the concessions relationship with Pete's Pizza is, but they probably sold a lot of pie.

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There might be trouble brewing on that front.

Thursday night was a disaster for the concession stands. Word has it, Pete's was to be the official caterer of the Championship sessions. LU reached out to them throughout the days leading up to Thursday. No response from Pete's. On game day, they still hadn't heard from Pete's and, further, they were waiting for Pete's to send more employees to staff the event. Supposedly they never came.

It was a cluster on Thursday. At least Saturday was better but I can't imagine LU is happy with what Pete's pulled this week.

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Cigarboy sucks!

Yeah, I was there Thursday, and it was not good. I arrived at about 6:30 having eaten dinner already. I walked by a concession stand and it was literally completely empty of food. Heard Saturday was better.

I personally feel like the concessions as run by Pete's are kind of a joke anyway. The staffing is bad, the logistics are bad, and they don't seem to have come up with a pizza to attendance ratio.

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Speaking of concessions, does anyone know how Loyola gets to sell beer during home games during the regular season?

I went to the first and second rounds of March Madness at Amway Center in Orlando this year and was shocked they weren't selling beer. It made for a LONG day of watching hoops not to mention the money they left on the table. I pretty much expected the Final Four this weekend to be dry after that experience. On the other hand I went to the National Championship game between ND and Bama in Miami a few years ago and was able to purchase beer so I have no idea what the rules are (feel like this is commonplace with the NCAA) regarding the sale of alcohol at sporting events.

I was under the impression that we asked for, and were granted a waiver. Usually, if your arena is on campus, you can't have alcohol. If it's off-campus, you can decide to sell if you so choose. As for Arch Madness, I'm guessing that the MVC has made a conscious decision to not allow alcohol at the event. Finally, this weekend was an NCAA event. I don't think they allow alcohol sales at them. The football event is an outlier.

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Cigarboy sucks!

Loyola's home average home attendance this year was 1032, up from 401 last year and about 700 the previous year. Obviously, the 4400+ in the last two matches bumped the average way up. There were also 934 at the play-in matches on Tuesday between Stanford/Erskine and Penn State/Lewis, which I haven't counted because Loyola did not play. Loyola played a total of 20 home matches on the season (most ever, and way above average, even for West Coast teams).

Largest regular season attendance: 1834 against Ohio State.
Lowest regular season attendance: 338 against St. Francis.
Lowest overall home attendance: 219 in the MIVA first round against Quincy.
Largest overall home attendance: 4485 in the National Championship against Stanford.
Total home attendance on the year: 20,644 (20 dates).

For comparison, BYU leads the nation in men's volleyball attendance with about 2900 per match. Hawaii is usually second every year, averaging about 2200-2500 depending on how good they are. Penn State, Lewis, UC Irvine, Long Beach State, UCLA, and Pepperdine all average in the 700-900 range. So my guess is (without crunching all the numbers nationwide) that with hosting the tournament we were probably third or fourth in the nation this year in average attendance.

You have to figure that men's volleyball will see a big increase in average attendance next season, hopefully maintaining the 1000+ benchmark. The MIVA teams will probably get a nice little boost next year as well, since opposing teams will be able to promote the defending National Champion coming to town.

It depends on how expenses are accounted for, but my estimate is the program probably came pretty close to breaking even this year, and the residual effects will help keep the program close to break even for several years. That is huge in college athletics, for a supposedly non-revenue sport to break even. Add in the promotional benefits (athletic recruiting, a nice positive for student life, enrollment/retention, donations, sponsorships, etc.) and it's a huge plus.

Yeah, I think Go is correct. To be clear, there was alcohol at Arch Madness. Like Blue said the NCAA tournament events are dry. Surprised that the BCS title game wasn't.

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Damn it. I read "March Madness" as "Arch Madness." Damn the puns confusing my eyes!

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Cigarboy sucks!

What's crazy is how stacked the Ramblers are again next year. Losing Jasaitis and Smalzer will definitely hurt, but the Ramblers are still in a strong position to get back to the Final Four next year with Jaeschke, Caldwell, Olseon, Hutz, and McAndrews all returning and Wisconsin state HS player of the year Ben Plaisted also joining the Ramblers.