Should KU Start Playing Some Home Games in St. Louis?
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KU owns KC with its games in Sprint. Why not schedule some home games in St. Louis and just take both TV markets away from the Fizzouri!!!
What the hell, let’s schedule some home games in whatever arena they actually call home and take Columbia away from them, too!!
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St. Louis needs to try to be a host city for the Champions Classic. Not sure they have a great venue to do it though.
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The Sprint Center works for me…
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@Kcmatt7 Scottrade Center
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@jaybate-1.0 Good and timely idea, moving in on the St. Louis market with exciting exposure to Eastern MO high schoolers and fan base. Currently ripe for the pickings, esp. if Cuonzo crashes and burns, flailing Tigers losing again to Illinois in that annual replica of a Border War.
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This map of emerging mega regions shows how to play the spatial marketing and TV game of keeping KU basketball relevant and prospering through the 21st Century. I have posted it before.
KU’s future hinges on connecting into Oklahoma City and St. Louis TV markets, whenever possible.
KU long term is part of the Great Lakes Mega Region, unless Kansas/Oklahoma/Texas were to get the regional development acts together, and really push development that turns the Dallas-Kansas City corridor into a mega region in its own right. But Texas won’t prioritize that because it has to prioritize the Texas Triangle and Gulf Coast.
So: KU most definitely should move to the Big Ten, but not alone. The best case would be to take both Oklahoma Schools, KSU, ISU, plus ad Wichita State into a single Big Ten division of former Big 12 schools.
If that doesn’t work, then KU needs to take the same schools into a conference that overlaps the Big Ten region and the Big 12.
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KU is remarkable.
It’s in a geographical wasteland basketball wise.
The number of blue chip recruits from the state or region is minimal.
There’s almost no one living west of the state capital all the way to the Rocky Mts.
The state north is a football state.
The state south is a football state.
The state east is a mess and the relative number of decent recruits it produces get pulled to nearby Illinois, Kentucky, Arkansas and Oklahoma besides KU.
ESPN is geographically challenged and will only think about KU when our excellence forces them to do so.
And yet this program keeps up. The two teams that continue to grab recruits by the handful rarely beat KU.
We’ve overcome a lot including geography to be Americas foremost consistently winning program.
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Being a part of the Great Lakes Mega Region underscores the historical and cultural connection that Kansas City shares with Chicago and the affinity Kansas has with the northern midwestern states.
What’s interesting to me is that KC/Lawrence/Topeka are about equally geographically distant from the Texas Triangle as from the Great Lakes MR… And not that much more distant from the Piedmont Atlantic region… A bit farther from the Front Range. It’s geographically detached, yet it is not left unlinked from a region as is Little Rock, Lexington, Charleston SC, Syracuse, Des Moines, Omaha and Wichita.
Despite it’s geographic proximity to multiple regions, it has been linked to the Great Lakes MR enough to be a part of that region which suggests there are deep connections in that direction and KU needs to follow that direction.
So I totally agree this is more evidence to reinforce the hypothesis that the best direction for KU is toward the Big Ten.
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I live in SW Kansas might as well be Texas here. The KC/Chicago ties go back a long ways and the Midwest culture is similiar. Manhattan and maybe Topeka west and south of Ottawa is definitely more similiar to Texas culture than the Great Lakes. NE Kansas (Lawrence and KC) might have a comparable fit. I don’t doubt KU would do well in the Big10 and fit in well for that matter.
I don’t think I care for a move though. It starts offsetting what I care about- shutting up obnoxious Texas fans, loudmouth OU fans, insecure/hateful KSU fans, and whiny ISU fans. New rivalries will form, but that takes time and I don’t want to wast prime Bill Self years waiting on rivalries to develop. I want to fully enjoy this ride!
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I don’t think it would be a considered a home game maybe a Semi home game. I actually want us to start playing in Wichita at Intrust Bank Arena. The first 2 rounds of NCAA action for us is likely there this year and KSU plays a game there every year. To be honest before 5 years ago I only saw KU and KSU fans in Wichita for the most part over WSU. I think as long as they are able to host NCAA games we should try to play a single game there every year. I wish they had made the place a little more user friendly, the seating is super tight and parking sucks (I have no idea why they didnt spend a few extra millions and make it like Omaha, which is 100% better).
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@dylans I would love to play Michigan State twice or three times a year. That’s Bill Self’s toughening box!
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KSU can get away playing teams other than WSU at Intrust; I seriously doubt KU could do the same unless it plays WSU. Why would KU give up one game at AFH and the revenue ($600K+) just to play in Wichita?
I understand what you are saying but financially it makes no sense to KU.
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@JayHawkFanToo I see what you are saying but its not like KU makes as much in KC as it does in Allen, St. Louis would be in the same boat as Wichita from that stand point. WSU is actually starting to Schedule B12 teams, I think to try and get KU to play them.
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The demographic picture suggests that KU would be best served playing St Louis, Nebraska, Creighton, Iowa and Illinois teams and Indiana teams. Playing non-conference teams like WSU, Arkansas, and even schools in Southern Missouri muddies the waters as to which direction we want to go.
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KU makes considerably more money playing at the Sprint Center in KC than at the Intrust in Wichita, easier logistics and the KU fan base is much larger as well.
