Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 2, 1994 TAG: 9404020095
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD AND ANDREA KUHN STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Four years ago, CBS paid $1 billion for the rights to televise the men's tournament for the next seven years.
Few expect the NCAA women's tournament to be a billion-dollar baby within a couple of years. But there are some parallels.
CBS is televising the entire women's Final Four for the fourth straight year. The '94 event, at the Richmond Coliseum today and Sunday, sold out months ahead of time for the first time in history.
And the women's tournament field grew to 64 teams in its 13th year. The men's tournament was 46 years old when it went to 64.
Men's total-tournament attendance took off in the mid-1980s, going from 364,356 in 1984 to 654,744 in '87. Since '84, the men's Final Four has been played in a domed stadium five times.
Women's total attendance topped 200,000 for the first time last year at 231,367.
"An event becomes worth more when tickets are tough to get," said Linda Bruno, Big East Conference assistant commissioner and chairman of the NCAA Division I women's basketball committee. "We're not ready to go to a dome yet, I don't think."
Nor do they necessarily want to. Bruno said, for example, that the men's tournament has become too much a major event to have the teams together for a pre-Final Four banquet, as the women's tourney did this week.
"We'll always be a little bit different," Bruno said. "I would hope we would always be able to do things to keep the student-athlete involved."
\ ALABAMA INSPIRATION: The Crimson Tide has dedicated its season to Dottie Kelso, an assistant coach who died suddenly last year when a cyst in her brain burst. The team has a sign with the initials "D.K." on it that every player touches before road games. "My challenge to my staff and players is to take [Kelso's] qualities and apply them to ourselves. I feel that if each one of us did that, each of us would be a champion not only on the court, but in the game of life."
\ GOOD MOVE: When Alabama All-American Niesa Johnson was nine, her parents made her take tennis lessons. Johnson didn't take well to the tennis court and begged her parent to let her quit and try basketball. Johnson made her folks proud, scoring 52 points in her first game. The team's total was 54.
by CNB