EM ‘A’ tourney attendance plummets

BANGOR – Norris Nickerson woke up Feb. 26 with mixed emotions.

As principal of Bangor High School, he was happy because his Rams defeated Morse of Bath the previous night in their Eastern Maine Class A boys basketball preliminary-round game.

But as the Eastern Maine Class A tournament director, Nickerson was less than elated because four other Big East Conference boys teams – Brewer, Hampden Academy, John Bapst of Bangor and Old Town – all lost their prelims, leaving the Bangor boys and girls and the Hampden Academy girls as the only local representatives when the tourney scene shifted to the Bangor Auditorium.

“I was sick,” he said, “because I knew based on experience that a lot of the more distant teams that qualified – the Mt. Blues and Oxford Hills and Mount Ararats – don’t travel well and it would hurt attendance.”

Nickerson’s premonition proved painfully correct, because this year’s recently completed Eastern A tournament took a big hit at the box office.

Only 13,010 fans attended the 2004 Eastern A tourney compared to 19,654 in 2003, a drop of 6,644 or 32 percent.

Spread over eight sessions – the Eastern A girls and boys championship games were held in separate single-game sessions for the first time this year – attendance averaged 1,626 per session compared with 2,457 in 2003.

The primary reason for the drop: geography.

While just two schools and three teams from Greater Bangor were in the 16-team field, five teams based more than 100 miles from the Auditorium (Oxford Hills of South Paris boys, Mount Ararat of Topsham boys and girls, Brunswick boys and Lewiston girls) reached the quarterfinals. Eight other teams (Cony of Augusta boys and girls, Messalonskee of Oakland boys and girls, Lawrence of Fairfield boys, Mt. Blue of Farmington boys, Gardiner girls and Skowhegan girls) faced road trips ranging from 50 to 90 miles.

For many fans from those Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference schools, it was a trip too far.

“The big thing was the travel factor for the more southern and western teams,” Nickerson said. “There were only two local schools in the mix, and as far as travel and attendance, Oxford Hills doesn’t travel well, Mount Ararat has two teams and they don’t travel well, Brunswick and Skowhegan do well but Cony never travels well.”

Nickerson also said tourney attendance may have been affected by increased ticket prices, though he did not hear too many complaints. Adult tickets were raised from $5 to $7 per session this year while student tickets were increased from $3 to $4.

The decrease in 2004 attendance comes at the same time momentum is growing in some circles to move the Eastern A tournament from the Bangor Auditorium to the Augusta Civic Center.

Two issues are at the core of that sentiment, the aging of the Bangor Auditorium and the increasingly southern geographic makeup of the Eastern A basketball field.

In fact, a written request was made by Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference representatives as early as the winter of 2002-03 to have the tournament moved to Augusta.

“We received the letter more than a year ago,” said Maine Principals’ Association Executive Director Dick Durost, “but at that point we still had three years left in our contract, so to respond to that request at that time would have been premature.”

The MPA’s five-year basketball contracts with the Bangor Auditorium, Augusta Civic Center and Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland expire after next year’s tournaments.

While the Eastern B, C and D tournament is almost sure to stay in Bangor as long as there is an adequate facility available – the B, C and D event experienced a modest attendance increase this year – the future location of the Eastern A tourney is less certain.

And this year’s attendance woes won’t help the Bangor Auditorium’s efforts to retain the large-school event.

“It has to be part of the discussion,” Durost said. “Next year at this time we’ll have another year with the same makeup of teams in the event, and we’ll know if it was a one year downturn or more of a pattern.”