PIAA State Championship Schedule

[Franklin_Restores_TheTradition]

In terms of locations, I doubt PCN would want to set up at 6 different locations. Speaking of hoops, 6 times the 4A final featured 2 schools from SE PA, and a couple times both had to travel to State College.

So what, State College is effectively DEAD CENTER of the State - how is that equivalent to requiring Western PA teams to travel to Hershey???

For instance, State College is just as far from State College as Philly is, but #1 4A Cathedral Prep will not only have to travel to State College, but half again to Philly all the way to Hershey!!!

 

[Karl Farbman]

So what, State College is effectively DEAD CENTER of the State - how is that equivalent to requiring Western PA teams to travel to Hershey???

For instance, State College is just as far from State College as Philly is, but #1 4A Cathedral Prep will not only have to travel to State College, but half again to Philly all the way to Hershey!!!

Indecipherable ramblings.

 

[Steviedpsu]

A couple years ago I umpired the AAA Western Finals for baseball. Cathedral Prep played a school from Lancaster area in Bellefonte. pretty centralized location.

The next year I was doing a state game and I asked the site manager about hosting games and he told me that he will be lucky to break even after paying everyone. I asked him why they hosted games and he said they were one of the few places with lights so the school felt obligated to do it.

 

[Franklin_Restores_TheTradition]

Indecipherable ramblings.

Everything, including plain English, is indecipherable to a moron, soooooo.....considering the source, I'm hardly surprised, LMFAO!

 

[PSU_Nut]

Playing the games in Hershey is bull$hit and extremely unfair to the Western PA schools in terms of travel - just utter horse$hit and unfair. The games should be played at Beaver Stadium which is essentially about as close to dead-center of the State as you can get as a venue.

They can't play it in Beaver Stadium if they don't bid to host which they have never done. They won't play it in Beaver Stadium until they install turf because they simply can't play 6 games in three days on a grass surface. Hershey is closer to the population center and best facility near the central location.

 

[manatree]

They did play the first AAAA championship at Beaver Stadium. Central Catholic beat Kyle Brady's Cedar Cliff.

 

[Tom McAndrew]

Penn State recently hosted the state basketball finals for a couple of years after they had been at Hershey for decades. But that attempt failed, mainly because attendances dropped. So they were moved back to Hershey where attendances again increased. Hershey knows how to attract and entertain folks. And they do an outstanding job in hosting the PIAA. That is what they are all about - one of the best in the country at doing that - hard for a college or community to come close to them.

Penn State actually hosted the BB championships for 6 years (2007 thru 2012).

As for their return to Hershey, that was not due to attendance, or lack thereof, at PSU. People keep mentioning issues that are not a big concern to the PIAA with regards to the awarding of contracts for Championships.

As I mentioned previously, the PIAA puts the Championships up for bid every X number of years (X varies by the sport). For basketball, there was a bid in 2012, and it was for the next 4 years (2013 thru 2016). PSU put in a bid to continue hosting. The Giant Center (Hershey) also put in a bid. I forget if there were other bidders. Two things worked against PSU in their 2012 bid. First, the PIAA requires that the host commit to being available for their weekend of choice for each of the years of the contract. PSU was, at the same time, bidding to host a NCAA women's BB tournament regional contest. As such, they could only guarantee that the BJC would be available for the PIAA's weekend of choice for the 1st year of the contract. Secondly, the rent charge for the BJC in the bid was increased to nearly $100,000 for the event, which was considerably more than it had been over the previous 6 years when the BJC hosted the PIAA BB Championships. PSU also tried to tie their bid into a bid to also host the PIAA Wrestling Championships, but as I recall the PIAA likes to evaluate each bid separately, and not with any type of tie-ins. The PIAA awarded the contract to the Giant Center (Hershey), because 1) they guaranteed they'd be available for the weekend of choice for all 4 years, and 2) the rent charge for the event was around $25,000.

This past May, the PIAA examined bids for the BB Championships for 2017 thru 2020. Four locations submitted bids: Giant Center (Hershey), BJC (PSU), A.J. Palumbo Center (Duquesne Univ.), and Peterson Events Center (U. of Pittsburgh). The biggest thing working against PSU was that they only wanted a 2-year contract, while the PIAA RFP was for 4-year bids. I don't know any specifics about how the PItt and the Duquesne bids were evaluated, but the PIAA elected to award the Championships to Hershey.