Four Teams Pull Out of Great Alaska Shootout

[tornado]

Four different teams have pulled out, each one forfeiting $50,000 in a buyout clause.
Ritchie McKay's Liberty Flames are the most recent pullout, with Yale, Xavier and Washington State previously paying the buyout.
The tourney director says:
"All our future (contracts) are going to 100 (thousand). I'm going to keep going up until I get a number that works."
http://www.adn.com/sports/college/story/9206383p-9122650c.html


Teams: Alaska Anchorage, Butler, Gonzaga, Liberty (now backing out), Michigan, Texas Tech, Virginia Tech, Western Kentucky
Dates: Nov. 20-24
TV: ESPN2 (2 games); ESPNU (2 games); ESPN360.com (1 game)

 

[BBallPimp]

Re: Four Teams Pull Out of Great Alaska Shootout

Four different teams have pulled out, each one forfeiting $50,000 in a buyout clause.
Ritchie McKay's Liberty Flames are the most recent pullout, with Yale, Xavier and Washington State previously paying the buyout.
The tourney director says:
"All our future (contracts) are going to 100 (thousand). I'm going to keep going up until I get a number that works."
http://www.adn.com/sports/college/story/9206383p-9122650c.html


Teams: Alaska Anchorage, Butler, Gonzaga, Liberty (now backing out), Michigan, Texas Tech, Virginia Tech, Western Kentucky
Dates: Nov. 20-24
TV: ESPN2 (2 games); ESPNU (2 games); ESPN360.com (1 game)

Why are teams backing out? That seems like a quality field and the Great Alaska Shootout is a pretty well-known event.

 

[Da Coach]

Liberty was able to get into another exempt tournament, and used the excuse that even with the $50,000 buyout, it was better to avoid the long travel and play closer to home.

With many more of these exempt tournaments that have popped up in the last couple years because the NCAA determined that each team could participate in one each year, instead of every 4 years, probably the others who dropped out found other tournaments to get into.

 

[tornado]

Re: Four Teams Pull Out of Great Alaska Shootout

Why are teams backing out? That seems like a quality field and the Great Alaska Shootout is a pretty well-known event.

The four teams that dropped out are Liberty, Yale, Xavier, and Washington State.

Washington State backed out last May, saying if they played in Alaska they'd have "too many road games".
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-163761423.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/great-alaska-shootout
But, of course, WSU scheduled the Shootout before any of the other games that had for 2007-2008, so I guess it simply means a better deal came along, and if you look at their present schedule, now they have plans for a 4-team local tournament that obviously is a better deal that has come along with regards to travel and more revenue.

BUT--- another of the real reasons is that insiders say Washington State simply doesn't want to play Gonzaga twice, and they had them scheduled as a return from a home & home.
Now That Washington State will start the season in the Top 20 and Gonzaga probably won't, they can be a little more snooty about playing Gonzaga.

Virginia Tech was the replacement team for Washington State and then Yale & Xavier also dropped out.
Xavier dropped the Great Alaska Shootout and entered the Paradise Jam in the Virgin Islands (a slightly better revenue guarantee), and Yale had the opportunity to play at UCLA on 11/23 and at Stanford on the same road trip, so they took the HUGE GUARANTEE sums they are going to get instead of travelling to Alaska.

Now Liberty dropping out is the final straw that got the tournament director livid...read his comments.
For a team to drop out of the tourney now, only 3 months in advance is
"extremely, obnoxiously late," accoring to University of Alaska-Anchorage athletic director Steve Cobb.

 

[PTTB]

I guess Liberty doesn't abide by the "let your yes be yes, and your no mean no" scriptures? I honestly don't know if Jerry would have allowed this (I'm being serious).