After reading this from an HL forum, I became a believer.
*Only rinky-dink conferences host their tournaments at campus sites: Beyond the HL, the other conferences using campus sites for their 2015 tournaments were the America East, Atlantic Sun, Big Sky, Northeast and Patriot. Not the company we want to keep. If the HL wants to be a mid-major conference, it needs to act like one.
*
Benefits of a pre-determined tournament site: Better press coverage, more associated events. If the title game location is not determined until the semis have been played there is no chance to organize ancillary events and there will be fewer press resources assigned to cover it.
Eliminate the possibility of lousy facilities and non-central locations: What would it say about the conference if the HL championship were held at the O’rena? And how many non-Phoenix fans would be willing to make a last-minute trip to Green Bay in March?
*
Two conference schools in close proximity: If Detroit and Oakland have average chances of progressing in the tournament, there’s a 69% chance that at least one of them will make the final four, and a 40% chance that one of them will play in the final. (That drops to 64% and 36% respectively if the HL expands to 10 tournament-eligible institutions.)
*
Pre-eminent NCAA basketball event in the Detroit: Other reasonable locales for the HL tournament would be Chicago, Cleveland, Dayton, Indianapolis or Milwaukee. In each case the HL tournament would be less significant than other local NCAA basketball events: Chicago (some Big 10 Tournaments, Northwestern’s Big 10 games), Cleveland (MAC tournament), Dayton (NCAA First Four, U-Dayton A-10 games), Indianapolis (some Big 10 tournaments, Butler Big East games) or Milwaukee (Marquette Big East games). In Detroit, at least the HL tournament won’t be overshadowed.
Outstanding host facility: Okay, Joe Louis is a mediocre place to watch a basketball game – but it’s still a step up from most HL campus sites. But moving into the brand new Detroit Events Center in two years will be really cool.
*
Improved chances to become a multi-bid conference: As stated above, a neutral site tournament reduces the likelihood that the regular season champ will win the conference tournament. In a one bid league, this has the disadvantage of a potentially worse seeding for whoever wins the tournament. But if the regular season conference champ has the potential for an at large berth, this improves the chances of getting a second bid.
*
Partnership with Olympia Entertainment: In the long run, this will be most significant element of the move. Up until now, Jon LeCrone and his staff of a part time admin and a trained monkey (yeah, I’m exaggerating – but his resources are very limited) have had little success in marketing the HL. But with Olympia we get a partner that is big and knows what it’s doing and is committed to selling events in Detroit. Expect to see dramatically improved marketing of the HL Tournament.
http://horizonleaguefans.freeforums.net/thread/763/hl-tourney-neutralized