Heads and tales: Small spectacles

empty seats A tourney falls in the woods: Birmingham is host to a basketball conference championship. Right now, hundreds of fans are watching the SWAC tourney at the BJCC Arena, but likely more fans watched the practices of high school teams last week there. The Ratings Percentage Index ranks the SWAC as the worst basketball conference. And it has the fans and players to prove it. Saturday night’s champion will advance to the NCAA tournament … sort of. The team must fight for the 64th spot in the play-in game on Tuesday, a game that the SWAC team has never won.
• Far From the Limelight and Far From Successful [New York Times]

Here’s the kickers: This weekend’s Vulcan Cup soccer tournament will bring in hundreds of soccer kiddies and their families from a dozen states … and an estimated $4 million to Birmingham. Hold on. Craig Depken, an associate professor of economics at the University of Texas at Arlington, calls foul on that seemingly absurd figure. He says that each visitor would need to spend $333 a day to reach $4 mil, without the multiplier effect, and that using the multiplier can be “easily abused.” No kidding, but we swear that the SWAC tourney has already brought in $11 kazillion dollars.
• For local economy, soccer tournament expected to kick in extra $4 million [Birmingham Business Journal]

Jesus, take the wheel: The money pit known as City Stages has announced the first signed acts. Hank Williams Jr., the Allman Brothers, Marty Stuart. Excited yet? We know some people still think of the June music festival as a bragging point for a sometimes lackluster city, but why exactly? Seeing new music? Williams and the Allmans have been to Birmingham plenty of times. Well-planned festival? It’s still nearly a half-million dollars in debt, and after 17 tries, they still don’t know how to place stages or manage costs (ticket prices are at an all-time high for fewer acts). But at least the name still means something: the Waldrep, Stewart & Kendrick City Stages Presented by Lanny Vines & Associates. It gets better: Nashville is so desperate to save its flailing festival scene, it’s looking to City Stages for ideas.
• Hank Jr., Allmans to play City Stages [Birmingham News]

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