Adding into Answer to #2 question
Lethbridge as host supplied literally nothing this year: No hotel rooms, No Meals, No transportation allowance etc...
Teams were on the hook for 100% of the cost + additional event costs (accreditations, tickets etc...)
USports does not provide any financial comp to any team attending the event.
Avg costs per team this year:
UNB & StFX @ $120k + each
Queens, Carlton, Guelph @ $105-110k + each
Alberta & Sask @ $75k + each
Teams even had to pay for bus transportation to and from practices on Monday and Tuesday... which were school buses!
I was not aware that Lethbridge covered so few costs, but that tells you everything you need to know about the viability of the University Cup. It's a guaranteed money loser.
The ONLY reason to have a University Cup in one location is for television. That is foolish beyond all belief given the costs.
We know that USports gets zero money from Sportsnet for broadcast rights, so the only POSSIBLE reason to have a single-location 8-team University Cup is to hope/pray that the TV viewership has some positive impact on USports.
Let's do the math ... three games were broadcast nationally this year. We know that each game gets fewer than 60,000 viewers. Let's assume 30,000 per game, for argument's sake, although I suspect that Saturday's games probably had 10,000 or fewer each.
So, to get 90,000 views (many of whom were the same from game-to-game ... meaning possibly 60,000 independent viewers) USports teams are paying somewhere between $800,000 and $1 Million.
Flip that number around, and it is costing USports $10-15 per viewer.
Who are these viewers? And what possible benefit could there be from having them watch the University Cup?
I'd foster a guess there is really zero benefit. These are alumni and existing USports fans. Most of them will not spend another dime at the U of A or UNB.