MSU + Detroit + State of Michigan = Unrelated

*I couldn't even find a decent rioting picture. Lame*

Well I was initially hoping to compose this grand and illuminating piece about how in fact MSU's reaching the Final Four didn't help the state of Michigan that much, but said information doesn't exist at the moment.

The Final Four was estimated to have brought $50 million to the Detroit economy, but I'm wondering if that number was just estimated for what a typical collegiate event would bring to a metro area. I was in Kansas City three weeks ago and the number of people that flooded their downtown area for four days of basketball was amazing. Every restaurant was crammed and the arena was sold out. Rumor has it that anywhere from 30 to 50,000 MSU fans alone swarmed into downtown Detroit for the weekend (hotel occupancy is irrelevant here since that doesn't directly benefit the city), so of course the restaurants and casinos had influxes of occupancy. In this respect I think MSU being there actually helped, because I think it helped the games achieve sellouts. If it were UNC and UConn/Louisville I bet the attendance doesn't go over 50,000.

Where I'm concerned is the cost to taxpayers for policing both Detroit and East Lansing. Granted the costs would be localized to the East Lansing area for the University police and Wayne County for the Detroit Police force. Sadly, the Detroit Police reported few incidents over the weekend and East Lansing was too depressed to create much of a riot (c'mon, only one flaming couch!?) It's fun to imagine that if MSU had won, what the additional cost for all the arrests and fires would have been.

Meanwhile, the MSU police have this hilarious website, and some genius made this riot status site.