Concerned Citizens

I recently returned from attending the 1st/2nd Round of the NCAA tournament in Kansas City. The games were great and I had a great time in Kansas City. This was the inaugural NCAA event in the newly built Sprint Center in the downtown across from the Power & Light District, an entertainment center designed for year-round events. The event was a great success for Kansas City and helped showcase both the hospitality and entertainment aspects of the city. Expect the city to see more NCAA tournament games in the future, something every city likes to have. But what about San Antonio? Personally I think we have a great opportunity ourself based on comments from KU fans I met during the weekend.

After KU’s championship win in San Antonio at the Final Four Jayhawk fans have a special bond with San Antonio. When people would find out I was from San Antonio the first words out of their mouth were “we had such a great time there last year.” Several said they wish the Final Four would be held there every year. They really enjoyed the city and the hospitality. With all this enthusiasm and fan compliments why aren’t we in the running for future Final Fours? It’s all a matter of glitz and money.

You see the NCAA knows they have one of the best tournaments in sports alongside the Olympics, World Cup, and Super Bowl. It blows the NBA Finals away. It’s good clean fun and showcases some of the best amateur athletes outside of the Olympics. The Final Four is always a sellout, even now that they have changed the court configuration to possibly one of the worst setups a fan could get – right in the middle of a football field.

Now San Antonio must compete with the super NFL stadiums that are being built to keep NFL teams in cities such as Reliant Stadium, University of Phoenix Stadium, and the new Dallas Cowboys stadium in Arlington. These new stadiums, with all their amenities and technology, leave the Alamodome in the dust when it comes to staging an event. Let’s face it, the Alamodome is over 15 years old without any major modifications to the facility. It gets incremental changes but it’s tough to keep it up to par with facilities that host football games on a regular basis.

So unless San Antonio does some radical new upgrades to the Alamodome it’s a pretty safe bet Final Fours are in our past. With San Antonio facing budget issues in these recessionary years it will be hard pressed to make the major changes. Besides, it’s not the most politically enticing thing to do these days. But does that cut us out of the NCAA picture? Hardly. The NCAA tournament is a three weekend experience with eight cities hosting the 1st/2nd rounds and four cities hosting the Regionals. The problem is where to play the games.

The AT&T Center would be the first obvious choice. However, with the Spurs coming off the infamous Rodeo Roadtrip I hardly see them vacating their facility for a solid week (ingress and egress times factored in) to allow the NCAA tournament to take over the facility. There’s not that much time between the two events. That leaves the Alamodome which some might consider acceptable for Regionals but too large for the 1st/2nd Round games.

Personally I think the Alamodome is viable for the 1st/2nd round games IF you close off the upper deck. I’ve been to four different sites for 1st/2nd rounds (Dallas, Austin, Little Rock, and Kansas City). I’ve sat in both upper and lower areas of the arenas. Sitting in the upper reaches of the lower level of the Alamodome is no different than the upper levels of the Sprint Center or the American Airlines Arena. Granted the suites may be a little further away but not that far. As far as seating goes just the lower level provides 20,662 seats, more than any arena in the nation.

That brings me to the point of this posting. Last year the NCAA announced a new program called Championship Cities. It’s a pilot program that is designed to help enhance and build support for championships that may not be marquis events such as the Final Four or the College World Series. San Antonio was selected as one of those cities with the first event being the NCAA Division II Women’s Basketball Championship, otherwise known as the Div. II Women’s Elite Eight. The event is being hosted by San Antonio Sports and St. Mary’s University.

This is a great opportunity for San Antonio to reshape its emphasis on amateur sports, something that seems to have lost attention during the last few years. At one time San Antonio was one of the centers of amateur sports with the Junior Olympics, the Olympic Festival, several basketball tournaments, Senior Games, and the Big 12 Women’s Soccer Championships. Of those events only the later has continued in San Antonio. That’s not to say there is no amateur sports history in San Antonio. Quite the contrary as you can see by the list provided by San Antonio Sports.

However San Antonio has an opportunity to continue as a destination city for fans across the nation by accepting that it should host events leading up to the marquis events. Becoming a 1st/2nd Round or Regional site gives fans the exciting experience they rave about and helps promote the city across the nation. Just think about what fans would have said if they would have traveled to San Antonio this past weekend instead of cold Minneapolis. You probably wouldn’t have been able to get a tee time during the dead day in the tournament.

So San Antonio should continue to strive to be a Championship City and look for more opportunities to bring fans to the city. Heck, why not host one of the NCAA Hockey Regionals or, even better, the Frozen Four. It’s a viable option since the Alamodome is one of the few facilities in the world that can lay down two Olympic size sheets of ice under the same roof. Hockey teams would love the facility and fans would love the city.

Oh, and while your out this weekend, why not check out the Div. II games over at the Greehey Center on the campus of St. Mary’s University. It’d be a great time with the family and you’d be supporting some great student athletes.