NCAA announced today they are looking into holding the entire NCAA tournament in one city. Indianapolis appears to be the frontrunner right now. Indianapolis was already set to host the Final Four but now likely will find a way to host all 68 teams and distributing the games in and around the city. Going to be interesting if they can manage to do this. It could reduce costs dramatically to have everything centralized and could allow for a quasi-bubble environment with COVID as a consideration but limits the economic impact to just one location rather then 14.
"My committee colleagues and I did not come lightly to the difficult decision to relocate the preliminary rounds of the 2021 tournament, as we understand the disappointment 13 communities will feel to miss out on being part of March Madness next year," Mitch Barnhart, chair of the Division I Men's Basketball Committee and University of Kentucky athletics director, said in a statement. "With the University of Kentucky slated to host first- and second-round games in March, this is something that directly impacts our school and community, so we certainly share in their regret. The committee and staff deeply appreciate the efforts of all the host institutions and conferences, and we look forward to bringing the tournament back to the impacted sites in future years."
Comments
Creating a bubble similar to the NBA? Just pay the players already.
No outside fans at Cassell this season.
How can you do this without paying the players? Seems kind of ridiculous to require kids to quarantine themselves to a hotel or something and not compensate them heavily for it.
If these teams were in the tournament, they would have been traveling anyway, and with Corona, they would either be in lock down, getting tested constantly, or choosing to opt out. At least in this scenario, they benefit from the big stage, they do by the way get compensated with travel allowances and for the Final Four there is a travel allowance for family members as well. If they choose to play they understand what all the schedule entails, and since the season doesnt count for eligibility, they can opt out and still be in the same place next year eligibility wise. There are obviously concerns with relationships and places on rosters if they opt out but thats part of what they have to weigh. These students are able to complete their course load online and are likely at lower risk of corona than the majority of students that are on campus.
They're not being forced to.
I don't like the idea of putting it in a city. While there's no direct correlation between population density and infections, a city, even one as dull and Indy, provides opportunities for lots of social interaction, incentives for kids to leave a bubble or quasi-bubble, and for fans to come in from out of town. Why not find a more isolated area and bubble up there?
Because you need the infrastructure a city provides. Venues to play the games, venues for media etc. hotels for people to stay in, national airport close by, law enforcement and security, EMS and medical facilities.
I think you can get that in a smaller place. Venues would be the most difficult IMO, but everything else can be done in smaller cities or a college town. Say Blacksburg hosted it with no students on campus. There's enough housing, an airport close enough for one trip in and out for everyone, and you could play games at the practice court/McComas/Cassell. I wouldn't advise Blacksburg as the location, but it would be feasible for a no-fans Covid era tourney.
Greensboro, NC, home of the ACC tournament!
In all seriousness, Asheville might be possible, the Maui Invitational was/is? gonna be relocated there. You don't need an arena to host the tourney if no fans are there, so that opens up a lot of possibilities.
Seriously, infrastructure for 64 teams. Times what 30 people per team. Hotel rooms, keeping them separated to keep the bubble effect, FEEDING them all on a daily basis...3 times a day. And then the workers to provide the services. Podunk, USA cannot handle that. Large scale facilities that are used to serving thousands of people on the regular are used to this.
Even more 68 they will have first four there also. It's a lot of needed infrastructure not to mention to show the games on TV you can't just have it in some small gym. You need large city infrastructure.
Yup, and supporting them in hoteling and feeding as well. Just for the basics. Not to mention laundry and spacing everyone out. This is the NBA bubble times 3. Or the hockey bubble times 2.
Plus you need courts for practice, not just the actual games.
Virginia Beach just finished the sports complex. Granted, we'd have to play all the teams at the same time AAU style but it could handle it.
Reporting from Asheville...while it would be awesome, I doubt we can handle that type of event unless they want to hold games in high school gyms.
So many ladies of the nighr going to be in Indy
Probably a workable idea, knock out the whole tourney in 1.5 to 2 weeks instead of the the normal 3 plus now
You need to give the teams time to recover and prepare I think. Plus, the NCAA needs viewership to be high, would a condensed schedule be good or bad for that?
NBA have games on all day for a few weeks seemed to be popular, dont know how the financials worked out though
*double post
Canada saw a 5,000% increase in cases after their Thanksgiving holiday in October. If we see anything similar happen here in the US where things are already horrible, you're going to see collegiate athletics shut down for the remainder of the school year.
So yeah, I mean its nice that they're planning a bubble, but.... we realistically might not have the opportunity for it to get that far. We're already seeing waves of football games canceled, and there's no reason to think it already wouldn't be similarly bad in basketball right now, and this is before next week's break.
We're currently in the expected fall/post Halloween spike. Theory: Halloween led to spread among young people gathering at parties, Thanksgiving will spread it among older people who might be more inclined to gather for the holiday. Counterpoint is that Thanksgiving gatherings could be much smaller and not lead to the same spread as Halloween because of the size and style of gatherings. However, I generally agree with your prediction, Alum.
My family is downsizing from the 20+ gatherings at Thanksgiving to 4-5 size groups that will be separate. We are also mailing gifts for Christmas instead of visiting.
Sorry, but I'm not cancelling Thanksgiving! lol
Never mind.
I missed the tournament so bad this past March. Please don't take it again, covid.
I will nominate my hometown of Cincinnati. Games could be played at UC, Xavier, Northern Ky, and the Heritage Bank Arena, all regularly host college basketball, all within about 6 miles of each other. Miami of Ohio is about 20 miles away if a 5th location is needed.
As long as there is March/May Madness, I don't care if there is fans in the stadium or not.... March Madness is the best thing to bet on
Virginia needs to approve online betting before then
Agreed but you can easily just bet off shore... I use Bovada for example.
OT: all these states (including VA) need to get with the program and legalize gambling/sportsbooks... The amount of tax dollars they are not collecting is insane... Could use that money to help with infrastructure, pay teachers more, etc.
Edit: Just saw where Virginia has been approved for online gambling via FanDuel... looks like it won't be active until Q1 of 2021 though.
NCAA confirmed today their intent to hold the entire NCAA tournament in the vicinity of Indianapolis
https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2021-01-04/ncaa-announc...