JAKE'S TAKE: Hosting The NCAA Tournament
2/5/2001 1:30:09 PM | General
<b>By Jake Crouthamel</b><br>Do you have a question for Jake? <a href="mailto:feedback@suathletics.com">Email it!</a>
I firmly believe the Carrier Dome remains one of the finest all-purpose facilities in the country on a college campus. Its adaptability for hosting collegiate and scholastic athletic events, concerts configured to accommodate from 15,000 to 40,000 patrons, ice shows, special dinners and commencement, among other events, is truly unique in the industry. While a great facility for our purposes, it lacks a good deal in the infrastructure, that part of the building the spectator doesn't see while sitting in the stands. The Dome was designed to fit the footprint of old Archbold Stadium, and with a seating capacity of about 50,000. The cost of construction limited the opportunity to maximize the use of space under the seating areas and in the bowels of the building. The lack of internal operational space places restrictions on our ability to host certain events that might be attractive to the community. The NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four is one of them.
Having served on the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee for six years and being on its site selection sub-committee, I am fully aware of the minimum requirements. The primary and overriding criterion is number of seats. Only domed facilities around the country can accommodate a spectacle like the Final Four. In order to even be considered as a host, the facility must have a minimum of 30,000 seats. That eliminates every single basketball-only facility in the country, with consideration given only to domed football stadia. It is not by coincidence that Seattle, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, St. Petersburg, New Orleans, Atlanta, St. Louis and San Antonio were the sites for the Final Four over the past 10 years and for at least the next seven years. They all have large domes. New York City was an aberration. Dave Gavitt was chair of the Basketball Committee at the time it was selected, and his intent was to bring the Final Four back to the mecca of college basketball, theoretically Madison Square Garden. We all know the Final Four was played in the Continental Airlines Arena, East Rutherford, New Jersey in 1996. Close enough.
Another criterion given considerable attention by the Basketball Committee is an on-campus site. That's why the Carrier Dome, with its 30,000 basketball seating capacity, becomes so attractive, and why we have enjoyed, arguably, an inordinate number of NCAA tournament hosting opportunities. We hosted the 2000 East Regional and will do so again in 2002 and 2005 primarily for two reasons:
Staging three basketball games over three days, the itinerary of a Final Four, is a cakewalk. However, the NCAA requirements to support those three games currently cannot be met by the Carrier Dome or our community. Consider the following NCAA requirements:
Facility
Community
Collectively, as a facility and a community, we simply can't meet these requirements at this time, and it takes collective compliance. In order to meet NCAA facility specifications, a whole new complex would have to be added to the Carrier Dome.
While hosting the Final Four is a feather in one's cap and guarantees a huge financial reward, I can assure you from experience that we should not be headed in that direction. Instead, our niche is to host the Eastern Regional tournament as often as possible. The community should rally to the cause, almost like a Final Four, by creating and providing activities that hype the games, make the thousands of visitors traveling to Syracuse feel comfortable. The community should provide a hospitable and friendly environment that shows we care about them being in Syracuse, give them planned things to do on the day between games, decorate the downtown area, and, in general, sell the community. This was accomplished successfully for the 2000 East Regional, and we need to continue these efforts. If we do these things properly, we will be able to host future regionals beyond 2005 because the word gets back to the NCAA. In addition, the great thing about hosting a regional is that local fans can get tickets, a privilege not available to the general public at the Final Four.
