North Carolina State University Athletics
Women's Regional at ESA Gets Thumbs Up
3/26/2002 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
March 26, 2002
By Tony Haynes
Raleigh, N.C.-NC State and the Entertainment and Sports Arena have been under the microscope the last several days. Call it a litmus test, if you will. The test was to see if NC State, Raleigh and the ESA might one day be worthy of a Women's Final Four. As host to the NCAA Women's East Regional last weekend, NC State went to great lengths to show off its magnificent arena and a community that loves basketball.
From all indications, the first test received extremely high marks.
"The coaches, several student athletes, some band members and cheerleaders all came up to me unsolicited to share their enthusiasm for the event, and to tell me what a great experience they had and how much they enjoyed playing in the ESA," said Nora Lynn Finch, NC State's Senior Associate Athletics Director and Senior Women's Administrator. "The media gave very high marks to our media relations folks and I found working with the arena staff to be a pleasant experience. I found them to be efficient and professional."
Monday night's East Regional Final between Duke and South Carolina drew an enthusiastic crowd of 8,107 fans, which nearly doubled the number of spectators that attended Saturday's semi-finals. But the NCAA is looking for more than impressive attendance figures. In order to host a Final Four down the road, NC State needs to show that the entire Triangle community as a whole is up to the challenge.
"It does require about $1.2 to $1.4 million worth of sponsorship for the social activities that go around the championship," Finch said. "The host institution or the home site would be responsible for the transportation for the teams, the WBCA members (Women's Basketball Coaches Association), the media and the NCAA reps to the site. It requires a huge hotel and convention center for the WBCA and their convention. The media that come in are in access of 200, they require a lot of hotel space and the NCAA require a lot of hotel space. Then the four teams require four full service hotels. The question is would there be the hotel amenities, the convention amenities and the local sponsorship to provide the financial resources for all those things I mentioned."
Finch also noted that San Antonio, Texas, site of this year's Women's Final Four, is ideal because many of the hotels that will be used are on the historic River Walk, which is within walking distance of the Alamo Dome. At this time, there are no major hotels in close proximity to the ESA.
Perhaps the biggest thing working in Raleigh's favor is an arena that would be perfectly suited for a Women's Final Four, or any other major basketball event for that matter.
"The arena is as good as it gets," Finch said. "The NCAA committee representatives that were here had the highest praise for the facility and the facility management for our game operations. Donna Noonan, who is the Vice President for the Division One Women's Championship, was tickled pink at the facility and the way the games were facilitated."
The NCAA has already selected future Women's Final Four sites through the year 2007. It's unknown at this time when the NCAA will request bids for host sites beyond that time. It's also unknown if NC State will choose to make a bid to host the event at the ESA.
"The bid packets could be requested at any time for sites beyond 2007," Finch said. "Our staff would need to sit down and have some real serious evaluations of how the East Regional went and get some feedback from the NCAA on any mishaps they saw with the conduct of the regional, although they gave me nothing but glowing remarks when they were here. I will [continue a lobbying effort] if our department decides this is something we really want to do and if the Convention and Visitors Bureau steps up and says we can help with community support. If we can get that kind of partnership, then I will do as much lobbying as I can until an appropriate time comes to submit a bid."
Along with hosting this year's women's regional, the ESA will host first and second round games of the men's NCAA Tournament in 2004.
