Minneapolis snags 2019 NCAA men's hoops Final Four
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It's a three-peat for Minneapolis and the Final Four.
The NCAA Friday said it picked Minneapolis and its new $1 billion stadium to host the Division I men's college basketball championship in 2019.
The selection was unveiled Friday afternoon as the NCAA announced host cities for the tournament for 2017 through 2021. The Metrodome hosted the finals in 1992 and 2001.
The three-game championship — two weekend semi-final games and a Monday night final — is expected to bring tens of thousands of visitors to the city and millions of dollars in tourist spending.
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Dallas this year projected visitors and fans to spend more than $270 million during the final weekend of the college basketball season when the Final Four was played in AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys. Atlanta said the game had a $70 million impact on that region in 2013 and New Orleans claimed the tournament brought a $135 million boost in 2012.
The ultimate impact of big events is controversial, however. The 2008 Republican National Convention claimed to have had a $170 million economic impact, although many voiced doubts about that number, and critics said that didn't take into consideration the negative impact of heightened security and widespread inconvenience.
A report earlier this week also cast doubt on the economic impact of Major League Baseball's All Star Game, played at Target Field in July. Meet Minneapolis, the city's tourism agency, predicted a $75 million economic impact, but revised that figure to $50 million. The Star Tribune reported state tax officials looking at sales tax data estimated a boost between $55 and $21 million.
But one thing that wasn't much of an unknown: Minnesota winning a bid to host the game.
The builders of the new stadium now under construction downtown have promised marquee events for the facility, and said the Metrodome was too old and couldn't compete with others around the country to host the high profile events like the Final Four. They already won a bid to host the Super Bowl for 2018, beating out the favorite, New Orleans, earlier this year.
In fact, next year's Final Four is scheduled to play in another Minneapolis rival: Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
The Final Four moves to Reliant Stadium in Houston in 2016. Minneapolis wasn't eligible for the 2017 edition of the four-year series. To qualify, a host site has to hold a preliminary round of the tournament the year before it hosts the Final Four. The Vikings stadium won't open until late July of 2016.
Minneapolis was one of eight finalists to host Final Fours. Other cities winning tournaments were: Phoenix in 2017, San Antonio in 2018, Atlanta in 2020 and Indianapolis in 2021.
The championship is considered the biggest non-football sporting event in the country. It drew more than 23 million viewers when Louisville beat Michigan for the title in 2013. The tournament routinely beat the World Series, the NBA Championships and NCAA football bowl games in television ratings.
The basketball tournament is also one of the nation's richest sports traditions: it was first played in 1939, and has become a financial mainstay for college athletics. The NCAA signed a 14-year, $10.8 billion broadcast deal to carry the tournament live on four national networks.