It is bigger than a few merchants in Clifton,
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Cincinnati has submitted bids to host a dozen future NCAA championship events and soon will bid to host NCAA men’s basketball tournament games for the first time in more than two decades.
The Cincinnati Business Courier, a sister publication to Business First, is reporting that a collaborative group made up of area university athletic directors, sports facilities and the Greater Cincinnati Sports Corp. issued the bid as part of a concerted effort to draw more big college events to the city.
Cincinnati has not hosted any NCAA title events since 1997.
Among the other events Cincinnati is requesting are Division I women’s basketball tournament games in 2015 and Division I men’s hockey tournament games in 2016 and 2018.
The city also bid on the 2016 Division II Sports Festival, which includes championships in several sports. The festival previously has been held in Louisville
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Posted: Friday, September 20, 2013 12:43 pm
Joshua Miller | Sports Editor | 0 comments
Cincinnati has sent a clear message that the city plans to once again be a major player when it comes to hosting NCAA Championship events.
The Cincinnati Collegiate and Community Collaborative, a group comprised of athletic directors from Miami University, the University of Cincinnati and Xavier University, as well as officials from the Greater Cincinnati Sports Corp., Cincinnati USA Convention & Visitors Bureau, the Western & Southern Open tennis tournament and U.S. Bank Arena, have submitted bids for Cincinnati to host 12 future NCAA championship events. The group will soon submit an additional bid to host early-round NCAA men’s basketball tournament games for the first time in more than two decades.
Although Xavier hosted early-round women’s NCAA tournament games in 2010 and 2011, the City of Cincinnati has not hosted an NCAA championship since 1997 when UC hosted the women’s Final Four.
“We identified that going after NCAA championships would be a really good thing for the city because of our Division I institutions,” said Jackie Reau, chair of the Greater Cincinnati Sports Corp. “It’s an unprecedented time with NCAA championship bids. In June the NCAA released 550 [bids] for their 89 annual championships over the next four years. So if we weren’t in the bid process, we’d have been locked out for the next
four years.”
The collaborative effort to attain bids began in June and didn’t cease until Monday, when all final bids were due to the NCAA. The group was fortunate enough to have additional expertise from the NCAA level, as they tried to best position Cincinnati’s bids for success.
“A study was conducted by an individual from TSE Consulting, based out of Indianapolis, but she was previously an employee of the NCAA, in championship events specifically,” said Leslie Spencer, the Greater Cincinnati Sports Corp.’s executive director. “She’s had the expertise and the experience around these particular championships to help us identify. So we used her skill set and experience managing these events to help us identify — based on our facilities — which bids made the most sense for us.
The NCAA’s newly adapted four-year bid cycle means that all host cites through the 2019 NCAA championships will be decided in the current bid process. Cincinnati had to prepare well in advance or risk not hosting any events until at least 2020.
“It was very strategic, we knew that this was happening and we wanted to make sure that we had our best foot forward to capture our fair share — based on our facilities and our market — of what we could potentially host,” Spencer said. “It was a strategic move by the board to conduct that in partnership with the Cincinnati USA CBB.”
All five regional universities were involved in the bidding process and the facilities audit, as well as agreeing to terms of which universities would be
the host.
Of the bids, the Division I Men’s and Women’s Tennis (2015, 2017, 2018), Division I Women’s Lacrosse (2016, 2017, 2018) and the 2016 Division II Sports Festival, which includes tennis, golf, lacrosse and softball, were made with UC as the proposed host.
Although hosting NCAA championships outside of football and basketball doesn’t necessarily translate into major financial gains, the exposure of UC’s campus and possible television coverage could be crucial for UC’s continued growth.
For UC, the prospect of hosting the women’s lacrosse championships could prove to be a showcasing for the completion of the Nippert Stadium renovations, in addition to the entire Lindner Varsity Village Project.
“I think UC will always be a part of our strategies to host NCAA events, as it makes sense for the facilities,” Reau said. “For instance, we’ve applied to host the women’s lacrosse championships, which would be at Nippert Stadium. That would be a huge deal for UC, the program and the city.”
In addition to the 12 bids the group placed on the cities behalf Monday, a recent bid for Cincinnati to host future American Athletic Conference baseball tournaments also included UC’s Marge Schott Stadium.
There is no indication of which bid UC has the best chance of acquiring, Reau said, but there is certainly no shortage of competition. The NCAA received more than 3,000 letters to bid on 550 events over four years.
UC should know, one way or another if they’ve been accepted as a host city for any of their bids, or for the yet to be determined bids for Cincinnati to host early-round NCAA men’s basketball tournament games by the end of this year.
“There’s no set timeline, but what [The NCAA] has said is that the committee will meet pretty quickly, narrow the bids down to finalists and then the committee will make site visits to the finalists’ facilities. We should know probably by the end of the year.”
Nearly two decades removed from hosting an NCAA finals event, the City of Cincinnati is overdue for a major collegiate event. Reau and the rest of the collaborative hope that their recent work propels Cincinnati into the forefront of event hosting for years to come.
“We’ve done all the hard work, so now we know what facilities are positioned best for future bids,” Reau said. “We were very aggressive in our bid strategy, to go after as many bids that made sense for our facilities and member institutions. Submitting 12 bids was a lot of bids, but very well worth it in terms of trying to re-establish Cincinnati as a great host city for athletics.”
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US Bank Arena info
