Des Moines has always been known for hosting premier events, especially in the sports world. Come next month, Des Moines will have something new to add to its already impressive resume.
On March 24 and 26, Des Moines and Wells Fargo Arena will have the privilege in hosting third and fourth rounds of the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament. In other words, the road to Denver and the Final Four will go through Des Moines.
“This is a huge deal to the city of Des Moines,” said Greg Edwards, president of the Des Moines Convention and Visitors Bureau. “We’ve worked hard to catch more NCAA-related events. It’s another step in the right direction.”
The national committee who selected Des Moines to host NCAA Regional Semifinals and Final thought the capitol of Iowa was very active and had a very convenient location.
“Des Moines has a very active sports commission and we have had a good working relationship with them as there has been another championship,” said Michelle Perry, director of women’s basketball for the NCAA. “Des Moines is also a great geographical location for us, and there is some great women’s basketball in the state of Iowa. It just makes sense for us to look at Des Moines and Ames as sites to host year in and year out.”
Ames and Iowa State will be hosting the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament March 17 and 19 at Hilton Coliseum. Next year, the first two rounds of the tournament return to Iowa City.
“It’s simply a nice place to play women’s college basketball,” Perry said.
As always in the NCAA Tournament, there is a host school at each neutral site. Northern Iowa will serve as host school when Sweet 16 and Elite Eight rounds come to Wells Fargo Arena.
According to Perry, since Iowa State is hosting first and second rounds in Ames the week before, if they make a heroic run into the NCAA Tournament and advance to the Sweet 16, they would not be allowed to be identified as a host school.
“Northern Iowa was willing to step up and partner with the sports commission,” Perry said.
Iowa Events Center President Chris Connolly believes that hosting this regional will serve as an audition for other major events, including the Men’s NCAA Tournament.
“We have to be able to prove that we can host such a prestigious event,” he said. “It will take a lot in order for that to happen in the days leading up to the event, but we’re excited to do so.”
Connolly hopes the community will also be excited when March Madness rolls into his building.
“We’ll have four quality teams come in here and play for a right to go to the Final Four,” Connolly said. How cool is that? Everyone around here is very excited to showcase what we have.”
Also, with this being the first time Des Moines has the ability to host, that has Connolly pumped up.
“We’ve never done this kind of thing. That in itself gets us excited.”
One of the tasks Connolly and Edwards have in front of them is to promote the Tournament to the community.
“We hope the community comes through and plays a big role, Edwards said. “One thing we really need to prove is not only put on a huge event, but for our community to also support them.”
Connolly believes marketing the event will not be difficult.
“It’s always easier to sell something when it meets people’s expectations,” he said. “We will have a huge banner placed on the southeast side of building as well as all over town. We want people to know about it.”
And if they know about it, people will come.
“Our goal is to fill the arena,” Connolly said.
For Edwards, his main goal through the CVB is to attract Des Moines to the rest of the country.
We as a visitor’s bureau want to put on class events that the rest of country can see so they may consider DSM as their next venue,” Edwards said.
Downtown Des Moines was also a big factor in landing such an event.
“When we were in Des Moines on our site visit, we realized Des Moines had all the ingredients,” Perry said.
This is not the first time Des Moines has hosted an NCAA Tournament. In 2008, Wells Fargo Arena hosted the first and second round games, and from that experience, Perry knew what Des Moines was capable of.
Perry’s most important goal as a committee is to give students the best experience possible.
“Part of doing that is putting fans in the stands,” Perry said. “We want our student-athletes to showcase their talents in front of a full crowd. We’ve been working with people at the arena and at the sports commission as well as Northern Iowa to make sure when the lights go on March 24 that we have a full house.”
Once the winner cuts down the nets, the team then moves on to Denver, who is hosting the Final Four for the first time.
“They have a history of hosting major NCAA events,” Perry said. “They are feverishly putting on some final touches, and we are expecting to put on an extraordinary event to end the women’s college basketball season.”
Wells Fargo Arena will have quite the full house in terms of a sports spectrum in the next coming weeks. Currently, the state high school wrestling tournament is going on, and state basketball for both boys and girls will start in two weeks.
For Edwards, none of the following events have precedence over another.
“Wrestling and basketball are very important, so we never want to take those events for granted,” he said. “NCAA Tournaments may be more prestigious, but we never want to treat our high school events like they’re second fiddle. These are good events; I compare them to the State Fair. They mean so much to the community. We want to keep them here.”
Des Moines will make its starting push with girls’ state basketball starting Feb. 27, kicking off a month of basketball madness from the preps to the collegiate level.
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