Each tournaments in Mpls will draw 1000’s

The countdown is on, as slightly greater than five months remain before March Madness Big 10-style converges on downtown Minneapolis. Two conference teams will earn the NCAA automatic bid while others may also be vying to maintain their season alive.

For the primary time ever, each Big 10 postseason tournaments can be held in Minneapolis. 1000’s of fans of 14 men’s and 14 women’s teams, plus assigned media and others, are expected to spend money and time here—or so organizers hope.

“These events are once in a lifetime,” Minnesota Sports and Events (MSE) President and CEO Wendy Blackshaw declared. “When are you going to get to see the premier Big Ten basketball players, a lot of whom are the premier within the country, apart from at this tournament.”

Each Blackshaw and Andrea Graham, the co-executive director of Big 10 Basketball Tournaments, last week talked to the MSR after the conference’s media days, on the Timberwolves-Lynx downtown arena.

Civic boosters akin to MSE and Meet Minneapolis, the town’s convention and visitors association, and others strongly consider that big-time events held downtown are critical for its economic recovery, especially after the pandemic.

At press time there was not available data on the economic impact of the Big Ten media event, but Graham, Blackshaw and others consider there was a small bump in demand for hotels from the media, players, coaches, league staff and other related personnel.

“Before the pandemic, it was at 90 percent capability with hotels,” reported Blackshaw. “We usually are not even near being back to that.”

Added Graham, “Throughout the 2023 women’s tournament, our hotel occupancy was 89 percent higher than it had been in 2022. We’re hoping to try this again and break our own records. After which bringing the lads’s here will just be something like we haven’t seen before, because they haven’t been here before. It’ll be really exciting.”

We asked each women in the event that they think the 2 basketball tournaments will draw locals, especially non-sports fans, after they kick off next March. “We absolutely are actively working to attract an area crowd as well,” responded Graham. 

“We’re working directly with the tournament or with the conference on ensuring now we have accessible pricing, not only to all sessions but single sessions, and we’re working on group discounts and senior discounts.”

Said Blackshaw, “We can be announcing in the subsequent couple months,” information on auxiliary events planned across the tournament. “We love the type of events where it’s accessible to everyone.”

“We’re working very closely with the conference to be certain that we’re giving access to this tournament to as many members of our community as possible,” said Graham, “and not only targeting those that are flying in and the families of the players.”