St. Louis, Minneapolis awarded D1 Championships in '27 & '28

[BobDole]

On 10/2/2024 at 2:41 PM, Camel Wrestling Fan said:

St Louis! My favorite host site. Great access, great places to eat closeby, reasonably priced.

St. Louis is a dump.

[TylerDurden]

2 hours ago, Hank said:

football stadium still feels like a bad idea.  feels like the people with farther seats won't be able to see anything

It depends on the angle of the lower level seating. US Bank's layout seems like it will work out just fine, based off images I've seen. It's a pretty intimate football stadium. Reminds me of a basketball arena on steroids. 

[Fletcher]

2 hours ago, BobDole said:

St. Louis is a dump.

The top of the Arch will provide a better view of the matches than most seats in US Bank Stadium.

[CHROMEBIRD]

20 hours ago, skandar said:

If we want the sport to stick around long term, we need exposure in new places. Holding it in the NE every year would make it even more niche and shorten its lifespan.

Agreed. My hypothesis is that most wrestling fans will travel-in to whatever city Nationals is held at anyway. Drawing local interest and exposing non-fans to college wrestling's biggest event would then be gravy and good for the sport. I'm all for seeing NCAAs in the South, West, PNW as long as there's a suitable venue and incentives for the cities to submit a proposal to host the event. 

Imo, fanbase and location are big challenges in planning NCAAs, but the biggest hurdle is that wrestling is essentially an individual-based championship tournament across 10 weight classes, and many wrestlers managing their weight for multiple consecutive days. I love love love the individual tournament as it is, but must admit that a dual-based championship format would offer much more flexibility with the format, scheduling, and location/venues for Nationals.

For example, under a dual championship format we could have geographically-dispersed group stages that go into a knockout round like soccer, or have "regional" early rounds or pods across the country, like basketball or the CWS, with the finals in an arena that can host a dual championship. That would be dope as hell, but I have a tough time imagining it working in an individual championship format.

[Warm Up Champ]

32 minutes ago, CHROMEBIRD said:

Agreed. My hypothesis is that most wrestling fans will travel-in to whatever city Nationals is held at anyway. Drawing local interest and exposing non-fans to college wrestling's biggest event would then be gravy and good for the sport. I'm all for seeing NCAAs in the South, West, PNW as long as there's a suitable venue and incentives for the cities to submit a proposal to host the event. 

I'd love to see it out west.  An NCAA's in Vegas/Phoenix/etc, in March, would be incredible!  

Would any of you who live in the midwest or east coast fly out to a west coast NCAAs?

[meZYNbrink]

Couldn't agree more that Indianapolis would be a great destination. Centralized city, great venues, many food/drink options, proximally close to other hotbeds (IA, PA, OH, WI), and a great airport. NBA All Star Weekend was hosted there last year and proved the city can show up to host great events of and above the scale of D1 championships. The USA Swimming OLY trials were there this summer as well. 

Denver would be great too, selfishly.

[ionel]

4 hours ago, BobDole said:

St. Louis is a dump.

Is it true Russell, KS is putting in a bid for 29? 

[BobDole]

2 hours ago, Fletcher said:

The top of the Arch will provide a better view of the matches than most seats in US Bank Stadium.

As long as you don't get shot or have you car broken into. Downtown St Louis has become worse over the past 15 years.

[juniorvarsity]

This was the rendering of US Bank Stadium hosting the Final 4 in 2019:

This was the reality:

Rendering from 2020. I hope they do not leave as much space between mat and put some bleachers on the field to resemble what basketball did.

[juniorvarsity]

39 minutes ago, meZYNbrink said:

Couldn't agree more that Indianapolis would be a great destination. Centralized city, great venues, many food/drink options, proximally close to other hotbeds (IA, PA, OH, WI), and a great airport. NBA All Star Weekend was hosted there last year and proved the city can show up to host great events of and above the scale of D1 championships. The USA Swimming OLY trials were there this summer as well. 

Denver would be great too, selfishly.

I would like Indianapolis a lot. It is the right size. You can walk to everything.

Never Denver because altitude.

[CHROMEBIRD]

3 hours ago, Warm Up Champ said:

I'd love to see it out west.  An NCAA's in Vegas/Phoenix/etc, in March, would be incredible!  

Would any of you who live in the midwest or east coast fly out to a west coast NCAAs?

I wonder if Vegas could be enticed to host Nationals. There's a lot going on in LV at that time of the year with basketball and conventions and what not, but USAW has had several events there. Not sure if there's enough space for NCAAs though.

[CHROMEBIRD]

2 hours ago, juniorvarsity said:

Rendering from 2020. I hope they do not leave as much space between mat and put some bleachers on the field to resemble what basketball did.

Right, get some floor seating in there. It looks bizarre with that setback, assuming that the rendering is to scale. They could even push the two rows of mats a little closer together to accommodate more seating

[Camel Wrestling Fan]

On 10/2/2024 at 3:34 PM, Winners Circle said:

Did you go to KC? Blew STL out of the water. As a STL native, the city has gone downhill significantly.

Yes, I was went to KC. I enjoyed it, too. I would like to see the torney held in the sunny south. Charlotte, Orlando, Dallas, Atlanta all would be good options.

[Winners Circle]

26 minutes ago, Camel Wrestling Fan said:

Yes, I was went to KC. I enjoyed it, too. I would like to see the torney held in the sunny south. Charlotte, Orlando, Dallas, Atlanta all would be good options.

I think we all would. But those cities need to put in bids. The problem is those cities (currently) have no interest.

[Danny Deck]

I think having it at Globe Life Field in Dallas (Arlington) would be a disaster. Not much in the way of hotels or restaurants in walking distance. It sounds like that's what they bid with.

It would be nice for more southern cities to make bids for sure. I wish the Phoenix bid for their baseball stadium would have gotten a chance. It seems like more amenities in the area to give the entire experience a better chance. 

[mspart]

Having wrestling in a stadium is not ideal.   Crowd is too far from the action.  Minny had it in the Target Center back in the 90's and that was pretty good.  We had great seats. 

I'm still pulling for Corvallis!!

mspart

[TylerDurden]

1 hour ago, Danny Deck said:

I think having it at Globe Life Field in Dallas (Arlington) would be a disaster. Not much in the way of hotels or restaurants in walking distance. It sounds like that's what they bid with.

It would be nice for more southern cities to make bids for sure. I wish the Phoenix bid for their baseball stadium would have gotten a chance. It seems like more amenities in the area to give the entire experience a better chance. 

+1

The Final Four held there was horrid. The venue is nice, but there's nothing nearby and nothing walkable, unless you love Walmart. 

[Gus]

1 hour ago, Winners Circle said:

I think we all would. But those cities need to put in bids. The problem is those cities (currently) have no interest.

Has there been any interest from Raleigh or Tampa?

[skandar]

On 10/3/2024 at 10:11 PM, billyhoyle said:

You're right about Cincy not having an indoor arena suitable for NCAAs. I overlooked that, so it wouldn't be an option. Great city though if you've never been.

But I don't follow the logic of purposefully having the event in places where fewer people want to attend. The tickets being difficult to get isn't just good for resellers-it shows that the sport itself is popular and it allows the NCAA to get more revenue for the event by charging more for the tickets. I'm not saying hold it in the northeast every year (I like cleveland, and it should still be in the midwest sometimes), but I do think it is currently in Missouri way too often. Minnesota isn't a great location, but I understand the idea of using it as a testbed to have it in a football stadium like NCAA basketball does. 

The highest density of NCAA wrestling fans is now located on the east coast, so I think the event should be on the east coast more than it currently is (although not every year).  NJ would be great, so would having it in NY again.  There are many options for both.  Boston or Washington could be good as well to try and see the interest. The single best location is probably Philadelphia though. Hopefully it's back there in 2029 and remains a mainstay. If this year is anything close to last time in terms of popularity, it should probably be there more than every 4 years. With all that said, it's possible the east coast stadiums are too expensive to rent and Missouri just offers a great price so the event is more profitable even with the decreased attendance and lower prices. 

 

Man you just have some really bad opinions. Again, the event sells out any arena in the country. We do not need to hold it in a wrestling hotbed to show that it’s popular so they can raise prices. It’s not a big money maker for them. They could raise ticket prices $50 and it wouldn’t make a difference to them. It’s a drop in the bucket for them. That’s such a short sighted argument. Great…The NCAA makes more short term money, but loses every program west of Nebraska. 

The sport is dying at the NCAA level. Again, holding the event in the only area the sport is popular is a great way to kill off the sport everywhere else.

As for Minnesota/MSP not being a great location…what?!? Let’s compare it to your “great” suggestion of Cincy…. It has way more hotel rooms, more nationally recognized restaurants and bars, the #1 ranked airport in North America(easier and cheaper to fly to than Cincy for the vast majority of the country), better shopping than Cincy, more museums/theaters/music venues than Cincy and actually has multiple venues that could host…which are all in downtown areas that are easy to get to. It has everything a good host city does with potential weather being the only real negative. The northeast is just as likely to have bad weather at that time of year though so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

[CHROMEBIRD]

Agree that MSP is a nice location with all the amenities. One gripe though is that Minny in March is still a little Tulsa in 2023 wasn't the best city in terms of amenities, food, walkability but the weather was kind of a treat for those who traveled-in from colder climes. I think that's part of the reason why so many folks want to see Nationals down South or West someday. The weather would be a  treat.