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