Peterson: Des Moines leaders crossing their fingers for positive NCAA Tourney news
We'll find out Tuesday if the NCAA men's basketball tournament returns to Des Moines' Wells Fargo Arena. We'll know around noon — that's when the announcement is supposed to be made. It's big for the city, but it's not as if city leaders have planned one of those cliched watch parties.
It’s the been there, done that thing, so when the NCAA announces sites for NCAA men’s basketball tournaments between 2019-22, it’ll be cause for celebration to the winning cities — but no one in Des Moines will declare the rest of the day a holiday.
“A couple of us will probably get together, but we’ve been in that situation before,” said Chris Connolly, general manager of the Iowa Events Center complex that includes Wells Fargo Arena. “It’ll still be a business day for us.”
Wells Fargo Arena — and Iowa State — hosted the first and second rounds of the 2016 NCAA Tournament. Des Moines’ bid that will or won’t be granted Tuesday includes Drake University as the host.
“Drake came to the table,” said Greg Edwards, CEO of the Greater Des Moines Visitors and Convention Bureau. “Drake is our hometown team. We’re pleased to have them.”
It’s a huge undertaking, hosting a mega-sized national event that in 2016 included teams and fans from such traditional powerhouses as Kansas, Indiana and Kentucky coming to Des Moines.
Des Moines was “dealt a tough hand,” JoAn Scott, managing director of NCAA men’s basketball championships, wrote the Register in a post-2016 tournament email. “Those involved were proactive in finding solutions to problems they anticipated. The result satisfied members of the media and, more important, satisfied participants and fans.
“Everyone did a wonderful job.”
The most major complaint I heard — I was covering Iowa State in a regional in Denver at the time in 2016 — was long first-day concession lines.
“We fixed that right away,” Connolly said. “We got a lot of good feedback throughout the tournament.”
Drake serving as the host if Des Moines is awarded a bid on Tuesday opens the door for not only Iowa State, but also for Iowa and Northern Iowa to be sent to Wells Fargo.
NCAA men’s basketball participants can’t play early rounds in regionals their school is hosting.
Iowa and Northern Iowa also played in the 2016 NCAA Tournament, the Hawkeyes being sent to Brooklyn, N.Y., and the Panthers to Oklahoma City.
“It’s mixed mindset — I feel very good about what we did the last time,” Edwards said. “We got a lot of praises from the NCAA, but we know there’s a lot of competition.
“From Minnesota down to Texas in the Midwest region, there’s a lot of places that can host the first two rounds. I’m sure a lot of them have submitted proposals.”
Tuesday is the culmination of a formal bid process that not only included letters of recommendation, but ideas for how the NCAA Tournament experience can be incorporated into Des Moines.
The bid also included making the NCAA site selection committee aware that a 330-room Hilton Hotel that’s under construction will be finished in 2018. It will be accessible to Wells Fargo Arena via downtown Des Moines’ skywalk system.
“The NCAA always told us that it would be a plus to have a connecting hotel to the arena,” Edwards.
Bids are sealed. They’re not publicly available.
“We pushed all the things that we did the last time, plus we also sweetened the financial deal a little,” Edwards said. “Men’s basketball is the NCAA’s big money-maker. Anything we could do to help enhance that, we did.”
Randy Peterson, senior sports reporter, has been with the Register for parts of five decades. Randy writes opinion and analysis of Iowa State football and basketball. You can reach Randy at rpeterson@dmreg.com or on Twitter at @RandyPete.