Why Hosting NCAA Championships Are Game Changing For Destinations

As the NCAA enters the final month of its deliberation on which cities will be the hosts for its next championship bid cycle for hundreds of events across all three divisions, destinations around the country anxiously await news of the status of their bids.

It’s quite a mix of cities that are bidding to host Division I, II and III championship events. There are the huge markets, like Orlando, that have the resources to make any NCAA event extravagant. There are medium-sized markets like Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which are attracting NCAA championships with regularity despite logistical challenges.

But when you’re talking about hosting NCAA championship events, a great place to start is in Salem, Virginia.

“Salem: Virginia’s Championship City”

That tagline isn’t just a catchy marketing ploy — Salem has hosted 103 NCAA Division II and III championship events since 1993.

Carey Harveycutter, director of tourism for the city, has been the tournament director for all 103 events. He’s worked for the city of Salem in some capacity since he volunteered as a sophomore in high school in 1968.

The Stagg Bowl — in honor of Amos Alonzo Stagg — is the name given to the Division III football national championship game, which called Salem home from 1993 to 2017. It’s what put Salem on the NCAA map, leading to other sports coming to the city.

“We were a high school football and college football community that’s 40 minutes from Virginia Tech, and we just wanted to host a football game,” Harveycutter said of the beginning of Salem’s run in 1993. “There was no talk in 1993 of sports marketing and sports tourism. We just wanted a football game and we went after it.”

In 2023, Salem saw the return of the Stagg Bowl and also hosted the DIII men’s and women’s soccer championships and DIII women’s lacrosse. This December, Salem will host DIII women’s volleyball, and then in spring 2025 it will have DIII women’s basketball and DIII men’s volleyball.

“Everybody loves to be involved in a championship,” Harveycutter said. “We start in youth sports trying to win the championship. And when you get to the pinnacle, which is the NCAA and collegiate championships, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Division I, Division II, or Division III, it’s a great event.”

He says estimated economic impact varies depending on the sport. For a softball championship where teams are in town for a week, the impact can reach $1.3 million. The Stagg Bowl traditionally brings in nearly a million dollars each year.

“It takes a lot of people to put on a high-quality event — a lot of people behind the scenes,” Harveycutter said. “The people working the event, the ushers and security and police. All the people that run our college. It’s something our community of 25,000 people can rally around.”

He points out that it’s a win for everybody, as hotels, restaurants and shops in the area receive a boost during a slow time of the year. And the success of the Stagg Bowl and other NCAA events has led to return tourism.

“The parents, fans and loved ones come to the championship events and it has put us on the map,” Harveycutter said. “We’re a small town that works together. During events we can find a place for 40 people to go eat, or if somebody is sick, we can call a family doctor instead of sending them to urgent care. That’s been a big part of our success — the people.”

Building a Brand in Fort Wayne

While Salem has been averaging more than three championship events per year since 1993, Fort Wayne, Indiana, is newer to the NCAA host party. But Jazmin Zavala, the city’s sports sales manager since 2021, is making NCAA events a big priority.

In past decades, Visit Fort Wayne has hosted an NCAA hockey or volleyball event from time to time, but now Zavala and her team are focused on bringing more championship events to the area. Ironically, the event that has put Fort Wayne on the NCAA map in recent years was one that it was able to win the bid away from Salem — the DIII men’s basketball championship game.

“At the championship level, Division II and III are the highest that we could go simply because Division I requires full-service properties including minimum hotel inventory and seating to host,” Zavala said. “But the DIII basketball championship made a lot of sense for our city and we thought there was an opportunity to take it from Salem, which had hosted it for 20 years.”

Zavala says Fort Wayne goes above and beyond for the DIII basketball event, including hotels decorated with balloon arches, logos and a red carpet at the venue to give the athletes and coaches a high-level experience.

“We hear it from coaches, different teams, athletes, that they don’t feel like their event is an afterthought here,” Zavala said. “The NCAA is one of the most recognized brands in all of sports. So what that does for us is we are now on the same stage with the other destinations in the country that host an NCAA championship. And for us, that’s a huge accomplishment.”

Fort Wayne won the bid for the DIII basketball championship for the cycle from 2019 through 2024. However, after Covid cancelled 2020, the city will get two extra years in 2025 and 2026.

It’s a massive add-on, considering the financial ramifications. Zavala says the estiamated economic impact was $1.8 million in 2024, which is triple what a usual sporting event in Fort Wayne creates. Since Indianapolis will host all three men’s basketball championship games in 2026, the NCAA has given Fort Wayne both the quarterfinals and semifinals, which will create even more impact.

“People are coming into Fort Wayne for the first time, they’re experiencing what it looks like for us to produce a championship and they’re going home and talking to other organizations, saying, ‘Hey, have you considered Fort Wayne as the host of one of our events?’ It’s allowed us to bring in more events and continue to grow,” Zavala said.

Orlando Makes NCAA a Priority

Orlando is a juggernaut of a sports commission that does huge business each year in the youth, amateur and professional sports landscape. Jason Siegel, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Orlando Sports Commission, has been in that role for over eight years and has put great significance on NCAA events.

Orlando was awarded the most NCAA championship events for the 2022–2026 NCAA bid window with 17 events across five sports and seven venues, totaling an estimated $27 million in economic impact.

“We have long standing relationships and a proven track record and a portfolio of hosting successful events and I would hope we give our friends at the NCAA comfort knowing that there’s a way we go about our business that makes sure everybody always has a terrific time in Orlando,” Siegel said.

The most recent major NCAA event that Orlando hosted was the DII Championships Festival, which took place across several venues from May 19–25 and included men’s and women’s golf, men’s and women’s tennis, softball and women’s lacrosse all crowning champions.

The 800 athletes were spread across two locations in Seminole County and two in Orange County, which required a large staff.

“With the four different host location venues that were involved, it takes a village and there’s a lot of people that have to come together,” Siegel said. “We had golf at two different courses covering a pretty big landscape. The folks at Orange County National treated it as if it was a PGA championship. They really went all out, as did all the venues for that matter.”

The economic impact for the DII Festival was $3.5 million. Orlando has recently hosted NCAA championships that range from DIII Women’s Golf with an economic impact of $600,000 to the NCAA DI Men’s Basketball Championships first and second round games at $19 million.

But regardless of the division or size, Orlando approaches every event with the same mindset.

“It’s first class all the way,” Siegel said. “We want unparalleled exceptional experiences for folks that visit our community. It doesn’t matter if it’s opening round of March Madness or a Division III tennis championship. We understand that it may be these athletes’ only time to compete for a national championship or to compete in a conference tournament. So we take that to heart and want to make sure that all the student athletes have an excellent experience.”

Another important distinction that Orlando makes when hosting NCAA events is how they view the visiting athletes.

“We understand that they’re here to compete and they’re not tourists,” Siegel said. “But we want them to have such a great experience that when they have the time to go to the theme parks and the attractions and the restaurants here in Orlando that they’ll think about Orlando when they do their own personal travel.”

Cedar Rapids Puts Best Foot Forward

Much like Salem, the city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has hosted a wide variety of NCAA championship events over the years. Cedar Rapids will host the 2026 NCAA DIII Men’s Wrestling National Championships. It hosted the same event in 2022 and in 2023 had the DII Men’s Wrestling National Championships.

During a four-year stretch, the city hosted the NCAA DIII Baseball National Championships and also was the site of volleyball championships in 2018–2019.

“We’ve done a little bit of everything,” said Jay Fanta, director of sports tourism at Cedar Rapids Tourism. “We have some great venues here — we’ve hosted wrestling events at the Alliant Energy Power House. We’ve hosted baseball at Veterans Memorial Stadium, which is the home of the Cedar Rapids Colonels, who are the High A affiliate of the Minnesota Twins.

“There is a lot of planning that goes into hosting these events because the expectation is to deliver a high-quality experience for the student athletes and the fans.”

Those fans coming from hours away have been a key for the city’s overall tourism footprint, as showing the visitors a good time while they’re in Cedar Rapids has led to more attention and repeat customers.

“It brings people to Cedar Rapids that have probably never been here,” Fanta said. “So it’s a big piece of marketing and letting people know what Cedar Rapids is and allows us to showcase our community.

“A big benefit we see with these events is exposure. It’s always good to bring new events into the community and then obviously when you’re talking about national championship events, where you’re bringing in people from outside the area, it also puts Cedar Rapids on the map for future tourism.”

Cedar Rapids Tourism has formed a local organizing committee that includes area institutions and the American Rivers Conference to host NCAA events, which Fanta says has been crucial to winning bids.

“Our community has always embraced these championships,” he said. “We obviously don’t have the venue to host the Final Four. So I think it’s a matter of just perspective that hosting great DII and DIII championships is where we are with our market and community size.”

Just like the other destinations that have bid on this current NCAA cycle, Fanta and his team try not to dwell on the waiting game.

“We just try to focus on putting in the best bid we can,” he said. “We feel good about the bids because I know our local organizing committees in the past have done what we can to put on a good experience. So that’s what we focus on — we put our best foot forward and see what happens.”