With the 2017 NCAA Men’s basketball coming next spring, downtown Phoenix is already preparing for the festivities.
Many organizations and community members have partnered with the NCAA to host the 2017 Final Four weekend. Roxann Favors, the special projects administrator for the city of Phoenix, said the NCAA, Phoenix Final Four Local Organizing Committee, Downtown Phoenix Inc., Visit Phoenix and Valley Metro are working together to put the Phoenix Final Four together.
The national semi-final and championship games will be hosted at the University of Phoenix stadium in Glendale. Favors said that aside from the games on April 1 and April 3, the central gathering point for the NCAA Final Four weekend’s festivities is downtown Phoenix. City Hall will be among the downtown host venues for the Final Four weekend, which was discussed at the public safety and veterans subcommittee meeting on Tuesday.
The March Madness Music Festival will be at Hance Park from March 31 to April 2. Final Four Fan Fest will be held in the Phoenix Convention Center.
“The Final Four is really a celebration of the 90 championships that are across the 24 different sports for the NCAA,” Favors said. “When you come to the fan fest it’s not going to be just NCAA basketball themed … so it’s truly a celebration of the student athlete.”
The NCAA Final Four weekend will include both the music festival, fan fest and many other events free of charge to the public.
“They (NCAA) really want to promote the game of basketball and so they do a dribble,” Favors said. “It will be 3,000 kids under the age of 18 dribbling a basketball through the streets of downtown Phoenix.”
Favors said the kids will receive a commemorative, regulation-sized basketball upon attending the dribble event. The NCAA really wants to focus on how to give back to the community that is hosting the festival, according to Favors.
The NCAA will be using Phoenix Symphony Hall for the celebration presentation and Orpheum Theatre, City Hall atrium and outside plaza for the awards banquet for NCAA basketball coaches, according to Favors.
Executive director and CEO of the 2017 Phoenix Final Four Local Organizing Committee Dawn Rogers said they have been working hard for nearly two years on preparation for the NCAA Final Four.
“We found out in November of 2014 … we started planning right away,” Rogers said. “Twenty months out from the event is when we started working full time.”
Rogers said the local organizing committee is preparing for an array of basketball fans from all over the United States to populate the metro Phoenix area and to venture throughout the state. She added that the few days of events would bring a significant economic impact to the area.
“Probably 90 percent of attendees will be coming from out-of-state,” Rogers said. “I think the economic impact will be significant throughout the city and state.”
According to Rogers, about 100,000 visitors are expected to attend and spread throughout the Valley. The NCAA emphasizes sharing appreciation for all NCAA sports with the community.
City of Phoenix Homeland Security and Emergency Management Director Lisa Jones said her office is working from a public safety perspective with the NCAA, the Local Organizing Committee, and other city of Phoenix planning specialists to ensure that events operate accordingly.
Jones said that her department’s main focuses for this event are accessibility to events in combination with high quality security.
“In this instance, and in every instance, we look to see what is kind of happening globally and nationally,” Jones said. “We will be timely in how we address concerns and we kind of tick down on our list of all major concerns.”
She said their “all hazards” approach is scalable and she is confident that her department’s people and communication plan are in place.
“We have a standardized approach that we use to approach emergencies and big events,” Jones said. “We will be prepared for everyone to have a good time.”
Festivities for the NCAA Final Four in Phoenix will begin with the games on Saturday, April 1 and go throughout the weekend with the March Madness Music Festival, the Final Four Dribble, the Final Four Fan Fest and Final Four youth clinics extending to Sunday, April 2, before finally culminating with the national championship game on Monday, April 3.
Contact the reporter at Brianna.Bradley@asu.edu.
