WBB coverage delivered straight to your inbox<\/a>!<\/p>\nWhere else could the tournament be played?<\/p>\n
That is the $20 million question. It\u2019s not as easy as pointing at a spot on the map and saying, \u201cLet\u2019s play here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cities not only have to want to host the SEC tournament, but they have be capable of hosting.<\/p>\n
The SEC did not respond to GamecockCentral\u2019s request for hosting requirements, but we have access to the NCAA\u2019s requirements for hosting tournament regionals. The requirements may not be identical, but the events are similar in size and setup, so they should be similar.<\/p>\n
Many of the requirements are common-sense factors that any modern facility would provide, such as playing equipment, internet, and broadcast capability. Some are more selective (the NCAA requires that venues provide recycling containers for plastic, paper, and aluminum, for example).\u00a0<\/p>\n
For the host venue, the NCAA requires at least four locker rooms for teams, four dressing rooms for coaches, and two locker rooms for officials. There must be media seating for 125 people, a media workroom that can seat 150 people, a separate interview room for 70 people (often this is just a draped-off area, but it works), a holding area, a separate photo workroom, and so forth.<\/p>\n
There are requirements for the host city as well. These include a nearby airport with \u201cappropriate frequency and quality jet airline service,\u201d off-site practice courts, nine full-service hotels within 30 minutes of the arena (officials may not stay at the same hotels as teams, and ideally multiple teams should not stay at the same hotel. It\u2019s not explicitly stated, but it\u2019s understood that the city has to be reachable by interstate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are also some more intangible factors, like attendance potential and community interest.<\/p>\n
So are there alternatives?<\/p>\n
Yes, but probably not as many as you think.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s set some basic parameters:\u00a0<\/p>\n
1. A host city must be in the SEC\u2019s geographic footprint, so a state with a member university or a border city (Charlotte would be acceptable, for example).\u00a0<\/p>\n
2. No on-campus or home arenas. The arena must seat at least 12,000 in tournament-style configuration (bands and cheerleaders get end zones and media gets sideline seats, plus room for a stage setup for the SEC Network\/ESPN).<\/p>\n
3. It must meet the NCAA requirements for a regional host listed above.\u00a0<\/p>\n
4. There must be butts in seats.<\/p>\n
(Brief aside: Next season, the Big Ten Tournament will be in Las Vegas. Everyone will be watching closely to see if fans will travel to a tourist destination outside the conference footprint.)<\/p>\n
Potential hosts<\/p>\n
Cities in the geographic footprint include Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, Dallas\/Fort Worth, Greenville, Houston, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Louisville, Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Orlando, San Antonio, St. Louis, Tampa, and Tulsa.<\/p>\n
There are surely some other cities that would be interested, but that list is limited to cities that have previously hosted NCAA tournament games. They have the capability to host, should they be interested.<\/p>\n
Of that group, Nashville is booked for the men\u2019s tournament. Even though the men\u2019s and women\u2019s tournaments don\u2019t overlap, the SEC is unable or unwilling to play them back-to-back. Kansas City is booked through 2031 for the Big 12 tournaments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A few more can be eliminated. The arena in Jacksonville was inadequate 10 years ago. Charlotte seems committed to the ACC.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Louisville and Orlando have hosted NCAA Tournaments, but never a major conference tournament. St. Louis and Tampa have hosted the men\u2019s tournament, and everyone hated it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Butts in seats<\/p>\n
With the explosion of interest in women\u2019s basketball, especially SEC programs, the tournament has clearly outgrown some of its traditional locations. But unlike men\u2019s basketball, where the television rights deals drive decision making, women\u2019s basketball doesn\u2019t make enough from TV to displace attendance as the biggest moneymaker.<\/p>\n
Despite its growth, women\u2019s basketball isn\u2019t fully a mainstream sport, so the tournament risks getting swallowed up in major markets. At the 2023 Final Four in Dallas, which was the most-hyped Final Four up to that point, my Uber driver was confused when I said I was in town for the Final Four. \u201cI thought that was in Houston,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I explained that the men\u2019s tournament was in Houston and the women\u2019s tournament was in Dallas. \u201cThat\u2019s cool, I guess,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There is a benefit to being in slightly smaller cities. That same conversation seems likely in Atlanta, Houston, and, obviously, Dallas.<\/p>\n
At the same time, consider the ridicule the ACC is getting for playing in Duluth this year. If you go too small, it looks like you don\u2019t care about women\u2019s basketball. And SEC fanbases care a lot about women\u2019s basketball.<\/p>\n
If Tampa and St. Louis were despised tournament sites, Tulsa and San Antonio would be too. Dallas\/Fort Worth, Oklahoma City, and Houston would be too, but they are at least close to member programs. New Orleans has hosted three SEC men\u2019s tournaments, which doesn\u2019t seem like that many for a major destination.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For many years, Birmingham was almost exactly at the geographic center of the SEC. When Texas A&M and Missouri joined the conference, the center moved to northwest Alabama. It shifted to northeast Mississippi when Oklahoma and Texas joined, but Birmingham remains the major city closest to the geographic center of the conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The fan center is different. It lies at about the spot where the Smoky Mountains become the Blue Ridge Mountains.<\/p>\n
South Carolina has led the nation in attendance for the last 12 seasons. Before that, Tennessee led the nation for 11 consecutive seasons. Since 1995, Tennessee and South Carolina have led the nation in attendance every season except for two (UConn, 1996 and 2003).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those fan bases are the ones that drive tournament attendance. Greenville is about three hours from Knoxville and less than two hours from Columbia, and that is a major factor in the record-setting attendance. If you are interested in hosting the SEC Tournament, the first thing you have to do is explain how fans of the Lady Vols and Gamecocks are getting to your town.<\/p>\n
At this point, we have eliminated everyone except Birmingham, Fort Worth, Greenville, Memphis, and Oklahoma City.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fort Worth, which is hosting an NCAA Regional at Dickies Arena this year, and Oklahoma City might be acceptable for the occasion tournament, but they are much too far away from the majority of the SEC to host more than once every four or five years.<\/p>\n
That leaves Birmingham, Greenville, and Memphis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Memphis has the arena, the FedEx Forum, and a history of hosting NCAA Tournament games. Memphis doesn\u2019t have a lot of SEC ties and has hosted just three combined tournaments out of nearly 150 chances.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Legacy Arena in Birmingham was renovated about five years ago and successfully hosted the NCAA regionals last year. It\u2019s easy to get to from Knoxville and Columbia, but the home of the SEC headquarters has yet to host either the men\u2019s or women\u2019s tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That leaves \u2026 Greenville.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At this point, you are probably thinking, \u201cOf course you support Greenville, you are writing for a South Carolina site.\u201d Fair enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t on purpose. Birmingham and Memphis seem like fine hosts. And without the track record of success, I would argue that Bon Secours Wellness Arena is only a few years away from becoming outdated.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But there was one other criterion the NCAA uses in selecting host sites that also applies here: \u201cHistory of serving as host.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
That matters. I have covered events in over a dozen cities, and they are not the same. Some hosts just know what they are doing. Greenville knows how to host.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 SEC women\u2019s basketball tournament tips off Wednesday morning in Greenville, starting another memorable weekend of basketball.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,465],"class_list":{"0":"post-641288","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-womens-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116177574778059541","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}