GLENDALE — Making the Final Four this season would have delivered the Arizona Wildcats and their fans some pretty obvious benefits.
But the reverse may not have been true. At least in an economic sense, the Final Four at State Farm Stadium could be better off without them this weekend.
Jay Parry, the CEO of the Phoenix Local Organizing Committee, says “we would have loved to see the Wildcats” make it, potentially adding an irresistible dash of local flavor to the event — a team located just 120 miles away making its first Final Four in 23 years.
Yet, the Final Four is still expecting sold-out games at the Arizona Cardinals’ stadium, still has attractive national storylines and still is expected to have an economic impact that Parry says should be even greater than the $325 million estimated from its first Phoenix-area appearance in 2017.
Arizona Wildcats guard Caleb Love (2) hops in frustration after getting called for a foul defending against Alabama forward Jarin Stevenson (15) in the first half of the Wildcats’ victory over the Crimson Tide in Phoenix on Dec. 20. This week, while Arizona is at home in Tucson, its Alabama making a return trip to the Valley of the Sun — this time to appear in the Final Four in Glendale.
SWAC commissioner Charles McClelland, chair of this season’s NCAA tournament committee, told the Star in February that most of the event’s tickets had already been sold without anybody knowing what teams would show up.
Purdue center Zach Edey (15) shoots over Arizona's Oumar Ballo (11) and Pelle Larsson in the second half of the Boilermakers' 92-84 win over the then-No. 1 Wildcats on Dec. 16 in Indianapolis. A pseudo-home game for Purdue that afternoon, the Boilermakers traveled near the Wildcats' turf this week to appear in the Final Four in Glendale, about 120 miles up the road from the UA campus.
“I think there will be an extra level of excitement if Arizona is in but from a Final Four perspective, it’s a global event,” McClelland said then. “Our fans come not just from within the United States, but also we have international fans. It’s not necessarily 100% predicated on who’s in the Final Four and where that region is.”
What’s more, if the Wildcats had attracted their own fans to State Farm Stadium, a lot of them would have been commuting from the Phoenix or Tucson areas and probably not dumping thousands of dollars into the tourism economy.
The ASU research team that has come up with economic impact reports for the state’s major sports events — such as the College Football Playoff, Cactus League and Super Bowl — didn’t count responses from in-state fans during its 2017 estimate in order to estimate outside impact.
Based on surveys they conducted during the event in 2017, the first time the Final Four had been held in Arizona, ASU’s researchers estimated 59,761 out-of-state fans spent an average of $487 per day over 4.16 average nights, equaling $121 million in direct spending that didn’t include airfare.
Purdue center Zach Edey is closed in on by assembled media Thursday in Glendale, ahead of Saturday's national semifinal matchups pitting his Boilermakers against N.C. State and defending champion UConn against Alabama.
ASU estimated total visitor and media spend at $137 million, then added organizational spending and ran the numbers through a model estimating total impact, eventually coming up with the total impact of $325 million.
That compared with ASU-generated estimates of $719 million for the 2015 Super Bowl, $419 million for the 2023 Cactus League season and $273 for the 2016 college football championship game.
But that CFP title game, coincidentally, just happened to feature Alabama beating Clemson 45-40 to claim the national title.
This year, Alabama reached the Phoenix area by beating Clemson 89-82 in men’s basketball to reach its first Final Four ever, putting away the team that had just beaten Arizona 77-72 to make sure the Wildcats didn’t get a sniff at the Final Four.
So there are Final Four storylines. That’s just one of them.
Each competitor has them. There’s Team Redemption (No. 1 seed Purdue, which lost to a No. 16 seed last season as a No. 1 seed then), Team Bully (UConn, which has won all four of its NCAA Tournament games by double digits and is 10-1 all-time in Final Four games) and Team Underdog (North Carolina State, which had to go on a five-game romp to win the ACC tournament just to get invited to the dance).
“We’re probably a little different than everybody else that’s here,” N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts said Thursday during his podium interview at State Farm Stadium. “But I love the way our team’s playing. I don’t know that anybody has ever had nine elimination games to make it to the Final Four.”
The Wolfpack, their basketball history in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and engaging center DJ Burns have the types of stories that help pull in fans and viewers from all over.
While N.C. State hasn’t been to the Final Four since 1983, when it won the national championship under coach Jim Valvano, Purdue hasn’t been since 1980. That’s another reason for fans to show up or tune in, though Parry said it’s difficult to measure exactly whose fan base will show up the most this weekend.
“We have qualitiative conversations,” she said. “Even around Purdue, there’s this incredibly rabid fan base. I had multiple people contact me that I didn’t even know went to Purdue, and they said `We can’t wait to come to Arizona and your Final Four. We’re so excited to be back in it.’ ”
At the same time, Parry has met some of those “global” types of fans. While attending last season’s Final Four in Houston, she said she happened to be sitting next to a fan from Phoenix.
“He said, `We do an annual trip, the guys come from wherever they live, and we’ve been doing for 15 years — and I can’t wait for it to be in Phoenix next year,’ “ Parry said. “They were less team-focused and more event-focused.”
But if someday the Wildcats draw team-focused fans up Interstate 10 for a future Final Four at State Farm Stadium, Parry won’t be complaining, either.
She said if that happened, the economic impact study simply would be altered to at least survey Tucson-based fans to see what they are spending.
“We wanted to see what their visitations would have been, because it was a question mark,” Parry said. “Hope springs eternal that it will happen in the future.”
