Can Pittsburgh Handle A Final Four?
By Scott Robertson

It's been a long time since Pittsburgh called itself the "City of Champions," what with the last professional sports championship coming to town almost a decade ago.

It apparently will be even longer before Pittsburgh can claim the title of "Sports Mecca of the World." That's the title the Atlanta Mayor-elect Shirley Franklin bestowed on her city during a sideline interview with ESPN's Michele Tafoya during the network's broadcast of the Dec. 31 Peach Bowl game.

Tafoya said at the time that other cities might take issue with Franklin's claim. Pittsburgh cannot take issue with that claim and, in fact, few cities can.

Since 1996 alone, Atlanta has hosted (or will host soon) more major sporting events than any city in the world. Since 1996, the city has played host to the Summer Olympics, the Super Bowl, the Atlantic Coast Conference men's basketball tournament, the Southeastern Conference men's basketball tournament, six SEC championship football games, six Peach Bowls and the Sweet 16 of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. At the end of this month, Atlanta will host the NCAA Final Four, putting a cap on March Madness for 2002. The city also is scheduled to host the Final Four again in 2007 and is on schedule to host another Super Bowl around that time.

"They've really brought millions of dollars into the city with all this stuff," said Paul Hank, a former Pittsburgh resident now living in Atlanta. "I can't see anything negative about it. You just have to look at what they've done with development around where the Georgia Dome is. There have been millions put into that area with the Dome and the Olympic Park. "Somebody's doing something right down here."

In No Position

Pittsburgh currently is not in position to duplicate that effort. Duquesne University, through the leadership of athletic director Brian Colleary, will host the NCAA men's regional (first and second rounds) at Mellon Arena March 15 and 17. Tickets for the games have been sold out since June. "The big hurdle to hosting an event like this is getting it in the first place," said Colleary, who headed Duquesne's effort to host the 1997 men's regional and the 2000 women's regional final. "It's a very competitive market. You've got new arenas in Washington, Boston, Buffalo and Philadelphia, but you're really bidding against 20 or 30 other cities. Once you get it, you've got to work closely with the NCAA to make sure everything goes smoothly."

Hosting the regionals is about the peak for Pittsburgh, as far as the NCAA is concerned. The city simply does not have the facilities to allow it to host a Final Four, and while there has been idle talk, from time to time, about hosting other major sporting events, Pittsburgh lacks the infrastructure to pull it off.

"We don't have enough seats to host a Final Four," Colleary said. "The NCAA will make exceptions, but they generally want an arena that will hold at least 25,000. We don't have that."

The proposed new arena for the Penguins would not fill the bill, either. They are looking at an arena with capacity in the range of 18,000 to 20,000.

"When we are looking for a Final Four site, the first requirement is an arena with a minimum capacity of 30,000," said Jim Marchiony, media coordinator for the NCAA men's basketball tournament. "We also are looking for sites with very accessible airports that run a lot of flights in and out daily. We're also looking for 9,000 to 10,000 hotel rooms of good quality that are a reasonable distance from the arena."

Pittsburgh can get close on those counts. Pittsburgh International Airport meets the needs of the NCAA and any other sporting bodies that might seek to plant an event here. However, there are only 3,350 hotel rooms downtown (within a one-mile radius of the new convention center), according to the Pittsburgh Convention and Visitors Bureau. There are 13,000 hotel rooms in what the bureau describes as the Metro area. The bureau would play a key role in hosting any major event that might make it to Pittsburgh.

Marchiony said another key is the establishment of a good infrastructure of people to help coordinate events.

"There has to be a good convention and visitors' bureau, a good sports council—we need to know we have people there who have the skills and passion to help coordinate the event," Marchiony said.

Colleary and his staff at Duquesne fit that bill. The Duquesne AD submitted his first bid to host the regionals in 1994 and was awarded the 1997 tournament. He and his staff learned from the experience and are putting that knowledge into their preparations for this year's event.

"When I first got here (in 1993), I thought Pittsburgh was a natural place to hold something like this," he said. "I couldn't believe it hadn't been here before. We gave it a shot then and it worked. We sold out the games and we had a good experience. I'm sure the NCAA kept that in mind when they awarded the bids for this year."

Everyone Benefits

Colleary said Duquesne benefits greatly from the event, and he expects the city does, too. He said Duquesne expects to net about $300,000 from the event for its efforts. That money will be used to put in new offices for head men's basketball coach Danny Nee, as well as to make other improvements.

"What something like this does is give us, and the city, some exposure," Colleary said. "I don't think it helps us win games, but CBS and ESPN will be televising the games and showing the highlights, and you'll see the Duquesne name on the floor the whole time. That provides a recognition factor that you can't put a price on, especially when you consider that advertisers are going to be paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for 30-second spots on TV during the games."

Steve Orsini has seen that value first hand. He is senior associate athletic director at Georgia Tech and is coordinating the school's effort to host this year's Final Four. The former Notre Dame fullback said one of the keys to the success of the event lies in the investment, both financially and in other areas, that Atlanta has made to sports events.

"The city has invested in the convention and visitors' business," Orsini said. "We've got the world's busiest airport, and that's important as far as transporting people in and out of the city. There are a large number of hotel rooms here to accommodate visitors. From a sports standpoint, we've got the facility to host these kinds of events in the Georgia Dome. The city really looks at these events as things that will boost the economies not only of Atlanta, but of Georgia as well."

A Big Deal

The Georgia Dome seats around 72,000 at full capacity, but will be reconfigured to seat about 52,000 for the Final Four. Capacity was designed at about 30,000 for the SEC men's basketball championship and was at 40,000 for the ACC tournament last year. Two large video screens already are in place to help fans track the action, and a third is to be installed in time for the Final Four.

Orsini said Atlanta's interest in such events is evidenced by the large number who volunteered to work in some capacity surrounding the Final Four. He said Georgia Tech already has lined up 1,600 volunteers, so many that the school had to stop taking applications for volunteer spots That amount of help has aided the effort to host the event, although there have been a number of hurdles. The biggest, Orsini said, is security, especially in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"Security is a big issue," he said. "We are meeting regularly with personnel form the airport to see what we need to do to make sure everything is secure. Security and safety are priorities and security will be high at the airport and at the venue. We want to make sure people are secure, but we want to ensure they are comfortable and having an enjoyable time, too."

Most expect to be having a good time when the ball goes up March 30 in the first of the two national semifinals. By that time, most of Orsini's work will be through and Atlanta will be in the midst of hosting another major event.

"We've done most of the planning," he said. "By that time, it will be a matter of executing the plans. We've been meeting regularly with a team of supervisors and we feel pretty confident.

"I think these are good things for the city. You have to put together a real good team of people around you, and Atlanta now has a lot of experience with that. Between the convention and visitors bureau, the Georgia Dome, local business people buying ticket packages, the (Atlanta Final Four) organizing committee, the hotels and everybody, a lot of legwork has been done. It takes a lot of work, and everyone being a team player. That's what we've had here, and that's why we think we will be successful."