PORTLAND, Ore. — Eight teams, six games and thousands of fans are helping bring in big bucks to the city of Portland.
"We're thrilled with the draw," said Matt Reed, chief operating officer of Sport Oregon. "Pac-12's on fire this year."
Sport Oregon is part of the group that helped the city win the bid in 2020, the same year it was set to host the regional games that were eventually canceled when the COVID outbreak hit.
Reed said the time from then to now has flown by. "When you win the event, it's very exciting and you can kind of put it in your back pocket for the future, but it comes fast," he said.
Portland is once again hosting the NCAA women's regional tournament games, otherwise known as the Sweet 16 and Elite 8. A win-win for everyone.
"Two different brackets," Reed said. "So we'll send two different teams to the Final Four, but that's double the teams, double the impact, double the hotels, double everything."
Reed said the initial economic impact of the games for Portland will be bigger than in year’s past.
"It is close to three times the impact to what the event used to be," he said.
In 2019, the city hosted the regional games and saw Oregon beat Mississippi and make it to the Final Four. Oregon was one of four teams playing in Portland that played a total of three games.
Reed said this year, the financial impact will be more than $3 million. He added it'll be higher once it's all said and done. He said about 3,500 hotel rooms are booked but that doesn’t include the fans.
"Those hotel rooms only encapsulate teams, media, NCAA-designated officials. It does not count the fans, does not count the fan base that's coming, so the impact will be even greater," Reed said.
Women's basketball has seen a surge in viewership. Articles on MSN and Forbes said viewership increased 60% across major television networks this past season. The Forbes article said the ramped-up excitement comes from multiple schools building elite basketball programs, the impacts of Title IX and social media.
Players like Iowa's Caitlin Clark and USC's JuJu Watkins are helping draw more eyeballs as well.
"There is no doubt in my mind that Caitlin Clark has had a dramatic impact on the rise of college women's basketball. She's the generational talent that we talk about," said Jenny Nguyen, owner of The Sports Bra in Portland.
Businesses like Nguyen's in Portland are seeing the impact as well. "We're seeing crowds prior to tournament season that we haven't seen before," she said.
Taking center stage inside Moda Center will be some of the nation's best women's basketball players, like Watkins, the exciting freshman guard for USC, and Beaverton's own Cameron Brink, now a star at Stanford who is expected to be the second pick in the WNBA Draft in April.
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"It's just fun, it's just a really fun tournament," Nguyen said. "It's a really fun vibe that's surrounding all of March Madness this year and I think as sports fans and here at the Bra, we get people who have been amped for it no matter what, but I’m starting to hear it and I'm sure millions of people are starting to hear that that excitement is all over the place."