St. Louis is one of 10 cities that have submitted a bid to host a Final Four between 2012 and 2016.



The Edward Jones Dome was the site of the 2005 championship, won by North Carolina over Illinois. St. Louis also held Final Fours in 1973 and 1978.



Other cities that have submitted bids: Atlanta, Arlington, Tex., Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Phoenix and San Antonio.



If Arlington’s bid wins, the Final Four would be played in the new Dallas Cowboys stadium.



The list will be trimmed to an unspecified number in August and the winning bids will be announced in May.



The next three Final Fours are set for Detroit, Indianapolis and Houston.



Kansas City will play host to the first- and second-round games at Sprint Center in March.



Bidding cities and facility



Atlanta, Georgia Dome



Arlington, Texas, Dallas Cowboys Stadium



Detroit, Ford Field



Houston, Reliant Stadium



Indianapolis, Lucas Oil Field



Minneapolis, HHH Metrodome



New Orleans, Louisiana Superdome



Phoenix, University of Phoenix Stadium



San Antonio, Alamodome



St. Louis, Edward Jones Dome

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/colleg ... 70506.html

NOT THE ED !



it sure would be nice if they would put aside the big venues and make it really a hot ticket by picking something like "the Shay" at SLU ..



nothing like watching a bunch of ant size guys running around after a ball I can't even see from 100+ yards away!

everyone has an opinion, we differ.



I'm sure many people are happy to be at the final 4 but many can't see sh*t and are fine with that others I'm sure leave a bit bitter as it's REALLY hard to get a feel for how cllose to the court you are given they have these in such HUGe venues..especially for the out of towners who may have never been in the 75,000 seat ED.

The Final Four ceased to be about seeing the game on-site many, many years ago.

Doug wrote:Let's have it at that ugly POS SLU Arena. Every time I drive by I hope Ed Boxxx would come back from the grave and make it more aesthetically pleasing.

Looks fine to me. Damn nice on the inside too.



I'm hoping we can get into the regular rotation for Final Fours - it would be great to host one here every few years.

Doug wrote:Let's have it at that ugly POS SLU Arena. Every time I drive by I hope Ed Boxxx would come back from the grave and make it more aesthetically pleasing.

speaking of POS,

I thought it was established that the demise of Boxx was exaggerated.

DeBaliviere wrote:

dweebe wrote:EDIT: I thought there was talk of making Indianapolis the permanent (or semi permanent) home to the Final Four? One possibility was alternating between Indy and other cities.

I think Indy is guaranteed to get it every five years, with other cities competing for the other years.

I did read an article that said Indy is the backup city of the Mens and Womens Final Four should a disaster or terrorist attack occur on the host city.

Doug wrote:Let's have it at that ugly POS SLU Arena. Every time I drive by I hope Ed Boxxx would come back from the grave and make it more aesthetically pleasing.

That's just weird!





I've been tourney games at both Scottrate and EJ dome. I thought the dome only had a basketball capacity of 45-50k. Maybe it's different for the final four games than for the sweet 16 games. I can't wait for it to come back!

Moorlander wrote:I've been tourney games at both Scottrate and EJ dome. I thought the dome only had a basketball capacity of 45-50k. Maybe it's different for the final four games than for the sweet 16 games. I can't wait for it to come back!

They have different ways of configuring the dome for b-ball, maybe that's what you're thinking of.



I saw UK play Miami-Ohio and Michigan State play Oklahoma at the dome about 10 years ago, and they had a curtain pulled across part of the stadium, which limited the number of seats. They used the same arrangement when SLU played Mizzou, Illinois and K-State back in the late 90s.

DeBaliviere wrote:
I saw UK play Miami-Ohio and Michigan State play Oklahoma at the dome about 10 years ago, and they had a curtain pulled across part of the stadium, which limited the number of seats.

I was there too! That was the game with the big Najera collision.

Moorlander wrote:I was there too! That was the game with the big Najera collision.

I could feel it all the way from my seats in the upper deck!

^

No, you're right - for the Final Four, they used the whole dome. I was referring to the SLU-Illini game at the dome in the 90s.

We have the Women's FF coming here next year.

Is one of the complaints that Chaifetz is too small?



I haven't been in Chaifetz, but honestly how big an arena does SLU need? They're not exactly the University of Kentucky when it comes to attendance.

Capacity at Cameron, BTW, is a perpetual subject of debate at Duke. Some think the roof needs to be raised or some architectural do-si-do, and the upper deck expanded to go to 12K or 13K, and others, including those in charge, I think, have realized that the supply is at the exact right spot to create maximal revenue from Iron Duke donations. "Stadium level" (required donation before you by the ticket) keeps going up. I think when I was a Ugrad, it was only $3K per seat. By the season after the 2001 natl championship, it was $5K, and by the time I got my PhD it was $6K and I think it may be up to $7K per seat now. To get ACC tourney tix is something like $15K per season ticket seat. These donations wouldn't be so high if there was a supply of like 12K or 15K season tickets instead of about 6K. (The kids, the grad/prof students, family tickets, and what have you take up most of the lower bowl).



One of the biggest problems with BB is that it's got all these low- and medium-interest noncon games early in the season, and even during conference season, you're dealing with crap like 9pm Wed timeslots. A lot of schools have technical sellouts all the time, but half the seats empty for half the games.



Wake Forest is sort of the cautionary example for Duke or any other small school. They built a nice (in 1988 or whenever it was) new arena that hold close to 15K and they're an even smaller school that Duke. Guess how many Carolina fans fill their seats when UNC goes to Winston. A buttload.