ASU will not be playing in this weekends Final Four, but Arizona State will still play a major role behind the scenes as the Final Four Host School.
Most people are unaware of what a tournament host school does, other than their logo usually gets put on things like the court, programs, or signage. But the manpower and hours ASU will provide to put on the Final Four is truly amazing.
“It’s unbelievable, it takes an incredible amount of teamwork,” Doug Tammaro, the Director of Media Relations for ASU Men’s Basketball and a member of the Final Four Communications Committee, said, “For example, myself just from media services, I have to have a team of about 60 volunteers to run the stats, to do the quotes, moderate, just different things.”
Aside from the media work, it is also ASU’s responsibility as the host institution to provide the facilities and training staff.
“A lot of our trainers and equipment people are assisting in various ways,” Tammaro said, “drug testing, locker rooms, and laundry.”
ASU does have experience hosting NCAA Tournament events; most recently they hosted the 2012 West Regional at Talking Stick Resort Arena, (formerly US Airways Center).
“That’s a different animal because it’s a regional . . . for the regional, I don’t do as much as I would at the regional with regards to credentialing and seating,” Tammaro said, “the NCAA handles that at the Final Four, but I don’t have to get 60 volunteers for a regional, you can get by with about 25.”
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For one, it’s going from an 18,000-seat stadium to a capacity of over 70,000, and the Final Four adds so many non-basketball related events to turn it into the spectacle it has become.
“It’s an unbelievably overwhelming task to try and host it, it’s made even more difficult by the fact we’re hosting it in a place that’s 40 miles away . . . there’s a lot of miles going to be put on cars,” Tammaro said.
Arizona State athletics employees will have to put their normal day-to-day work aside as they draw all of their attention to making sure the Final Four runs as smooth as possible.
They do all of that with no real reward, other than helping the NCAA, and giving themselves a great reputation to possibly host future events
“ASU just gets out of it, that we can put on a good show, it does take away from the normal job, over the next two weeks a lot of us won’t be able to perform our normal expectations, but you figure out a way to do it,” Tammaro said, “If you work in athletics, your final goal isn’t to make a million dollars for most of us, so you’re used to working a lot and not being compensated directly.”
They are instead compensated indirectly through advertising. Their logo will be associated with the Final Four on a grand platform for tourists to see as they are doing activities throughout Phoenix and for a national audience to see on TV.
“It’s free advertising, the Mayor’s thrilled with you, the president’s office is thrilled with you, the Governor is thrilled with you,” Tammaro said, “all these people are happy your doing it.”
Om the local level, when fans from all over the country flock to Phoenix, volunteers will be ready to assist them in all aspects of the of the Final Four weekend.
“We have about 3,200 volunteers throughout the community that help with transportation, with our sustainability efforts, with operations, with information centers, greeters, helping out at music fest,” said Stephanie Jarvis, the Vice President and COO of the Local Organizing Committee, “pretty much helping with everything we do, we need volunteers for.”
The volunteers help put on some of the biggest events of the year, including the music festival and fan fest, things the NCAA does at every Final Four venue
“We pretty much are the go-between, we work on behalf of the NCAA to host the tournament here,” Jarvis said, “we’re really helping to implement and execute their vision.”
As part of that go between the local organizing committee receives help from ASU students to collaborate in some of the more social aspects of the weekend.
“We partner with ASU and they provide us a lot of help, whether its students, or some of their classes have done marketing projects for us, we’ve partnered with the law school on a couple of initiatives,” Jarvis said.
All of this work that both the Arizona State athletic department and local organizing committee are working for is the tourist boom that will hit the Phoenix metro area this weekend.
“We hoping for an economic impact similar to the College Football Playoff from last year,” Jarvis said, “Because the Final Four hasn’t been here before, it’s hard to guess what the economic impact will be.”
From the work that both groups are doing, the people that own businesses and work in Phoenix should receive a positive economic impact.
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“I think the people that benefit the most are the hotels, the restaurants, the city tourism,” Tammaro said, “those are the people that get the most out of it, because they’re making money.”
So while the Final Four may be entertaining and go off without a hitch this upcoming weekend, there is a lot of work that goes into it that ensures a smooth weekend.