March Madness is again in OKC, however new services could develop NCAA choices

• Oklahoma City is optimistic about its probabilities to host future NCAA championship occasions.
• The metropolis could have three new services to supply in its subsequent bid cycle for 2028-2031 occasions.
• These new venues might appeal to quite a lot of NCAA championships, together with basketball, wrestling, and soccer.

Even although Adam Wisniewski has heaps on his to-do listing with the NCAA Tournament again on the town, the vp of sports activities improvement for Visit OKC nonetheless has time to be excited.

“Excited to be on the world stage,” he stated, “and to have Oklahoma City on the baseline.”

But Wisniewski is stoked about greater than the present good vibes. 

Hosting first- and second-round video games within the males’s basketball event for the primary time in a decade has Wisniewski and others fascinated about when Oklahoma City can get the NCAA to return. Oh, it brings softball right here each June with the Women’s College World Series, which is not any small factor, however what about basketball and wrestling, volleyball and gymnastics, soccer and area hockey?

We need these sports activities, too, and sadly, when the NCAA awarded the championship occasions for 2026-28, Oklahoma City acquired shut out. It occurs. It’s even occurred to OKC. That doesn’t make it any simpler.

But the NCAA’s subsequent bid cycle for 2028-31 occasions opens later this 12 months, and Wisniewski is pumped about OKC’s probabilities.

“I think this is the most exciting bid cycle that we’ve been a part of,” he stated.

More: Oklahoma State wins three titles, finishes second at NCAA wrestling championships

Why?

“It’s going to be super exciting to be entering an NCAA portal with brand new facilities.”

Yes, services.

Plural.

Oklahoma City could have a brand new downtown area, a brand new downtown multi-purpose stadium and a brand new mid-sized coliseum to make use of in its bid for NCAA occasions. Having one new facility is massive, however three of them?

That’s not solely unprecedented in OKC’s historical past, however it very properly can also be a primary for any metropolis bidding for NCAA occasions.

“I think that the NCAA will be very excited to consider brand-new state-of-the-art facilities,” Wisniewski stated.

The NCAA has proven an attraction to new services.

Then once more, who doesn’t like shiny issues?

OKC could have lots to attract the NCAA’s eye.

More: Oklahoma State ladies’s basketball outlasts Princeton to advance in March Madness

That begins with the brand new downtown area, which will likely be house to the Thunder and is anticipated to open late in the summertime of 2028. It will likely be engaging for males’s basketball regionals, in fact, and possibly much more than first- and second-round video games. It might be the positioning for a regional remaining.

The similar goes for ladies’s basketball. 

But that’s hardly the top of the NCAA occasions that the brand new area might host. Wrestling. Women’s gymnastics. Ice hockey, each males’s and girls’s. Volleyball, each males’s and girls’s. And in these sports activities, the world can be appropriate for the championships.

How cool would it not be to have the wrestling championships again?

Or host ladies’s gymnastics for the primary time?

Or have a Frozen Four?

The new multi-purpose stadium, which will likely be house to Oklahoma City’s revitalized however yet-to-be-renamed skilled soccer franchise, will present distinctive alternatives for town, too. 

“We’ve never had a true multi-purpose stadium at our disposal before,” Wisniewski stated. “So there’s a lot of sports that could potentially consider Oklahoma City that never have in the past.”

Such as soccer. And area hockey. And lacrosse.

Also a risk: Division II and Division III soccer.

More: OU ladies’s gymnastics loses SEC title by slimmest margin, eyes NCAA repeat

Then, there’s OG&E Coliseum. Of the three new services, it’s the one which’s already open, and it performed to largely rave opinions the previous few weeks as Oklahoma highschool wrestling and basketball held championships there for the primary time. The seating capability isn’t big — 4,500 everlasting seats with a capability that jumps to almost 7,500 with non permanent seats and such — however that might be good for all kinds of NCAA championships.

Men’s gymnastics. Fencing. DII and DIII wrestling. DII and DIII volleyball. 

Wisniewski admits he doesn’t know what sports activities the NCAA may be all in favour of placing the place, however the way in which the method works, Oklahoma City can bid for yearly in no matter sports activities it deems doable. 

“You don’t have to pick and choose which years you want to put your name in the hat,” Wisniewski stated. “So we plan on being aggressive, and we plan on making the NCAA tell us no. 

“We aren’t going to withhold possibilities for ourselves. That’s not the plan.”

With an unprecedented scenario comes unprecedented prospects.

“From just a pure sports perspective,” Wisniewski stated, “we’re looking at it from every angle and considering all the possibilities.”

And whereas OKC’s standing as the house of the Women’s College World Series could be a hang-up amongst some at NCAA HQ — why give Oklahoma City extra championship occasions when it has one yearly? — Wisniewski believes all of that could be a plus. An asset. A power.

He remembers, for example, when the NCAA began speaking about logistics for this week’s first- and second-round video games and the eight groups that will be concerned. All of them would wish transportation from the airport. And lodge rooms. And apply house. And all kinds of different issues.

“And we look at the NCAA and we say, ‘We do that every year in June,’” Wisniewski stated. “So we’re comfortable with this. What might be overwhelming or new for a lot of communities, we’re capable of doing. So I think that will be a strength.”

More: Oklahoma State wrestling’s Sergio Vega captures 141-pound title at NCAA Championships

He believes Oklahoma City’s standing as a championship sports activities vacation spot will assist, too. Yes, we have now the WCWS, however we’re additionally house to the reigning NBA champion and would be the website for 2 sports activities throughout the 2028 Summer Olympics.

If OKC is sweet sufficient for all of that and it’ll have three new services by which to play, why wouldn’t it’s ok for all kinds of NCAA championships?

“The No. 1 criteria for the NCAA when choosing destinations is thinking about the athlete experience and how can they provide the most premium athlete experience for those kids,” Wisniewski stated. “So I think that definitely plays in our favor as we consider Oklahoma City having these brand new facilities with the bells and whistles, very clean, very sleek and very impressive.”

No surprise Wisniewski is worked up about this bid cycle. 

Anyone who loves sports activities in OKC needs to be.

Heck, anybody who loves what sports activities imply to OKC needs to be. These are services that had been accepted by voters and constructed with taxpayer {dollars}. We ought to wish to max them out.

Show them off, too.

It’s enjoyable to think about what is feasible, regardless that the bid cycle doesn’t open till later this 12 months and the NCAA gained’t announce the championship websites till the primary few months of 2027.

“I’ll be happier when I see the final bids and which cities are announced,” Wisniewski stated with a chuckle.

Still … 

“We’re excited about the possibilities.”

Jenni Carlson: Jenni may be reached at jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at fb.com/JenniCarlsonOK, comply with her at @jennicarlsonok.bsky.social and twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok, and help her work and that of different Oklahoman journalists by buying a digital subscription in the present day.