March Madness won’t be back at Ball Arena in the near future

March Madness is here, and for the second time in three years, Denver’s Ball Arena is the one of the sites for the 1st and 2nd rounds of action. The first round games in Denver starts Thursday morning, while the winners will make their way back to Ball Arena for the second round on Saturday.

The eight teams coming to Denver are: No. 3 Wisconsin, No. 4 Texas A&M, No. 5 Michigan, No. 6 VCU, No.11 BYU, No. 12 UC San Diego, No. 13 Yale and No. 14 Montana.

Denver is no stranger to hosting opening weekend. The 1st and 2nd rounds have been played in Denver in 1999 (McNichols Sports Arena), 2004, 2008, 2011, 2016, 2023, and now 2025. The city has seen many legendary moments such as Little Rock’s 2OT upset over Purdue in 2016.

GREAT MOMENTS IN CBB HISTORY: March 17, 2016

Josh Hagins hits multiple big shots down the stretch, including a deep 3 to tie with 6 seconds in regulation. Little Rock rallies to defeat Purdue 85-83 in 2OT in the NCAAT. The Trojans trailed by 14 points with 5 mins left. pic.twitter.com/uaw6O3nIdf

— Made For March (@madeformarch) November 5, 2023

With this weekend being the sixth time Ball Arena has hosted the first weekend of the tournament, it will put Ball Arena tied for 14th place for most opening weekends hosted by a single arena in the history of the tournament.

While the first two rounds are fun and have the potential for upsets, the Regional Championships (Sweet 16 and Elite 8) are where the top competition is seen in action. Ball Arena has never hosted a Regional Championship, and the city of Denver has only hosted three. McNichols Sports Arena hosted them in 1985, 1989 and 1996.

McNichols also hosted the 1990 Final Four.

The West Regional Championships were scheduled to take place in Denver in 2021, but due to the pandemic, the tournament was moved to Indianapolis. No. 1 Gonzaga, No. 5 Creighton, No. 6 USC and No.7 Oregon were the four teams that made it to the second weekend from the West Region. Good news for Denver sports fans, none of the three games played were closer than 14 points when the final buzzer sounded, no one in town missed out on any instant classics.

Out of the 20 biggest media markets in the United States, Denver is one of five markets that haven’t hosted a Regional Championship since 2000. The others are Seattle, Sacramento, Tampa-St. Petersburg and Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne.

As it stands, Denver isn’t scheduled to host March Madness in any capacity through at least 2028. One reason that can be attributed to this is the new renovations that are scheduled to take place inside arena over the next few years, as the arena will have one concourse under construction per year for the next three years in order to improve fan accommodations.

This is a subset of the overall Ball Arena expansion project, which likely won’t be done for another 25 years. If the arena renovations are completed soon, that will make the place more enticing as a host in the future as other arenas around the nation make their own respective renovations.

For the Final Four, if Denver wants any hope of hosting another one, the Broncos would need to build a new dome. The Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group have looked at various ways to improve the Broncos’ stadium, one of which is building an entirely new one.

The trend with March Madness is to host the Final Four in an NFL dome because of the ability to host more fans. While this year’s is in the Alamodome, an older venue that doesn’t host an NFL team, all the sites from 2026-2031 are home stadiums for NFL teams.

1996 was the last time the Final Four was hosted in a traditional basketball arena when it was at the Meadowlands Arena in New Jersey. Since then, it has hopped around to various football and baseball stadiums with multiple visits to the Alamodome. If the Broncos don’t build a new dome, then the Final Four — or other major sporting events — will not be in Denver.

Thursday’s action tips off from Ball Arena at 11:30 a.m. with Wisconsin taking on Montana.

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