After 14 years on the bench, Providence will be in college basketball’s starting lineup once again.
The NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee has announced that the Dunkin’ Donuts Center will serve as one of the sites for first- and second-round games of the 2010 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, the event commonly referred to as March Madness. Those games, set for March 18 to 21, will mark the tournament’s first return to Rhode Island since 1996.
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Rhode Island officials at the announcement credited the winning proposal – and the confidence to even put in a bid – to the state’s decision to purchase the Dunk from the City of Providence and renovate it.
In 2005, the state bought the arena for $28.5 million and began upgrading the 34-year-old facility. Expected to be completed by 2008, the $62 million makeover includes 20 luxury boxes, an expanded lobby, refurbished locker rooms, a new digital scoreboard and a walkway connecting the arena to the Rhode Island Convention Center.
Gov. Donald L. Carcieri called the NCAA announcement a “capstone” of the state’s efforts.
R.I. Convention Center Authority Chairman David A. Duffy said the tournament is the type of event the quasi-public agency was looking to attract when it decided to purchase the arena.
The state, the city and local industries also are banking on the event’s having a major economic impact. When the tournament last came to Providence in 1996, it poured about $10 million into the local economy. Quantifying the financial impact of the 2010 event is impossible, Duffy said, but it is expected to be substantially more impressive.
“While we can’t predict what that figure will be four years from now,” he said, “we do know that it will be very significant, as March Madness had grown in spectacular fashion.”
Martha Sheridan, the new president and CEO of the Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau, said that for the teams alone, 3,600 hotel rooms will be booked in 13 hotels across the state. Basketball fans will also take up a substantial number of rooms in Providence and surrounding areas during the rounds’ duration.
But Sheridan said the event will have an impact far beyond the brief time the competitors spend in the city. Like the U.S. Women’s Open – the golf tournament that brought nearly 100,000 people to Newport this month, and pumped an estimated $20 million into the local economy – the NCAA tournament will showcase the community, encouraging visitors and television viewers to visit the state.
“This event will once again position Providence and Rhode Island in the national limelight,” Sheridan said.
The tournament also will put another entity in the spotlight – Providence College. As the host school for the tournament, P.C. has a chance to improve its standing as a nationally recognized basketball college, said the college president, the Rev. Brian J. Shanley.
The 2010 tournament will be the school’s 10th time as host for such an event. In addition to 1996 and 1989, when it hosted the NCAA first- and second-round tournament games, it hosted the East Regionals in 1975, 1978 and 1985.
Father Shanley – crediting state officials, for having the vision to purchase the Dunkin’ Donuts Center – said this month’s announcement would probably not have been made without the renovations to the facility.
“I see this as the beginning of a renewed partnership with the city and the Convention Center Authority,” he said.
It was not announced what cities Providence had competed against to host the games, though officials at the news conference said they were in substantially larger markets.
The NCAA did announce that other first- and second-round games in 2010 will be played in Boise, Idaho; Buffalo, N.Y.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Milwaukee; New Orleans; Oklahoma City; and San Jose, Calif.
