With the tip off of the 2025 NCAA Men’s Final Four just 10 days away, the City of San Antonio is once again in the throes of a pivotal transformation as it prepares to host more than 100,000 basketball fans in the heart of downtown.
While this marks San Antonio’s fifth time to host the Men’s Final Four, the city may need to undergo some bigger downtown transformations if it wants to host more in the future, speculated local organizers Elena Wells and Jenny Carnes from San Antonio Sports on this week’s episode of “bigcitysmalltown.”
Wells and Carnes discuss with podcast host Bob Rivard the impacts the gigantic sporting event have already had on the Alamo City — from sped up construction on South Alamo Street to new grass in Tower Park.
With the tournament also comes major fan events such as the three-day March Madness Music Festival, the Final Four Fan Fest inside the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, the Tip-Off Tailgate at Civic Park and the Final Four River Rally on the San Antonio River Walk.
“Not only is it the pinnacle of the college basketball world that’s coming to San Antonio, but it’s so much more for the community,” Wells told Rivard. “Downtown is going to transformed into a fan festival.”
With the city now talking about “Project Marvel,” the proposed downtown revitalization that would include the construction of a sports entertainment district complete with a new Spurs arena, the discussion turned to what may need to happen for San Antonio to secure another bid for a NCAA Men’s Final Four in the 2030s.
“Each year we’ve bid on a Final Four, we’ve made a commitment to the NCAA to make improvements to the Alamodome, which is required for the event,” Wells said. “In 2018, that investment was around expanding the concourses… The commitment that the city made to the NCAA for this Final Four was the addition, and completion of the suites, on the club level to meet the NCAA’s minimum standards.”
To hear more about the Final Four’s influence on San Antonio and vice versa, listen to the latest episode of the “bigcitysmalltown” podcast below.
Disclosure: Robert Rivard is the co-founder of the San Antonio Report.
