Albany women's regional a hot ticket
Sellout expected for NCAA games at MVP Arena
When MVP Arena hosted the NCAA women’s basketball regional in past years, having the University of Connecticut powerhouse and its passionate fan base come to Albany seemed like a necessity to sell tickets.
Now it’s more of a luxury with MVP Arena getting ready to welcome an eightteam “super regional” from March 29 to April 1 and interest in women’s college basketball at an all-time high.
There are already between 8,600 and 10,000 tickets sold for each of the four days, according to MVP Arena general manager Bob Belber, before the NCAA field is announced March 17.
“I think women’s basketball in general, people want to go and see, and I think that’s elevated greatly from where it was even just a couple of years ago,” Belber said.
The NCAA women’s selection committee didn’t even project Uconn, which won the most recent of its 11 national titles in 2016, in the Albany field during its Top-16 seed reveal last week. The Huskies were put in the Portland, Ore. regional, though that was a snapshot and not necessarily what will be announced on March 17.
Who was projected in the Albany regional? Topranked South Carolina, defending national champion LSU and Iowa, starring guard Caitlin Clark, who recently became the career scoring leader in Division I basketball, men or women.
With Clark as the main attraction, the Big Ten women’s tournament held in Minneapolis has sold out for the first time ever. The Ohio State-iowa game last Sunday averaged more viewers on FOX than the Boston Celtics’ victory over the Golden State Warriors on ABC.
“It’s a really exciting time,” Ualbany women’s head coach Colleen Mullen said. “Listen, if Iowa gets the Albany region, it’s going to be sold out in about a minute. Those tickets are going to be so expensive ... It’ll be really great for the community, super-great for the Albany region and then even better for us. Everybody in the community getting excited about women’s basketball and that’s only going to help more attention to our program.”
Belber said he thinks the women’s regional will sell out for the first time in Albany even if Clark and Iowa are sent to Portland instead.
“Because of the popularity of women’s basketball and because of what I see currently in the way of advance ticket sales,” said Belber, who added Albany is outselling the other regional at Portland’s Moda Center. “We’re already ahead of where we ended up after the tournament was over the last time we hosted it.”
Albany drew a combined 17,883 over two days when it last hosted the women’s regional in 2019. The 2018 event sold 20,180 total over two days and the first one in 2015 attracted a combined 15,945. All three years featured Uconn, just a two-hour drive away.
To generate more interest, the NCAA changed the women’s tournament format since it last appeared in Albany and the regional consisted of four teams. This year, after the first two rounds are played on campus sites, MVP Arena will host two regionals, labeled Albany I and Albany II.
There will be two Sweet 16 games each on Friday, March 29 and Saturday, March 30. There are 9,825 tickets sold for the Saturday session, the most of the four days. There’s one Elite Eight contest on Sunday, March 31 and another Monday, April 1 to determine two teams that will go to the Final Four in Cleveland.
“The collective efforts of everybody involved are very much appreciated by the NCAA,” Belber said. “We just submitted bids for future years for ‘26, ‘27, ‘28 in women’s basketball, men’s basketball and ice hockey. We’re going to do everything we can to make sure we are a first-class market, first-class building and that we have first-class fans in hopes that this is one of the best championships that we’ll ever host and hopefully it’ll mean they award us future championships in the next bid cycle.”