NCAA Considering Bentonville To Host D-II Football Title Game
by October 30, 2013 9:57 am 114 views
Northwest Arkansas is on the verge of attracting a nationally televised sporting event, leading to more commercial benefits for the local economy.
The Northwest Arkansas Business Journal has learned the NCAA will announce later today that Bentonville’s Tiger Stadium is a finalist to host the NCAA Division II National Football Championship Game.
Other finalists expected to be named are Braly Municipal Stadium in Florence, Ala., and Sporting Park in Kansas City, Mo.
The Bentonville Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Great American Conference — an NCAA Division II conference headquartered in Russellville that includes 11 schools from Arkansas and Oklahoma — are behind the effort to bring the event to Northwest Arkansas.
NCAA officials are expected to tour Bentonville and further examine its bid package and financial backing in the coming weeks.
The winning bid will be announced the second week of December and host the game in 2014.
The game, televised nationally by ESPN, has been played at Braly Municipal Stadium for nearly three decades, but the city’s current four-year contract with the NCAA is up after this year’s game, scheduled Dec. 21.
The NCAA accepted bids from other host cities earlier this year.
Florence has hosted the game — which caps the Division II football playoff — every year since 1986, the second longest period that any NCAA championship has remained at one site. The only other championship that has been at the same site longer is Division I baseball, which has been played in Omaha, Neb., since 1950.
A committee in Florence formed to keep the game there said the event brings in more than $1 million to the northern Alabama economy each year.
Braly Municipal Stadium, home field for the University of North Alabama, is owned by the city of Florence. It seats 14,125, though the championship game historically draws a crowd less than half of that. The average game attendance from 1996 to 2010 was a little more than 6,700, according to the NCAA.
Sporting Park, home to Major League Soccer franchise Sporting Kansas City, seats 18,467, not counting suites and club seating, but has yet to host a football game.
Tiger Stadium, the on-campus facility at Bentonville High School, opened in 2005 and has a seating capacity of 7,000.