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NCAA tournament brings basketball fans to Oakland
March Madness arrived in Oakland on Tuesday night as the first wave of basketball fans poured into town for NCAA regional final games Thursday and Saturday -- a premier sporting event that could pump as much as $25 million into the Bay Area economy.
Tourism officials expect the "Sweet Sixteen" and "Elite Eight" tournament games to draw at least 15,000 basketball fans from all over the nation. As a result, the regional economy should get a short-lived but significant boost as fans of Bradley, Gonzaga, Memphis and UCLA stay at hotels, eat at restaurants and spend money on entertainment.
"Pretty much everyone agrees this is going to be a big boost to the economy," said Manette Belliveau, executive director of the Oakland Convention and Visitors Bureau. "We expect all the hotels will fill up and all the res-taurants and entertainment venues will be very busy starting (Wednesday)."
Hotels in the East Bay and on the Peninsula began welcoming the first of the tournament crowd Tuesday night, tourism officials said.
The Sweet Sixteen round begins Thursday with Memphis (32-3) taking on Bradley (22-10) and then Gonzaga (29-3) versus UCLA (29- 6). The winners will take the court against each other Saturday for a chance to reach the Final Four in Indianapolis.
Tickets sold out months ago for the three games at the 19,000- seat Oakland Arena. Some seats were sold to Bay Area residents, but several thousand additional out-of-towners are expected to show up without tickets to enjoy the camaraderie with other fans and take part in other tournament activities.
Basketball fans can get a free sneak peak at the teams during four practices beginning at noon today at the Arena. But that's about the only thing connected to the tournament that doesn't cost anything.
"In the world of sports, the NCAA tournament is fairly prestigious -- so this means big business for Oakland and the surrounding cities," said Zennie Abraham, chief executive officer of Oakland-based Sports Business Simulations, a sports management consulting firm. Abraham said the tournament will bring in a total of $25 million to local economies, based on estimates of several days of expenses for 15,000 visitors, and valuable publicity for host Oakland. Just the mere mention of Oakland on national television is worth as much as $5,000 a pop, Abraham said.
"Every time someone hears 'Oakland' they think of our city," said Abraham, who once led a drive to try to bring football's Super Bowl to Oakland. He estimates a 30-second commercial during the NCAA regional finals would cost about $250,000.
But local officials declined to say how much money they expect the regional finals to generate. Oakland tourism officials will be more willing to talk about the economic impact after the tournament, once the agency completes a survey of businesses, Belliveau said.
"Everybody wants to know the magic number, but we don't want to put out something that isn't accurate," she said.
Arthur Fleisher, a sports economist at Metropolitan State College of Denver, said the actual economic impact of sporting events often falls short of expectations anyway.
"Most economists find that the impacts of things like the NCAA tournament and the Super Bowl are overestimated," he said. "The people who put out these estimates have an incentive to kind of inflate the numbers.
"The actual economic impact can be less than one-tenth of the estimates."
It's difficult to nail down a figure because not everyone agrees on the value of the publicity and, in Oakland's case, because many of the visitors are likely to stay and shop in other nearby cities. San Francisco, with its vast network of hotels and shopping districts, might emerge as the real winner, Abraham said.
"It's a Bay Area benefit, not just Oakland," Abraham said. "Most people will stay in San Francisco and even San Mateo" because Oakland alone does not have enough hotel rooms to accommodate everyone.
Many people may be waiting until the last minute to check in, as hotels all over the Bay Area -- even by the airport and the Arena -- still had rooms available Tuesday.
The nearly 500-room City Center Marriott, one of Oakland's premier downtown hotels, also had vacant rooms late in the afternoon. A sales manager couldn't be reached for comment.
Business Writer Matthew Bunk can be reached at 510-208-6468 or mbunk@angnewspapers.com.
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