The NCAA announced Wednesday evening that due to the coronavirus, it will be limiting all men’s and women’s basketball tournaments in March to “family members and essential personnel,” meaning fans will not be in the stands for those games.
Fort Wayne is set to host both the Men’s Division III championship and the Women’s Division I regional rounds at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum, the latter for the first time in the city’s history. But due to the status of COVID-19 as a pandemic, the NCAA will take the unprecedented step of playing games in front of empty crowds.
The announcement coincidentally came at the same time as a low-risk COVID-19 encounter at the Home & Garden Show is said to have taken place on February 27.
Coliseum vice president and general manager Randy Brown says while he understands the reasons are necessary, he’s disappointed -- more for the student athletes than anything.
“Half the excitement is the crowd, more than half. Taking the guest experience away reduces some of the experience for the student athlete," Brown said. "We want it to be memorable for the kids, and it may be memorable for a different reason now.”
So what about other sporting events, like the Fort Wayne Mad Ants or Komets? Brown says it’s up to the leagues to make that decision and that the Coliseum, legally, cannot “close” unless a government entity decides that’s necessary.
Allen County’s health department -- in addition with the state’s -- would be the entities involved in that decision. Health commissioner Deb McMahan says that decision isn’t being made yet -- but stakeholders will meet Thursday and discuss the situation for future events in an evidence-based way.
“We understand the implications, from the kid playing his first NCAA game to the economic impact on Visit Fort Wayne and our hotels, we get all that… but this is a pandemic," McMahan said.
“So we need to weigh all of that carefully and then we need to make a decision. And it will be a thoughtful, measured decision, but it will be based on science at the end of the day, and the well-being of the citizens of Allen County,” she added.
Brown says the tournament gamess will go on as planned at the Coliseum, and that he and stakeholders like Visit Fort Wayne remain committed to ensuring the tournament is still special for everyone involved.
“We’re going to make sure that it’s safe for those student athletes, for those coaches, the managers, all those things. I won’t say that this has made it easier; in some ways this may make things more challenging,” he said.
He added that while the Coliseum always had rigorous cleaning practices, those have stepped up even more, and more hand sanitizer is being made available at the venue.
The men's D3 Final Four and championship games are scheduled for March 20-21; the women's D1 regional games are scheduled for March 27-30.
