The women’s NCAA basketball championship will be held on six teams at five places in the San Antonio area from March 21 to April 4, it was announced Friday. All 63 matches of this 64-team event will be televised from the ESPN family of programs and accessible around the ESPN Program. No decision has been made yet about enthusiast attendance.
All subsequent games are going to be in San Antonio.
The Alamodome had been scheduled since the 2021 Women’s Final Four sponsor, but with all the COVID-19 pandemic, the whole event was transferred to that region for security reasons. COVID-19 testing will occur through the event, along with the NCAA will utilize the San Antonio Metro Health department on accepted medical protocols.
“Much like the 2020-21 year, we understand that the championship will have its own challenges, but we believe we have the essential construction and safeguards in place to guarantee an excellent student-athlete championship encounter,” Division I women’s basketball board seat Nina King said in a statement. “We feel sure that one geographical region lets us concentrate on the possible advantages of conducting specific security steps in a controlled environment with both practice and competition places, health resources and accommodation for both officials and teams within close proximity.”
The initial round is March 21-22. The matches in San Antonio will be held in the Alamodome (that will have two associates ), Bill Greehey Arena in St. Mary’s University and also UTSA Convocation Center. Games at Austin will be in the University of Texas’ Frank Erwin Center, and matches in San Marcos will be in Texas State’s Strahan Arena.
At the next round, March 23-24, all matches are going to be in the three San Antonio places. Following that, all games are going to be in the Alamodome. The Alamodome is going to be reconfigured for only 1 courtroom for the Final Four.
The NCAA championship field is going to be shown on Choice Monday, March 15 (ESPN/ESPN Program, 7 p.m. ET). Team traveling parties will have a maximum of 34 individuals, and each team is going to be put in hotels in San Antonio’s Bexar County along with other Tier 1-tested people.
Practices for many teams will be at San Antonio at the Alamodome’s two courts and the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, which may hold nine teams.
“We love the historic importance of transferring the whole championship to a single area and need to acknowledge the work by the women’s basketball staff and committee, our hosts, neighborhood organizers, and ESPN who has enabled us to create plans to get a successful 2021 championship,” Lynn Holzman, NCAA vice president of women’s basketball,” said in a statement. “We are blessed to be working with San Antonio, which includes one of the very seasoned local organizing committees in the nation.”