The Big South Championship is good for more than just a host school (draft)

How would you like to experience something like March Madness? With the Big South Basketball Championship coming to High Point University you’ll be able to.
Once the regular season ends, and before the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament begins, each conference holds an internal tournament to crown a conference champion. And this year, the 2024 Hercules Tires Big South Men’s & Women’s Basketball Championships will be hosted at High Point University from March 6 to 10.
This will be the first time HPU hosts this combined tournament, which will be held in the Nido and Mariana Qubein Arena on campus. According to Big South Sports, HPU was chosen based on the amenities, popularity and technological capabilities the new arena boasts.
This will be a great opportunity for the arena, as it gives HPU a chance to show off their potential and expertise in hosting larger-scale games. 
The Nido and Mariana Qubein Arena opened its doors in 2021, and since then has held two games that have been broadcasted nationally on ESPNU.
When preparing for these large-scale games, the arena staff knows how to handle them. According to Caleb Bettis, the Assistant Athletic Director of Athletic Facility and Operations at HPU, those steps include more food prep, additional security throughout the arena and additional staff operating metal detectors and ticket scanners. 
With departments like marketing, promotions and operations each having two people, HPU has had success in hosting not only these nationally broadcasted games, but in every other home game since. 
These teams that run the arena are not who you would usually find running a stadium like this. “A lot of us are younger professionals in the industry, so for us to be able to come here and operate at such a high level really, sets us apart from others in the industry,” said Bettis.
With those smaller teams, being able to host a conference tournament can help that staff  perfect how they operate a basketball game this season. Having a home-court advantage they can continue to use the same tactics to get crowds and players energized they’ve used before. According to a study from the Journal of Human Sport and Exercise, teams showed better decision-making, defense, three-point shooting rates and overall win/loss records compared to games played away.
While this tournament will be played at home for High Point, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be like every other game this season. Tickets for students will be sold at $5 with a valid student ID. This isn’t expensive compared to the standard ticket of $20, but since every other game has been free for students, it has the potential to turn some students away from the games. This can reduce the number of HPU fans in the arena either cheering for HPU or against other teams.
What the school could do is cover those costs for an allotted number of tickets and give them out to students in line to get into the stadium. Especially for HPU’s games in the tournament depending on how far they go.
Students may also buy the tickets themselves just to be able to go to the games because according to a poll by Morning Consult, the ages of 18 to 34 have the most amount of fans of college basketball, with 29% being avid fans, and 20% being casual fans. With attendance at the arena ranking in the top three in the country for the past two seasons of operation, for arenas with capacity up to 5,000 people, HPU students may be the majority of the attendees for the tournament. Giving the arena more chances to improve engagement and experiment with new ways to electrify the crowd when the team needs it most. 
With the Big South Championship only a few weeks away, the staff at the Nido and Mariana Qubein Arena will be working as hard as they can to provide the best experience not only for High Point fans, but other schools and Big South representatives in the hope to keep the tournament here at High Point University.

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