Minneapolis To Host Several NCAA Championships

The NCAA announced the hosts for several of the NCAA Championships for the cycle between the fall of 2018 and 2022 on Tuesday and several NCAA Championships will be making their way to the Twin Cities in the next few years.

The Gophers along with Meet Minneapolis—the Minneapolis Convention and Visitors Bureau were awarded the 2018 NCAA Volleyball Final Four, the 2020 NCAA Wrestling Championships, a 2021 Men’s Basketball Regional, and the 2021 NCAA Men’s Gymnastics Championships. The Volleyball Championships and Basketball regional will both take place at the renovated Target Center, the Wrestling Championships will take place at US Bank Stadium, and the Gymnastics Championships will be on-campus at the Sports Pavillion. These events are added to the previously announced 2018 NCAA Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships at the U of M Aquatics Center, the 2018 Men’s and Women’s Frozen Fours which will be held at the Xcel Energy Center and Ridder Arena, and the 2019 NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four at US Bank Stadium.

The Gophers will host the 2018 NCAA Volleyball Final Four at Target Center. Its the first time the event will be held in Minnesota since the Gophers hosted at Williams Arena in 1988. This could be especially good timing for the Gophers as they once again will have a National Championship contending team and could conceivably not have to leave Minneapolis on a run to a NCAA Title if they play well enough.

The 2020 NCAA Wrestling Championships will be the first ones held in a football stadium since 1997. The Gophers last hosted the event in 1996 at Williams Arena. With luck the Gopher wrestling program will continue to recover and get back to the top of the Big Ten and the NCAA by then.

Target Center will host one of the four 2021 NCAA Men’s Basketball Regionals. Minnesota last hosted a regional at the Metrodome in 2006. Other regional hosts in 2021 will be Brooklyn, Memphis and Denver.

The Gophers will host the 2021 Men’s Gymnastics National Championships at the Sports Pavilion. The Gophers last hosted the event at the Pav in 2009.

Other interesting venue announcements of note:

The NCAA Men’s Frozen Four will be headed to Buffalo, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Boston in 2019-2022. The 2018 Frozen Four is in St. Paul. Just the regional sites for 2018 and 2019 were announced. North Dakota will host the West regional the next two seasons, in Sioux Falls in 2018, and back in Fargo in 2019. Penn State will host the “Midwest” regional in Allentown, PA in both 2018 and 2019. The two eastern regionals will be in Worcester, MA and Bridgeport, CT in 2018 and Manchester, NH and Providence in 2019.

The NCAA Women’s Frozen Four will be headed out east. It was previously announced Minnesota would host at Ridder Arena in 2018, but the 2019-2022 Championships are all headed far from the traditional Midwestern power base. Hamden, CT will host in 2019, Boston in 2020, Erie, PA in 2021, and Penn State will host in University Park, PA in 2022.

The Four NCAA Men’s Basketball Regionals that will feed into the 2019 Final Four held at US Bank Stadium will be located in Kansas City, Louisville, Anaheim, and Washington DC.

A list of all the announced host sites for the NCAA Championships is HERE.