March Madness returns to Birmingham with women’s Sweet 16, Elite Eight games

March Madness is in the Magic City, and the top women’s college basketball teams will be battling it out at Legacy Arena for a spot in the Final Four in Tampa, Florida.

On Thursday, college basketball fans from around the country were seen strolling throughout Birmingham, Alabama, ready to cheer for their favorite programs in the Sweet 16 and the Elite Eight games happening from Friday until Monday.

The women’s NCAA basketball tournament bracket is split into halves. Region 1 is playing in Spokane Arena in Washington, while the other half is at the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex’s Legacy Arena.

Bringing the women’s tournament to Birmingham was years in the making, Tad Snider,CEO of the BJCC, said. Back in 2018, he placed the bid to the NCAA to host the games this year as part of the deal that also brought the men’s tournament to Legacy Arena in 2023. This weekend’s games mark the first time the city has hosted women’s tournament games since 2001.

Snider said this was around the same time the BJCC partnered with the City of Birmingham and Jefferson County to invest in upgrades to Legacy Arena to the 50-year-old arena. Several of the upgrades include an updated sound system, scoreboard, additional locker-rooms, coaches offices and suites. It was a coincidence that the NCAA’s window for bidding opened that same year.

“We even had to provide the NCAA construction updates during the time the building was being improved, leading up to 2023,” Snider said.

Fans in Birmingham will get to watch storied programs in action, starting with No. 3 seed University of North Carolina playing in-state rival No. 2 seed Duke University at 1:30 pm CT. That game will be followed by No. 1 seed University of South Carolina, the reigning national champions, taking on No. 4 seed University of Maryland at 4:00 pm CT.

Session 2 of the Sweet 16 will be Saturday, March 29. No. 3 seed Notre Dame goes head-to-head with No. 2 seed Texas Christian University at noon, followed by No. 5 seed Tennessee facing No. 1 seed Texas at 2:30 p.m. CT.

The popularity of women’s college basketball has spiked in recent years with stars like former Iowa guard Caitlin Clark and University of Southern California guard JuJu Watkins drawing in large crowds. With the increased interest in women’s college basketball, Snider believes the city and the BJCC will see a big return on their investment.

“We saw, back in 2023, the economic impact of the men’s tournament was right around $14 million. I would expect this to be pretty similar,” he said. “Bringing people into Birmingham who might not otherwise have visited before and … having them leave and talk about their Birmingham experience to their peers and friends and family wherever they’re from — that’s a huge advantage in terms of promoting our destination.”

This story was produced by the Gulf States Newsroom, a collaboration between Mississippi Public Broadcasting, WBHM in Alabama, WWNO and WRKF in Louisiana and NPR.