Kansas City becomes college event destination for all seasons

These days, Kansas City goes after national sporting events from a position of strength.

The Sprint Center, Power & Light District, National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame — none of it existed the last time Kansas City pushed for NCAA championships.

Now, anything seems possible, at least judging by the bidding targets.

Kansas City is gunning not only for the women’s Final Four and NCAA wrestling championships — events it has held in the previous decade — but also the Frozen Four, ice hockey’s national championship.

Talk about swagger. The closest college ice hockey program to Kansas City is Nebraska-Omaha, about 180 miles away. But the confidence is brimming.

“If you look back on the bid cycles where we didn’t get events, the mantra was always the same: ‘We like your locale, we know you can pull it off as a host city, but…’ ” said Cindy Smith, director of national events for the Kansas City Sports Commission.

But there were shortcomings. Kemper Arena didn’t measure up to the newer facilities in other cities, and the downtown area for fans wasn’t happening.

All of that has changed.

“Now, there’s a buzz about Kansas City,” Smith said.

The local schools and conferences already have taken advantage.

Kansas City is coming off a school year in which more than 360,000 fans attended a college championship event or regular-season game relocated to the area.

•The return of the Big 12 men’s and women’s basketball championships brought 137,444 through the turnstiles at the Sprint Center and Municipal Auditorium.

•The Missouri-Kansas football game drew the second-largest crowd in the history of Arrowhead Stadium at 80,537.

•The NAIA men’s basketball championship attracted 36,030, and the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association hoop events added nearly 10,000 more.

But it was more than that.

In 2007-08, Kansas, Kansas State and Missouri men’s basketball teams all played to full or nearly full houses at the Sprint Center. It was the Wildcats’ first regular-season game in Kansas City since 1991.

The MIAA became a conference for all seasons in Kansas City, adding its baseball tournament at CommunityAmerica Ballpark, following the annual Northwest Missouri State-Pittsburg State football showdown at Arrowhead and the basketball tournaments.

No crowd at Columbia or Lawrence to see Missouri or Kansas play baseball this season was larger than the 3,847 who saw them meet at Kauffman Stadium.

The success of these events is allowing Kansas City to move boldly.

“There are plenty of cities that want these events,” Smith said. “We feel we can compete with any of them.”

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Even without all restaurants and shops open for the March basketball tournaments at the Sprint Center and Municipal Auditorium, the Power & Light District proved wildly popular for fans, and Rick Hughes didn’t need an economic study to see the impact.

“Having people concentrated in that area, between key venues, really helped us lift money easily,” said Hughes, president and CEO of the Kansas City Convention & Visitors Bureau. “We liked that.”

College fans are going to swipe credit cards and pay tourist taxes somewhere. Why not Kansas City?

“The feedback we received from the schools was very positive,” Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe said. “There were some issues. The entertainment district wasn’t up and running entirely, but what they did have was tremendous for our fans’ experience.”

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To reach Blair Kerkhoff, college sports reporter for The Star, send e-mail to bkerkhoff@kcstar.com