GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – In recent years, ticket sales have pushed 40,000 for the WIAA Girls State Basketball Championship.
Officials hope that mark will finally be surpassed in 2017.
Greater Green Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau President/CEO Brad Toll believes it’s a realistic possibility since there are multiple area teams amongst the 20 that will compete for state championships between Thursday and Saturday.
The girls’ high school basketball playoffs began last month, and the field has been narrowed to four teams in each of the state’s five divisions.
The three-day event used to be held in Madison but in 2013, the WIAA began hosting the girls’ finals at Green Bay’s Resch Center.
WIAA Associate Director Deb Hauser feels they’ve found the perfect home for the state playoff, calling it an “intimate venue” with seats close to the playing floor. She says that is particularly important for girls’ basketball since they, moreso than boys, “play off emotion.”
Hauser says one new element of this year’s finals is an off-the-court competition between the remaining schools.
In each of the five divisions, the team that sells the most presale tickets will receive a $2,000 check for its school.
While basketball fans in Northeast Wisconsin get to have the live action in their backyard, Toll says they’re not the only ones who benefit from the tournament being in Titletown.
He says local businesses typically thrive from the increased tourism.
Over the past four years, Toll says those who travel to Green Bay for the event have spent an average of $2,500,000 and have filled roughly 2,300 hotel rooms.
