Complete NCAA site selection announcement
THE FLATS – Georgia Tech will be the host institution for two upcoming NCAA Championship events, a 2025 men’s basketball regional and the 2026 swimming and diving championships, the association announced Wednesday. The NCAA announced a large number of site selections for its championship events to take place from the 2022-23 academic year through 2025-26.
State Farm Arena will be the site one of the four NCAA men’s basketball regionals in 2025, which Tech will host in conjunction with the Atlanta Sports Council. It will be just the third NCAA basketball championship event ever held in the downtown Atlanta arena. The 2026 NCAA men’s and women’s swimming and diving championships will be conducted at the McAuley Aquatics Center on the Georgia Tech campus for the third time.
State Farm Arena has hosted the 2018 NCAA Men’s South Regional and the 2013 NCAA Division II and III Men’s Championship games, as well as the 2012 Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament. In all, Atlanta has hosted 24 NCAA basketball events, including the Men’s Final Four in 1977, 2002, 2007 and 2013, and the Women’s Final Four in 1993 and 2003. The 2020 Men’s Final Four was set to be played at Mercedes-Benz Stadium before the championship was cancelled due to COVID-19.
The McAuley Aquatics Center, built to host the 1996 Olympic Games, has hosted the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships in 2006 and 2016.
This is the third time for this specific NCAA championship bid process, which created the largest host site announcement ever, spanning 86 championships across a four-year cycle. Previously, selection announcements varied by sport. This process now gives the NCAA and host sites more time to plan each championship experience.
Bidding for 86 of 90 NCAA championships began in August 2019 and more than 3,000 bid applications were ultimately submitted. Each sport committee, per division, selected the host sites it believed would provide the ultimate experience for the respective student-athletes, resulting in more than 450 total championship event sites being awarded. More than 54,000 student-athletes compete in NCAA championships each year. The four championships not included in the process due to preexisting site arrangements are: Division I baseball, Division I football, Division I softball and Division III women’s ice hockey.
Alexander-Tharpe Fund
The Alexander-Tharpe Fund is the fundraising arm of Georgia Tech athletics, providing scholarship, operations and facilities support for Georgia Tech’s 400-plus student-athletes. Be a part of developing Georgia Tech’s Everyday Champions and helping the Yellow Jackets compete for championships at the highest levels of college athletics by supporting the A-T Fund’s Annual Athletic Scholarship Fund, which directly provides scholarships for Georgia Tech student-athletes, and the Support The Swarm Fund, created to give fans an opportunity to help Georgia Tech athletics maintain its recent momentum through the financial challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic! To learn more about supporting the Yellow Jackets, visit atfund.org.
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