Wednesday, December 11, 2013

NCAA Championships Coming to Sporting Park and Swope

The NCAA announced today the cites for upcoming championship series throughout the US. A number of those events will be taking place at around KC. Fourteen events in all will be hosted in KC between 2014 and 2017. Of that, 13 of the events will be hosted at Sporting KC facilities.
The Swope Soccer Village in Swope Park will be hosting eight championships over the four years, starting next year. In 2014 the NCAA Division III men's and women's championships will be hosted at Swope. Then in 2015, 2016, and 2017, the NCAA Division II men's and women's championships will be hosted there. Those events all take place the first weekend in September (Dec 5-6 in 14, Dec 4-5 in 15, Dec 1-3 in 16, and Nov 30-Dec 2 in 17)
Sporting Park will be hosting five events over the next four years. The big one for soccer fans comes in 2015, when Sporting Park will be hosting the NCAA Division I men's championships. The championship will take place December 11th through the 13th. While that one is probably the most exciting, the other events are not going to be seen as exciting for some soccer fans. Sporting Park will be hosting the NCAA Division II football final for the next 4 years, 2014-2017.
I can already hear the comments "football at Sporting Park? Football lines on a soccer field? ANGRY!!!" A couple things, first the final is after the MLS season is over (unless they switch to a winter schedule). The final is Dec 20th in 2014, the 19th in 2015, the 17th in 2016, and the 16th in 2017. So even if Sporting makes MLS Cup the season should be over. The other issue is the lines still showing up the next year. I've seen early season games in both DC and Dallas that have had faint football lines on the field. That's certainly a minor concern, but one that I think Sporting would do their best to make sure it wasn't not an issue.
The final event being hosted in KC is the women's volleyball championship in 2017 at the Sprint Center.

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