SAN ANTONIO – Basketball fans flooded stores throughout downtown to buy the Final Four T-shirts, caps and key rings. They stopped by the Alamo during the day, took city bus tours and boat rides on the river.
By night, they spilled onto the sidewalks outside the bars and restaurants lining the city's famous pedestrian-friendly River Walk.
A year from now, an estimated 60,000 fans from out of town — and more from the Twin Cities — are expected to flow into Minneapolis when it hosts the Final Four and all of its hoopla.
It's a smaller event than the Super Bowl, which claimed more than 100,000 visitors, bigger than the last Minnesota Final Four in 2001 and most of all, easier for fans who don't have big bucks to feel like they're welcome in on the action.
For the fans, the experience was up close and personal in San Antonio. The four teams' hotels hoisted their school flags and wrapped the walls with big Vs, Ms, Jayhawks and the maroon-and-gold of Loyola-Chicago. Larger-than-life images of players went up on glass doors and in lobbies. The team hotels became magnets for fans, their lobbies gathering spots for autograph and selfie-seekers as the squads came and went.
Coaches and athletes lingered, accepting hugs, congratulations and words of appreciation. Unlike the Super Bowl, the Final Four doesn't come with a barrage of corporate activations or ultra-exclusive events. It's mostly out there for everyone.
"I didn't see one SUV with black-tinted windows," Minneapolis Final Four organizing committee CEO Kate Mortenson joked of her weekend in south Texas. A few of them were around town, but not like the squadrons of black behemoths that roll in for the NFL event.
This year's Final Four concludes Monday night at the Alamodome with the game between Michigan and Villanova, the teams having vanquished, respectively, Loyola-Chicago and Kansas on Saturday. As more than 68,000 college basketball fans watched the games Saturday evening, the NCAA's free music festival featuring final act Maroon 5 pushed to capacity for a second consecutive night less than a mile down the road.