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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S MEDIA DAYOctober 22, 2013Charlotte AndersonBob BowlsbyKANSAS CITY, MISSOURI THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by two very special people to conclude this morning's news conference. Up here we have Charlotte Anderson, who is the vice president of the Dallas Cowboys, who will be co‑hosting with the Big 12 in April, the NCAA Final Four Tournament, and the Commissioner of the Big 12, Bob Bowlsby. We're going to start with Commissioner Bowlsby, and we'll let Charlotte make a comment or two. COMMISSIONER BOWLSBY: Thank you. Appreciate y'all being here for Media Day. Obviously we're in the eighth week of football season, but we're also getting started for what will be another exciting basketball season, and that basketball season will culminate in the greatest sports venue in the world, AT&T Stadium. And we have really enjoyed the collaboration with the Cowboys, and under Charlotte's leadership and we really feel like north Texas has embraced this Final Four. It truly will be a Dallas‑Fort Worth and truly north Texas hosted event. We are going to have events all over the Metroplex. It's a terrific place to get in and out of from a transportation standpoint. There are a lot of fun things that are going to go on during the course of the weekend. Obviously, as the Commissioner of the Big 12, I believe we have some teams with the capability to be playing when the Final Four commences in Dallas. So we are excited about the basketball season from the Big 12 standpoint, but we're particularly excited to be a part of the conclusion of the season, which is the month of March, I think is among the greatest sporting periods that we enjoy during the course of the year. I've had an up‑close and personal experience with the Basketball Committee and the management of the tournament, and now I'm seeing an entirely different element of how that process works, that being the view from the local organizing committee. So very excited to be starting the basketball season. Very hopeful that we'll have teams playing when the Final Four is configured, and very enthusiastically engaged with our co‑hosts, the Cowboys and all of the many people that are involved in their organization. So let me stop there and turn it over to Charlotte, then both of us can field your questions. CHARLOTTE ANDERSON: Thank you, Bob. It's an honor to be up here on the stage with you. We're certainly excited in north Texas to host the Final Four in April. It seems like just yesterday in 2007 when we were putting our name in the hat to be selected. It just kind of slams you in the face when you wake up and go, oh, we're five months away from really playing basketball. We are so excited about that. I know that the season for you all kicks off right here in north Texas for us November 8, and then will also end in north Texas. That is an exciting thing for us. It's been since 1986 when we held our first and last Final Four, and we hope to set us on the road to host many more in the future. Our regional last year was very successful. It was a great dry run for us in north Texas and AT&T Stadium to see how the game actually fit in our building. Our region is so excited for everyone to come our way. Our hotels, restaurants, and all the entertainment and events that are being scheduled, the people are excited. They love basketball, they love college sports, and they are ready to embrace this with everything that Southern hospitality is all about. So I can't say enough about the Big 12. Obviously, Bob has an incredible staff that works together to make this happen in Tim Allen, John Underwood, Rob Carolla, all of those people that have come together to show us how to put on a great college tournament, and we hope that you all will find it enjoyable as well. So we look forward to the next few months in preparing, and we're ready to play some basketball. Q. Why was it important and where would you put getting events all over the Metroplex in order of importance for this event? CHARLOTTE ANDERSON: In terms of where they're actually placed? Q. Why was it important to get it spread out over Metroplex? CHARLOTTE ANDERSON: I think it's important for us, for north Texas, that we are about bringing large events into that region. We obviously have incredible capacity from a hotel standpoint to be able to accommodate the numbers of people that we hope will show up. We think we're going to have a really big crowd. We're expecting over 80,000 people in attendance. That is incredible. That's great for us to be able to use the events for those who don't have a ticket to the game and spread that out over the Metroplex to attend clinics, basketball clinics as well as concerts and other events that will take place. So I think the Final Four, the NCAA has done a great job in selecting venues, and we're excited to be able to host them. Q. You may have just answered my question. 80,000, is that going to be the capacity for this? Because we know there have been crowds of 100,000 in that structure. CHARLOTTE ANDERSON: We have the capacity to host over 80,000, and that's been distributed already through the NCAA channels. We hope that we can open that capacity beyond that for standing room. That is being under consideration by the NCAA at this point. We know that we'll have a pretty packed venue, and we hope that we can get as many people that want to come in the venue itself. Q. Can you share your thoughts since the Organizing Committee is in place how much discussion there's been now that the NCAA has opened this up for future Final Fours? COMMISSIONER BOWLSBY: We are, as a conference‑‑ and I respond not on behalf of north Texas, but on behalf of the Big 12, we are very energetically engaged in hosting championships. We have been for a long time. This is the tenth basketball‑related championship that the Big 12 has hosted in our 17 years. So we've been very energetically engaged. That includes, as Charlotte said, the regional last year, which is a typical model when the Final Four is coming up. But we are also mindful that we can get ourselves spread a little bit too thin. So we have worked with our members and our league and with the local organizing committees and the various locales, north Texas, Oklahoma City, to name a couple, where we've said we're going to try to keep ourselves to hosting or being a co‑host on only one National Championship event a year. So we're going to have to sequence a little bit from that standpoint. These really are taxing on our staff. Charlotte mentioned Tim Allen and John Underwood and Rob Carolla. They'll be spending an enormous amount of their time on this tournament as we go forward. More of their time than I will be spending. But we're very committed to hosting those events. I've been involved in the bid process for a very wide variety in a whole bunch of different sports. I think as we go forward, we'll continue to be called upon to be hosts and/or co‑hosts. So we're planning to stay just as much involved as we have been in the past. CHARLOTTE ANDERSON: I think from our standpoint at AT&T Stadium, we'll host you anytime you want to come. And, as Bob said, they actually do all the work. So we're fortunate that I in an unbiased thought here is that the Big 12 hosts this tournament better than anybody. We have all the confidence in the world that when we sign up to partner with them, that we know it's going to be done in the right way. So our job as a venue is to open the doors and let them do all the work. But we have a great region that is very supportive, and north Texas is very supportive. Our cities are, our mayors are, and the people of north Texas are very supportive. So for us, we're clearly interested in being part of this tournament for years to come, and we hope we get the opportunity to do so. Q. Looking back to last year's regionals, what were the takeaways and key lessons that you had that will be applied to the Final Four? CHARLOTTE ANDERSON: From our standpoint, it truly was a great opportunity for us to see the venue in action from AT&T Stadium standpoint. To be able to have the seating configuration installed, to see how it works, to see how the flow of traffic and people and everything actually evolves is very important. We think that was very successful. We know we have the capacity as a venue to host 80‑plus thousand people because we do it every Sunday when we bring people in for the Cowboys game. So we know from a traffic standpoint, from logistics, that we are prepared to do that.  We think that our areas between Dallas and Fort Worth and Arlington and everywhere in between, they are prepared and ready to put this tournament on. I think being able to see it at that level gives us all the opportunity to go back and make any tweaks or adjustments. But from our standpoint, things were very successful from the regional point of view. We think that was really kind of the case throughout the whole event. So we don't see us being able to‑‑ having to tweak really much of anything, just be ready to expand it. COMMISSIONER BOWLSBY: I think the venue has a really remarkable thing that, at that time it was Cowboy Stadium, now AT&T Stadium, was how good the set‑up looked there. It really looked like it was built for that set‑up. The color of the seats even matched. It was a wonderful place to watch a basketball tournament. In all frankness, I'm not the guy to answer that question. Tim Allen is here and can much better answer the tactical and logistical questions than I can. Also, here is Joe Castiglione, who is the Director of Athletics at Oklahoma, but also a member of the Men's Basketball Committee. I'm sure the committee has had some discussions as to the elements that they might want to change. But I will say this: Charlotte has very modestly presented how AT&T Stadium is going to host this. But, as you know, she comes from a long line of big thinkers. I have no hesitation in suggesting that this will be the best Final Four ever. Q. Charlotte, can you talk about‑‑ I understand that a big art display is there with the mirrors outside the stadium. Can you discuss how much the esthetics are important for those who attend events at AT&T Stadium? CHARLOTTE ANDERSON: I think we have prided ourselves upon building a venue that is unique. For us, that means what can you offer to the patrons of your event that is above and beyond what they might experience someplace else. And for that, it's all about fan engagement at every level and every event that we host. So not only do you want the experience of getting there, but once you're there, the service and how people are treated, you want them to feel important. But you also want to be able to offer something that is unique, and I think we've been able to do that with the addition of the art collection that you mentioned. It really gives a chance for people to think beyond the world of sport. It also gives a chance for people to come to the venue that might not be sports fans, to come see what we have to offer, but also be able to appreciate the sport that they're attending as well. We think it's a great way to cross‑connect different cultures, different beliefs, and bring them all into one place and let them experience something that they wouldn't likely see anyplace else. Q. Obviously Bob set the bar pretty high by saying it could be the best Final Four ever. From your standpoint, in addition to the stadium, how do you go about, I guess, working with the NCAA but at the same time putting your own imprint on this Final Four so it's distinctly north Texas? CHARLOTTE ANDERSON: I think that is the key right there. We're trying to differentiate us from other hosting cities, and what we are as a community. I think that starts not only with the games themselves‑‑ obviously, we focused on that to make sure that those are run at a top‑notch level and have an experience that's unique‑‑ but we extend that out into the community as well and want to reach as many people as we possibly can and engage them in the community so they feel like they're part of the Final Four process. As you know, with the Final Four, there are great events that surf round that. Between the concert series that goes on that's for free, between the Big Dribble and Bracket Town, and to be able to take those events to another level, if you will, to put our touch on it from a north Texas flair, and to be able to do things that are a little bit more unique. From a concert series standpoint, obviously the NCAA has done a great job in growing that. We expect to see that grow right here in April as well. And beyond that on how we reach out to the community. I know we're partnering now with the NCAA in a great program called SLANT that was originally developed for Super Bowl. We really believed in creating a legacy that is, once the game has left the community, what have they left behind? We prided ourselves upon that during our Super Bowl that we hosted, and we've really taken initiative in that direction to do so with the Final Four as well. As we all know, everyone can't fit in the building. So we want to make sure we give everyone in the community a chance to be a part of it. So the NCAA sees that value as well, how many people can they reach on any given weekend to make more people aware of their sport and more about the good the sport actually brings to the community. Q. You had mentioned earlier about the differences between being on the Selection Committee and dealing now with an Organizing Committee. Can you be more specific about those differences as you see it? COMMISSIONER BOWLSBY: Yeah, I had to do a lot of work on the Selection Committee. So far they've given me no real responsibilities, the local organizing committee, except doing a few public appearances with Charlotte, which is always a pleasure. CHARLOTTE ANDERSON: That's a pretty modest comment, I think. Q. Dallas did hold it in '86, but the last time this conference's predecessor held it was in 1988 and two of its teams played for the National Championship. If that doesn't happen this year, how disappointed will you be? COMMISSIONER BOWLSBY: Well, it's certainly a high standard to live up to. I do think, though, that we have some teams that can play at that level, and time will tell. It's a long time until March. I would not be at all surprised if we had somebody playing in that final two or in the Final Four. It may be a little much to ask to have two of our teams playing in the championship game. But I think that would be okay with all of us. CHARLOTTE ANDERSON:  I think we'd all like that. THE MODERATOR: You all did such a good job that you answered everything in the first part. Thank you very much for joining us. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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