Lucas Oil Stadium getting ready for NCAA men’s basketball tournament
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — In just a matter of days, Lucas Oil Stadium will be ready for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and the start of March Madness.
The Division I men’s basketball tournament, all 67 games of it, will be played entirely in or near Indianapolis due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In a stadium that can seat more than 70,000, the NCAA will allow up to 25% capacity because of the coronavirus. The director of Lucas Oil Stadium, Eric Neuburger says two courts will be set up, which will allow time to clean between games.
“The team at Lucas Oil Stadium is thrilled to be hosting this,” Neuburger said Thursday. “Our staff has been waiting for a long time to have the opportunity to put on an event at this scale.”
The stadium has been hosting events during the coronavirus pandemic since July.
“We’re going to operate like two distinct venues, and so you will see a curtain that separates the two courts along the 50-yard line as well as other ways that we separate the concourses throughout the venue,” Neuburger said.
He added that the basketball courts will arrive in a just a few days, which will give the venue a new look. Crews have covered the football field with hard, plastic flooring to prepare it for the basketball courts. “It will really pop and there will be some color in here,” Neuburger said. “There will be some carpet in here and, of course, we’ll have the basketball court and basketball goals and that will really change the look of the entire venue.”
He says it’ll take take a lot of manpower to make the transformation and bring fans a memorable experience while staying safe.
“There will be a cast of thousands who will be putting together all the smallest details to the center-hung displays that everybody can see,” Neuburger said. “We have the benefit of having a staff that came over from the Hoosier Dome and the RCA Dome before this venue was built.”
“There’s a lot of institutional knowledge from hosting Final Fours in those venues as early as 1991.”
The venue hosted the Final Four in 2010 and 2015 and is scheduled to host it in 2026.
At the games, fans will find contactless food ordering. Fans will be seated 6 feet apart from people outside their household or bubble.
The March Madness games, all of them at venues in Indianapolis, Bloomington and West Lafayette, will start March 18. Teams will be chosen on Selection Sunday, set for 6 p.m. March 14.
Indiana State Department of Health on Thursday reported 26 more COVID-19 deaths, for a total of 12,065.