maxwasson Posted March 20, 2023 Share Posted March 20, 2023 In the spirit of March Madness, I've been wanting to start a project that puts the Final Four back in Kansas City, Missouri as well as some other first weekend/second weekend sites I've picked out for the 2031 NCAA Tournament. Now why am I making a concept for a tournament that's 8 years in the future? Because that's the next open/undecided year for a Final Four host, the NCAA currently has sites for the next 3 NCAA tournaments all picked out and sites for the next 7 Final Fours. 2024: Phoenix 2025: San Antonio 2026: Indianapolis 2027: Detroit 2028: Las Vegas 2029: Indianapolis 2030: North Texas Without further ado, here are all of the sites that I've picked out in this hypothetical 2031 NCAA tournament. OPENING ROUND SITES + FIRST FOUR For these opening sites, I tried to pick places that haven't hosted opening round tournament games or haven't hosted them in a while, and of course Dayton will still host those play-in games at UD Arena, and here I'll be listing off any previous (or scheduled future) times that these places have hosted opening round games. Little Rock, AR (Simmons Bank Arena) - 2008 Cincinnati, OH (Heritage Bank Center) - 1988, 1992 San Jose, CA (SAP Center) - 2010, 2013, 2019, 2026 Tampa, FL (Amalie Arena) - 19831, 2003, 2008, 2011, 20202, 2026 Washington, D.C. (Capital One Arena) - 1998, 2002, 2008, 2011, 2026 Phoenix, AZ (Footprint Center) - Never3 Boise, ID (ExtraMile Arena) - 1983, 1989, 1992, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2018, 20214 Raleigh, NC (PNC Arena) - 19515, 1952, 1969, 1977, 1979, 2004, 2008, 2014, 2016, 20216, 2025 1Tampa hosted opening round games at the Yuengling Center in 1983 2Tampa's Amalie Arena was scheduled to host opening weekend games in 2020 before the tournament was cancelled 3Phoenix's Footprint Center has hosted second weekend games in 1999, 2004, 2008, 2012 4Boise was originally scheduled to host first weekend games in 2021, before the tournament was moved to the Indiana bubble 5Raleigh's Reynolds Coliseum hosted opening weekend games in 1951, 1952, 1969, 1977, and 1979 6Raleigh was originally scheduled to host first weekend games in 2021, before the tournament was moved to the Indiana bubble REGIONAL SITES Now we move on over to regional sites, the South Region will be hosted in San Antonio's Alamodome, the Midwest Region will be in Milwaukee's Fiserv Forum, the West Region will be in Sacramento's Golden 1 Center, and the East Region will be in Pittsburgh's PPG Paints Arena Previous/scheduled future hostings: San Antonio, TX (The Alamodome) - 1997, 2001, 2003, 2007, 2011, 20221 Milwaukee, WI (Fiserv Forum) - Never2 Sacramento, CA (Golden 1 Center) - Never3 Pittsburgh, PA (PPG Paints Arena) - Never4 1San Antonio's AT&T Center hosted second weekend games in 2022 2Milwaukee has hosted opening weekend games in 1984, 1992, 1996, 1999, 2004, 2010, 2014, 2017, 2022, and 2025 3Sacramento has hosted opening weekend games in 1994, 1998, 2002, 2007, 2017, and 2023 4Pittsburgh has hosted opening weekend games in 1997, 2002, 2012, 2015, 2018, 2022, and 2024 FINAL FOUR Now we move on to the main event, the 2031 Final Four inside GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium (with a retractable roof) in Kansas City, Missouri. This concept would have Kansas City hosting its first Final Four in 43 years, it's first in Arrowhead Stadium. And it's 11th overall as Kansas City has hosted Final Fours at the old Kansas City Municipal Stadium in 1940, 1941, 1942, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1961, 1964 and one in HyVee Arena (formerly Kemper Arena) in 1988. The logo's base was a Fiver commission, although I made some major modifications to make it more "NCAA-esque", the font I used for the "Final Four" text was Authority Rounded Italic, the text used for "Kansas City 2031" was Priori Sans, and the text used on the court was Futura Display Compress Standard. FINAL FOUR COURT And here is the court I designed for the Final Four, I chose purple and yellow as a color scheme for a tribute to the royalty theme of the local sports teams in Kansas City (Royals, Chiefs, Kings formerly) This was a first attempt of mine, and I would love any sort of feedback on this. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxwasson Posted March 24, 2023 Author Share Posted March 24, 2023 Decided to go back and re-work the Final Four logo for this concept entirely, designing something more akin to the 2016/2017 Final Four logos and I did small updates to the court design as well. The font used for the year and location was Kairos Extended Bold Italic. FINAL FOUR SITE (UPDATED LOGO) FINAL FOUR COURT (UPDATED LOGO) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
officeglenn Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 With both your attempts at this, the court feels really disjointed from the logo. It's especially evident in the fonts and the use of white on the court. For it to feel like a cohesive visual package, I think you have to incorporate the same fonts from the logo into the court, and incorporate white into the court in roughly the same proportion as it's used in the logo. In the second logo attempt, don't be afraid to recolor elements like the trophy, the ball and the outlines to the shade of gold you're using elsewhere. Leaving those tones intact muddies things up. If it's purple and gold, make it purple and gold, and don't water it down with metallic/Vegas gold and orange. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxwasson Posted March 24, 2023 Author Share Posted March 24, 2023 50 minutes ago, officeglenn said: With both your attempts at this, the court feels really disjointed from the logo. It's especially evident in the fonts and the use of white on the court. For it to feel like a cohesive visual package, I think you have to incorporate the same fonts from the logo into the court, and incorporate white into the court in roughly the same proportion as it's used in the logo. In the second logo attempt, don't be afraid to recolor elements like the trophy, the ball and the outlines to the shade of gold you're using elsewhere. Leaving those tones intact muddies things up. If it's purple and gold, make it purple and gold, and don't water it down with metallic/Vegas gold and orange. I took your advice, for the second logo and have made the trophy and basketball on the logo all gold, the font on the court is now Kairos Extended Bold Italic and looks a lot more like a lot of actual recent Final Four courts. FINAL FOUR SITE (LOGO UPDATE #2) FINAL FOUR COURT (UPDATE #2) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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