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Spokane gets ready to welcome basketball fans ahead of NCAA tournament

In the hours since Selection Sunday, hotels in Spokane have been scrambling to get people booked for rooms, including the incoming teams.

SPOKANE, Wash — With the change of a TV graphic on Selection Sunday, Spokane found out which teams are coming to the Inland Northwest or the first-round of the NCAA basketball tournament. 

But, now that people know who's coming, more work begins to get the Spokane Arena and the Lilac City ready, as Spokane Public Facilities District CEO Stephanie Curran knows all too well.

"Their fans travel here, they stay in our hotels, they eat in our restaurants, they go out to our bars, they spend money here, and then they go home,” Curran said. 

In the hours since Selection Sunday, hotels spent time scrambling to get people booked for rooms. Some of them will also play host for the incoming teams, including the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Spokane. 

Hotel director of sales and marketing Matt Jensen said one of the biggest challenges for them was the last-minute nature of finding out who's playing here.

"Because we just found out on Sunday who's coming and Tuesday, a lot of them are arriving," Jensen said. "So, it's like we have literally one day to turn all this information around, get the team meals ready, welcome the band and cheer and all of the, you know, supporters.”

Jensen said as of Monday afternoon, the Doubletree had about 25 to 30 rooms still available for 
Wednesday and Thursday, but he expects those to go quickly.

Of course, with people going to the NCAA games on Friday and Sunday, traffic and parking could be a challenge.

Curran noted there are over 2,000 parking spots at the arena, as well as multiple surrounding parking lots. She also hopes it'll be less of an issue in the future.

“We are working with a traffic consultant right now to figure out the best way to manage the traffic that when we do have a lot of events here,” she said.

Tickets for the first-round NCAA games at the Spokane Arena are still sold out. However, Curran said they expect some to become available as competing teams release back the allotted tickets they don’t use.

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