2000 NCAA Wrestling Championships

Wrestling Championships set Attendance Record;
Region reaps $7 Million Windfall

Click on any image to begin the slide show. Photos by Dave Preston.

March 16-18, 2000 - Savvis Center

The Sports Commission took great pride in welcoming "the world’s oldest and greatest sport" to St. Louis in March 2000. That’s when the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships made their debut at Savvis Center, bringing thousands of out-of-town fans and plenty of passion and excitement to the area.

According to a study by Webster University Professor Patrick Rishe, the Wrestling Championships created $7 million in economic impact for the St. Louis region. Rishe’s study measured the direct, indirect and induced effects of spending by people visiting St. Louis for the event. Rishe also found that 92 percent of the fans attending the Championships were from out-of-town. This equates to more than 15,000 fans and participants visiting St. Louis specifically for the event — and translates into lots of new money being spent at local restaurants, hotels, retail outlets and attractions.

Hosted by the Sports Commission and the University of Missouri, the 70th NCAA Wrestling Championships not only generated significant economic dollars but also set an all-time total attendance record. 96,994 fans watched the six-session tournament won by the University of Iowa for the sixth consecutive year.

Overall, the event received rave reviews. In the April 14 edition of Amateur Wrestling News, Editor Ron Good wrote, "For this writer, (St. Louis) was one of the best overall sites ever."

AWN writer J. Carl Guymon said, "The (Savvis) Center might be the single best arena. Lambert Airport is a TWA hub, offering nonstop flights from many moderate to large airports. St. Louis has plenty of hotels within 15 minutes of the arena. And the vast bulk of fans from the wrestling-crazed Midwest and Mideast could drive it within eight hours. The vote here is to put St. Louis in the rotation as frequently as the (Savvis) Center and St. Louis Sports Commission will have us."