After hosting four NCAA Final Fours in 10 years, San Antonio came away empty handed at the Final Four bid cycle in 2008. Citing concerns over the Alamodome as an aging facility, NCAA officials chose to move in other directions for the 2012-2016 championship games. When the 2014 bid cycle came around, however, San Antonio was back with a better bid than ever before.
The NCAA Selection Committee was greeted by the Bring It! River Rally as more than 400 people welcomed the committee during their river barge tour of the area. The warm reception, as well as new plans for renovation of the Alamodome, left the NCAA remembering why so many of their past championships had been successfully hosted in San Antonio.
On November 14, 2014, after more than a year of planning, meetings, facility diagrams, renderings, bid books and presentations, the NCAA announced that San Antonio had been chosen to host the 2018 Men’s Final Four. After disappointment in the previous bid cycle, San Antonio could rejoice knowing the Final Four would return to the Alamodome for the sixth time, and first since 2010.