{"id":140148,"date":"2026-03-17T00:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T00:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/140148\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T00:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T00:57:08","slug":"philadelphia-prepares-to-host-opening-rounds-of-ncaa-tournament-at-xfinity-mobile-arena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/140148\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia prepares to host opening rounds of NCAA tournament at Xfinity Mobile Arena"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Philadelphia is gearing up for a packed sports weekend as the first two rounds of the NCAA men&#8217;s basketball tournament tip off in South Philadelphia.<\/p>\n<p>With a freshly installed court and all games already sold out, the city is preparing for a surge of fans and national attention.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>More than 60,000 fans are expected to pass through the Xfinity Mobile Arena on Friday and Saturday, including an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 visiting fans<br \/>representing the eight college teams competing.<\/p>\n<p>The games being played on Friday in Philadelphia include the following:<\/p>\n<p>No. 3 Virginia vs. No. 14 Wright State on Friday, March 20, at 1:50 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>No. 6 Tennessee vs. the winner of No. 11 Miami (Ohio) and No. 11 SMU on Friday, March 20, at 4:25 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>No. 7 UCLA vs. No. 10 UCF on Friday, March 20 at 7:25 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>No. 2 UConn vs. No. 15 Furman on Friday, March 20, at 10 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>This year marks the 29th time Philadelphia has hosted NCAA tournament games, dating back to 1939 when the Palestra held the city&#8217;s first event.<\/p>\n<p>READ MORE | <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/articles\/march-madness-penn-villanova-lehigh-113415313.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:March Madness: Penn, Villanova, Lehigh, Princeton earn spots in NCAA tournament;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;March Madness&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">March Madness: Penn, Villanova, Lehigh, Princeton earn spots in NCAA tournament<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Let the madness begin! Four schools in the Delaware Valley will have teams competing in the 2026 NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Larry Needle, executive director of PHL Sports, said Philadelphia leaned heavily on its experience with major events when pitching to host again.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is the first of just an incredible slate of events for Philadelphia this year, and I&#8217;d venture to say that maybe no other city has hosted a four-month stretch like this one,&#8221; Needle said. &#8220;When you look at March Madness, PGA championships, World Cup, and the MLB All-Star Game, it&#8217;s something we should all be incredibly proud of.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This tournament weekend serves as the unofficial tipoff to a major run of high-profile sporting events headed to the city over the next four months, positioning Philadelphia as a central hub for both national and international competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Philadelphia is gearing up for a packed sports weekend as the first two rounds of the NCAA men&#8217;s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[11242,69,71,70,645],"class_list":["post-140148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-ncaa","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-south-philadelphia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}