{"id":146045,"date":"2026-03-23T15:53:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T15:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/146045\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T15:53:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T15:53:07","slug":"march-madness-opening-act-to-year-of-global-sports-spotlight-in-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/146045\/","title":{"rendered":"March Madness opening act to year of global sports spotlight in Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The opening rounds of the NCAA men\u2019s basketball tournament over the weekend in Philadelphia was the \u201copening act\u201d of a sports calendar that includes the PGA Championship in May at Aronimink, the FIFA World Cup in June at Lincoln Financial Field, and the MLB All Star Game in July at Citizens Bank Park, according to Matt Breen of the PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER. The two days of March Madness at Xfinity Mobile Arena \u201cdrew nearly 60,000 fans\u201d over three ticketed sessions. The arena \u201cwas lively both days\u201d as hoop heads packed it. Next up is golf. The PGA Championship trophy is \u201calready at Aronimink\u201d and the staging for the event \u201cis being built.\u201d The deluge of sporting events for the nation\u2019s 250th birthday \u201cis similar\u201d to how Philadelphia was feted in 1976 for the Bicentennial when the city hosted the MLB, NHL, and NBA All-Star Games along with the men\u2019s Final Four. Phillies managing partner John Middleton said the string of events \u201cis an opportunity for Philadelphia to kind of step up and be recognized for its extraordinary role in the history of this country, and I think to celebrate it. This is an opportunity for Philadelphia to really put its name out there. Certainly across the country, but I think even more broadly around the world.\u201d Breen wrote the PGA Championship has not been at Aronimink since 1962, and it is the \u201cfirst major to be in Philly since 2013\u201d when the U.S. Open came to Merion (PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, 3\/23<\/a>).<\/p>\n

CUTTING BACK: In Philadelphia, Savage & Blumgart noted FIFA \u201ccanceled 2,000 of their 10,000 hotel room reservations\u201d in Philadelphia last week. It also reportedly canceled 40% of its hotel bookings in Mexico City earlier this month. Sources cited by the PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER said that FIFA exercised a \u201cstandard contractual provision\u201d that is \u201cconsistent with large-scale global events, and confirmed the hotel room rollback was happening in other host cities.\u201d A FIFA spokesperson \u201cconfirmed this was the case\u201d and noted that the soccer governing body had exercised \u201csimilar opt-out clauses at previous World Cups.\u201d These rooms are \u201cset aside for FIFA staff, media organizations, and attendees.\u201d The spokesperson said that as attendance numbers become \u201cmore concrete\u201d closer to the start of matches, FIFA \u201cadjusts hotel room bookings accordingly\u201d (PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, 3\/20<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The opening rounds of the NCAA men\u2019s basketball tournament over the weekend in Philadelphia was the \u201copening act\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[10150,2233,1423,4794,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-146045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-college-basketball","tag-fifa","tag-mlb","tag-nba","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146045","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=146045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}