The People Mover

everything, including the Uber bill, is indeed bigger

Even to look at it on a map is pretty funny. In green is where various conventions and almost every single event I knew of was held; in red is where the stadium is.

Reasonably this may not look that bad if you’re held without context. With context added, it becomes quite brutal. From Central Station Main, by light rail, NRG Stadium is a nice 27-minute (plus 11 minutes to actually walk to the gates) ride away. 27 minutes is an eternity when it’s you and a few thousand people, all jammed into each other’s personal spaces. It gives you a lot of time to think. And boy, does one think about the obvious: what is this place?

Houston genuinely has quite a bit going for it; one of the things going for it is not and has never been transportation. Around the ninth light rail stop where people kept squeezing on in desperate hopes they could debase themselves just long enough to get to NRG, I was pondering why the highway looks like this:

And I and my fellow freeloaders (the light rail was free, perhaps for a reason) were feeling like this.

Either way, I knew this coming into the weekend, or at least I thought I knew. Other cities in America that host huge events like this, for the most part, have the actual place where the games are being played fairly close to the city center. For example, here’s the last few and the next few Final Four destinations and the mileage from city center to stadium:

• 2018: San Antonio, 1.2 miles

• 2019: Minneapolis, 0.4 miles

• 2022: New Orleans, 0.7 miles

• 2023: Houston, 9.4 miles

• 2024: Phoenix-ish, 16.7 miles

• 2025: San Antonio, 1.2 miles

• 2026: Indianapolis, 0.8 miles

• 2027: Detroit, 0.7 miles

Huge congratulations if you’re able to spot the two outliers here. The amazing thing, to me, is that Houston isn’t even the worst offender. Hosting a Final Four at the Arizona Cardinals’ stadium is patently insane for anyone who does not live in Glendale, AZ. Figuring out where to stay between Dallas or Fort Worth should be fun for 2030 Final Four visitors, especially since there’s no public transit available to it from either city. Even Las Vegas, who hosts in 2028, looks like a transit haven in comparison because they have rail directly from downtown to the stadium.

The good news is that if you attended the 2023 Final Four and didn’t stay within five miles of NRG Stadium - aka, 95% of people who attended - you will be well prepared for future goofy decisions like this. Per my beloved idiot device, the cell phone, I took an impressive six Uber rides this weekend, which is six more than I have taken in the last year. (I mean I do own a car in a town where the only mode of transportation is cars.) I heard from a coach visiting the coaches’ convention that he’d hit double digits by the time he left because of the crime of staying within the Interstate perimeter in an area the light rail doesn’t touch.

All of these are fairly pathetic first world complaints, though; I was able to go to Houston in the first place. That was the important task. Getting to the stadium is another, but I got there. And, like a true genius, I forgot to take basically any pictures at all. Readers will be reliant on whatever I can find on the Twitter.

---

There were two games last Saturday night. The second one was indeed played but as soon as the first one ended it felt like a total afterthought. Not because Miami were bad by any means, obviously, or that UConn were the greatest team ever. It was just a general vibe of “well how are you gonna top that” and like a lot of things, the sophomore effort of the evening could not top the debut.

You all know how these games went: San Diego State 72, Florida Atlantic 71; Connecticut 72, Miami 59. No sense in repeating what happened in a Final Four game blow-by-blow, as frankly you have your pick of national writers or websites to choose from there. The same goes for the national championship game, where Connecticut handled San Diego State pretty easily after SDSU's opening salvo where they hit a few shots they don’t normally hit well.

Instead, here’s a thread of loose observations, both good and bad, from Final Four Saturday, the first Final Four I have attended.

Fan amalgamation. I had zero ties to any of the four teams remaining, beyond a loose interest in wanting UConn to win because I find their fans very entertaining and eventually being swayed by SDSU faithful into rooting for the Aztecs. But a key reason to attend these games, even in a bizarre stadium setting, is the wide range of fans and/or fandoms you will encounter.

To my immediate left: two UConn college students. In front: older fans who supported Auburn and USC and apparently had known each other for a long time. (The Auburn fan turned around and told stories to me during every media timeout in the UConn game, which was nice but is probably why I remember very little from the UConn game. Also that was after five beers, so. Also also: how does a USC fan end up in Birmingham?) Right: Virginia fan. To his right: family of five Miami fans. Behind me: SDSU couple. 10 rows ahead of me: Alijah Martin of FAU’s family. All of this was in what was nominally a Miami fan section in the lower bowl. Fascinating experience! I liked it.

Basketball games in football stadiums are indeed bad but I guess we can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube can we. I paid $140 for a lower bowl seat in the corner, which was indeed a steal considering the same ticket a year ago in New Orleans was going in the $500s. That being said, I’m under no delusion that this is a good seat to watch a basketball game in.

This felt like it was a mile away in person. The seats from the next section over were fairly good but it still feels like you’re just so far away from the action; if you were in the same row(ish) at a basketball arena you would call these seats utterly amazing.

(via @NoEscalators)

I’m well aware that we’re never going back to the old times with this stuff, particularly with how spendy it would be to attend a Final Four in a basketball arena. (Ask Women’s Final Four attendees this year, who paid ~$350 for the right to be in the building for a classic semifinal.) But, well, this just isn’t the greatest thing to attend if you’re neither rich nor a media member. I am sort of the latter and very much not the former; covering this tournament from media row would feel like cheapening what this blog is supposed to be. But I would’ve loved the better view.

The great thing about all the money is the lack of the obvious money. What I mean here is that I didn’t see a single advertisement, at least of the audio/video form, the entire time I was in NRG. Obviously I’m aware the Tournament is sponsored by Coca-Cola and Invesco QQQ and probably Raytheon but it wasn’t shoved in my face relentlessly as it is at every other sporting event. Media timeouts were mostly highlight packages, and instead of a DJ blasting a Drake song at you and demanding you flex for the FlexSeal Flex Cam you just talked with the people around you. Game ops everywhere should be this way but I’m aware I’m dreaming.

The lack of people that show up for the first game in time…or stay for all of the second one. To be fair, spending 6 hours in the same stadium (as I did) can get a little tiring. My lap of the lower bowl right before the first game took about five minutes, because the stadium was maybe 70% full. It’s a lot of people, but it wasn’t difficult to get around. After the San Diego State game-winner, I went for another lap. This one took 30, because NRG’s concourses are alarmingly slim and because the stadium achieved 100% capacity per my eyes with about 8 minutes left in the opening game. I don’t know, if I’m paying for a ticket to an event and I get to go to both games, I’m going to both games, you know?

---

But above all those other things there is the one big thing: how the people moved, in more ways than one. There are the sporting limbs you see after a Big Event in any sport in the world, likely most synonymous with European football but found just as frequently here, too.

This is a moment forever frozen in time. That child, wearing a Ronald McDonald wig, just saw his team win the damn game and the first reaction was to do the Surrender Cobra. It was entirely appropriate. The view from further out is just as beautiful, as timeless, as time-specific a thing.

This is what it’s all about for us, the fans, the viewers, those who went to Houston in search of something to get behind in between getting really into Caitlin Clark’s run to the title game in Dallas. For the kids on the court, and they are kids, a deep run can be a life-changer. For us, merely content to be in the arena, it is somehow even more life and death. Every single bucket in the final seven minutes of that game felt like a windfall of emotions from the entire arena, even though charitably 30% of the arena actually had an investment in the result. (I will note here that of the four traveling groups to Houston SDSU’s fans were easily the loudest.)

We watch this, and pay real money for it, because we are looking for reasons to be moved. Both physically and emotionally. I think we overuse the term “moving” for tear-jerker events but we probably should repurpose it a little for stuff that actually gets us out of our seat. Then again, I found this video a bit moving in its own right.

That’s from a news reporter in San Diego. (Apologies to the reporter herself; Twitter’s adult baby that runs the company no longer lets Twitter links work on here.) Those kids are rushing the court for a game that’s not even happening on that court. That is what basketball can do to us. It moves us all to do things we never could have imagined ourselves doing. That, more to me, is more beautiful than any individual result.

It matters more than any Uber bill I paid, any amount of points San Diego State eventually lost to UConn by, any amount of bummers the three losing fanbases (plus the 64 before them) have to feel on April 11. It’s why we watch. The beauty in this truly bonkers Final Four collective is how quickly expectations changed for everyone involved. Based on pre-Tournament KenPom odds, the following outcomes for each involved team represented overachieving:

• UConn (4 seed): Elite Eight

• San Diego State (5 seed): Sweet 16

• Miami FL (5 seed): Sweet 16

• Florida Atlantic (9 seed): Round of 32

Not a single dadgummed one of these four fanbases went into the Tournament fully expecting they would end up in Houston two weeks later. Travel plans changed. Budgets changed. People moved. And for all the annoyance that transportation did provide, few things will be as memorable as cramming into a packed light rail with members of all four fanbases, smiles as bright as the sky above them, expectations shifted forever. That’s what this Tournament can be when we let it cook. It’s what this sport can be when we let it be. It’s a real mover of people, myself included.

Until November, my friend.