Will Rapid City Ever Host The Summit League Basketball Tournaments?

Rapid City has announced the name of their new events center that is scheduled to open in the fall of 2021, ‘Summit Arena at The Monument.’

Back in the fall of 2019, the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center announced that the venue complex would be changing to ‘The Monument,’ but then afterwards claimed they’d also be specifically naming the arena itself. This is similar to what they currently have – Barnett Arena at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center.

This past Thursday, Monument Health, a prime sponsor of the new events center complex, announced the results of a fan vote for the naming of the arena. It’ll be called ‘Summit Arena at The Monument.’

The public was allowed to vote on the naming of the event center. It was between Hero Arena (honor those who show character, courage, and resiliency), Summit Arena (highest point, apex of will, ambition, and excellence), B21 Arena (Ellsworth Air Force base was first home of B-21 stealth bombers), and Paha Sapa Arena (what the Lakota people called ‘the Black Hills).

So what does this have to do with the Summit League basketball tournaments? Well, for starters, one of the marketing photos used to promote this new venue specifically used Summit League imagery.

Not only are the Summit League member schools displayed near the rafters in the banners on the image above, but the mid-court video board also has two Summit League tournament photos in them. Add in the fact that it’ll be called ‘Summit Arena,' this has some speculating that there 'could be' a future push to bring the D1 post-season basketball event to West River.

Since March of 2009, or the past twelve years, Sioux Falls has been home to the Summit League men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. The first six of them were at the Sioux Falls Arena, while the second six were at the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center.

Summit League Commissioner Tom Douple recently gave his thoughts on the possibility that the conference tournament would ever move to Rapid City from Sioux Falls.

“The one thing I’ve learned in this business is you never say never. But, when you look at the tournaments, and not just Summit League, but all 32 conferences. With the exception of a number that are in Vegas, every conference tournament is within one-hours drive of a member institution. That’s the norm in the business, but again, you never say never to anything,” stated Douple.

Sioux Falls has two institutions that are within an hour’s drive, South Dakota State University in Brookings and the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. Additionally, the University of Nebraska (Omaha) is roughly two-and-a-half hours away, and North Dakota State University in Fargo is just over three-and-a-half hours out. This makes Sioux Falls a solid midpoint for the conference basketball tournaments, which has shown its demand in high attendance totals throughout the years.

Rapid City is, however, a strong basketball town in South Dakota. Becky Hammon attended Stevens high school when she was growing up, and the Duffy family has deep roots at St. Thomas More. Additionally, the Lakota Nation Invitational takes place each year in Rapid City.

But just because the annual tourism numbers in Rapid City are high, and the area has a deep passion for the sport of basketball, there are plenty of other factors that go into hosting a division one conference tournament event – fan attendance being a key one. Would you be able to get the fan bases of SDSU, USD, UNO, UND, and NDSU to make the trip west? After all, it's a big ask to expect casual fans to carry a majority of the attendance for an event of this magnitude. The Denny Sanford PREMIER Center once had roughly 11,000 people at just one session of the Summit League tournament, which is darn near the capacity of the venue. A big reason for this is because of the proximity to both USD and SDSU.

Again, Summit League Commissioner Tom Douple didn’t completely close the door on the possibility of the conference basketball tournaments ever being moved to Rapid City, but it’s clear there would certainly have to be a compelling reason for it to happen.