PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) – Thousands are expected to descend on Portland for the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 games of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament starting this weekend.
Local businesses like the Sports Bra in northeast Portland will see an influx of business. Owner Jenny Nguyen said this is a very exciting moment for Portland to host a national sporting event.
“We’re so stoked, we’ve been excited,” Nguyen said. “We’ve been seeing more excitement around the game in general, outside of the tournament.”
The Sports Bra focuses on showing and promoting women’s sports. Nguyen opened the bar knowing that Portland has a long history and culture of supporting women’s sports. She said the Rose City is the perfect location to host two critical rounds of the NCAA tournament.
“To have fans fly in from out of town to watch these games, they already know this is going to be an experience but Portland is an incredible hotbed for women’s sports,” Nguyen said. “Not just for women’s basketball but clearly soccer as well as many other things.”
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While local businesses prepare for more business, the city government is preparing to handle the increase in visitors to the area. This includes upping security through the Portland Police Bureau.
“We’ve been partnering with hotels, getting out to the restaurants, just seeing what’s available with this event coming to town to try and put our best foot forward,” PPB Chief Bob Day said.
Chief Day said PPB will be increasing foot patrols around downtown and Old Town, and said he would participate in one of those walking shifts on Saturday. They will also police presence around the Moda Center during games. Chief Day emphasized that the extra security will not impact responding to emergency calls because the extra help will be coming from officers who are available to work.
“We’re not going to be pulling from other parts of the city,” Chief Day said. “We want to continue to be able to provide that level of support.”
Chief Day also addressed the incident of racism directed toward players on the University of Utah’s women’s team. He said he is aware of what happened but is confident nothing like that will happen in Portland. But if it does, the bureau will respond where appropriate.
“I’m cautiously optimistic and hopeful we will not have that challenge here but that’s definitely on our radar,” Chief Day said.
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The Portland Bureau of Transportation said they will not be closing any roads down during the tournament, but they have been cleaning graffiti around the Moda Center and the Lloyd District. The city also said they’ve cleaned up unsanctioned camps, but the tournament has not impacted how they go about removing camps.
PBOT will be sweeping the streets Wednesday and Thursday of garbage to get the city ready to be in the national spotlight, they said.
Nguyen said Portland is ready for it.
“Portland is on the map for women’s basketball and we’re just excited to be part of the fandom,” Nguyen said.
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