NCAA Final Four 2013 Tournament: Atlanta To Take In $70 Million Hosting Final Four Basketball Tournament

The city of Atlanta is expected to take in an estimated $70 million, after this weekend, as a result of hosting this year's men's Final Four college basketball tournament, according to Atlanta Convention and Business Bureau.

"I think that all of our hotels are full," said Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, "The numbers that we're getting is that the economic impact will be between $65 million and $72 million. But all of the numbers have just been through the roof." 

Atlanta's economic windfall is a culmination of a collaboration between the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Georgia World Congress Center Authority, the Metro Atlanta Chamber, the Atlanta Sports Council and Georgia Tech, that began in 2008.

Organizers highlighted Atlanta's modern infrastructure and quaint size, emphasizing the theme of a "1,000 steps" to highlight the ease of in which tourists can travel from downtown and midtown hotels to the Georgia Dome, who is hosting the Final For tournament.

"We have a very compact footprint for the Final Four," said Sharon Goldmacher, the executive director of the Atlanta Local Organizing Committee. "You can walk to the Georgia Dome to the Centennial Olympic Park in a few minutes."

According to AtlantaHotels.org, hotel rates for Atlanta hotels located near the Georgia Dome have increased by an average of 167 percent. This economic boost is a large reason why Atlanta organizers specifically targeted the 2013 edition of the Final Four tournament.

"2013 is the 75th celebration of March Madness," said Goldmacher. "That was the year I wanted and I was told by most of my committee members that there was no way we get it. The sense was that since Indianapolis is home to the NCAA headquarters, that it would be granted the 2013 Final Four."

Not everyone is convinced that big-ticket sporting events, like the Final Four, reap the benefits that politicians and organizers promise their constituents.

"Certainly a hotel room in Atlanta this weekend is very expensive. They're charging two and three times their normal rate," said Victor Matheson, an economics professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, who has studied the financial impact of big sporting events going back 42 years. "But they're not increasing the salaries of their desk clerks and their room cleaners by two or three times. All of that money is just going back to the shareholders. It's going back to corporate headquarters in New York City. Not a lot of that money sticks in Atlanta."