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March Madness Exile Pepperdine Makes the Most as Tourney Host

daniel libit
·5 min read

If you can’t get invited to the glamorous party, the next best thing might be to throw it yourself.

So it goes for Pepperdine, whose persistently win-starved men’s basketball team hasn’t made it to the NCAA Tournament in more than two decades. True to form, the Waves finished 13-20 this season, far beyond the reach of any post-season consideration.

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But the Malibu, Calif.-based school is once again present—and at times, depending on the broadcast camera angle, prominent—at this weekend’s NCAA Tournament games at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. For the fifth time in the last dozen years, Pepperdine will serve as the school host for the NCAA men’s basketball West Regional, having last thrown a Sweet 16 bash at this very same venue, then known as Staples Center, in 2018.

Home to the Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers, Crypto.com Arena’s connection to Pepperdine is tenuous at best. The school has never actually played a basketball game in that space. The Waves’ on-campus facility, the 3,104-seat Firestone Fieldhouse, is much more akin to a high school gymnasium than an NBA arena. (It’s also nearly 7,000 seats short of the NCAA’s baseline capacity for an NCAA Tournament venue.)

And yet Pepperdine has carried forth as the consistent party-giver in downtown LA, a role eschewed by the city’s more notable and nearby Power Five programs, USC and UCLA.

The gig comes with a standard, $200,000 honorarium—the NCAA offers up to $300,000 if you’re hosting at your on-campus venue—and some strategic arena signage. A site host can be a school, a conference, or a combination thereof. In addition to Pepperdine, the hosts of this year’s regionals are Boston College, Detroit Mercy/Oakland and the Big 12 Conference. The total payout is the same regardless of whether it’s a conference or a school doing the stewarding, or whether it’s a first/second round or regional round.

Pepperdine’s hosting history dates back to 2008, when Karina Herold was working at the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment Commission (LASEC), the group tasked with bringing major sporting events to Los Angeles. At the time, UCLA was coming off back-to-back Final Four appearances while USC had just made it to the Sweet 16. After both those schools declined her recommendation to pursue a March Madness hosting bid, she found a far more willing collaborator up the Pacific Coast Highway. Among other things, Pepperdine had connections with Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), the Staples Center’s owner.

“There wasn’t a lot of discussion,” said Pepperdine athletic director Steve Potts. “To both of us it seemed, ‘Sure, why not?’”

The honorarium, Potts recalled, was then $400,000.

“We thought, gosh, this is the biggest fundraiser we will have all year,” said Potts. Unfortunately, the payout was reduced by half midway through the bidding process, which slightly dampened Pepperdine’s interest—but only slightly.

“For a school (Pepperdine’s) size, that is a good number,” said Herold. In its latest disclosure to the Department of Education, the private university reported men’s basketball revenue of $4.2 million—about a third of what UCLA brings in.

Potts said that while the host incurs some expenses, most of them have been reimbursable through the NCAA. After going through the 2008 bidding process, Pepperdine was initially awarded hosting duties for the 2013 men’s tournament.

In 2011, Herold left LASEC to join Pepperdine’s athletic department, eventually rising to become its deputy director of athletics and senior women’s administrator. With her in tow, the school continued to pursue—and win—tourney hosting duties for the NCAA West Regional in 2015, 2018 and 2020, the latter of which ended up canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

For an off-campus venue like Crypto.com Arena, the site host is entitled to display a small number of ad signs, given the NCAA’s prior approval. According to Herold, the LED displays are typically supposed to be placed in areas where they won’t be shown on camera. But in 2018, Pepperdine was able to maneuver its arena signage to be above the four team tunnels, where they occasionally can be glimpsed by the broadcast viewing audience.

Additionally, the host is recognized on a vinyl banner that runs along the “non-TV side” of the court, and a secondary logo inscribed on the two baselines of the court, close to the team benches.

Over the years, Pepperdine has found other ways to maximize the opportunity of an event that Herold says should be a “laboratory for students.”

For example, about 50 Pepperdine seniors pursuing a sports administration major will staff this weekend’s games as part of a capstone course.

Herold left Pepperdine in 2020 to return to LASEC, then took a job at the start of this year as chief operating officer of the Bay Area Host Committee. Although she may now pursue a tourney bid for San Francisco, that shouldn’t necessarily conflict with Pepperdine’s efforts in Los Angeles.

One potential threat to the Waves’ going concern is the Intuit Dome, the future home of the Clippers, which is set to be completed in August.

The $2 billion venue, which is being privately financed by Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, is already slated to host the 2026 NBA All-Star Game. It is also located just six miles from the campus of Loyola Marymount University, one of Pepperdine’s West Coast Conference foes. (A Loyola Marymount spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment about whether the school had interest in pursuing a hosting bid.)

In February, bid responses were due for the 2027 and 2028 NCAA champion site selection campaign, with the hosts and cites set to be announced in October. Pepperdine once again has its application in, and is brimming with confidence.

“People in Indianapolis may not want to admit it [publicly] but they will admit to us that ours is the best run regional in the country,” said Potts.

That’s an NCAA tourney win of a certain kind.

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