 Thank you for your interest and excitement about what March Madness made to our community. I think we all agree that it was highly successful. It was a great effort and a lot of hard work on a lot of people throughout the community. We couldn't have done it without city's help. And I see Major Martin in the audience. Thank you for all your staff did to make it successful. But it was a huge successful event. We got very fortunate to draw some really exciting teams. We had Duke and Superstar Zion Williamson, and we had University of Virginia, which was the ultimate national champion. So it's exciting to say that Final Four and the national champion started in Columbia, South Carolina. I know all of you have been waiting, as we have, on getting some numbers on the economic impact of the tournament. And I'm excited that we're going to share with you some very impressive numbers that even exceeded our expectations. But before we do that, I'd like to kind of recap with you how we got here today. Most of you know it was the first time we'd hosted the event in 49 years since 1970. Again, it was the work of a lot of people. We had great exposure. We had the most attendance at round one and two games of any of these sites throughout the country. So we had the top attendance in round one and two. We also, for the Duke and Central Florida game, we had the largest TV audience that had watched a round one or two game in 14 years. So Columbia and the region got tremendous exposure, exposure that would be very hard to pay for if we had to fork out those dollars for the advertising. And see Mr. Palin with the city back there laughing about if we had to pay for that, and it'd be very expensive. So we got tremendous exposure from the tournament. And I'm going to turn it over to some others that are going to share those exciting numbers with you. But thank you for your interest in being here today. I'm Kelly Barbary. I'm the vice president of marketing and communications for Experience Columbia SC. Scott Powers was supposed to be here. He had something come up unexpectedly at the last minute. And so I'm pinch hitting for him this afternoon. Due to hundreds of community leaders coming together, different groups and hospitality related businesses that rallied together, the event was a huge success here in Columbia, South Carolina. With initial economic impact numbers hovering around $9 million, it's no secret that the entire community was excited to welcome our visitors and to put our best fit forward and welcome them we did. With street banners, billboards, 100 plus community events, and a fan fest here in the convention center, we certainly made our visitors feel right at home. And thanks to a study conducted by Tom Regan, associate professor and graduate director at the University of South Carolina's College of Hospitality, Retail, and Sport Management, we have proof that all the time and work invested was absolutely worth it. Dr. Regan is currently in Qatar, teaching students how to prepare for the World Cup in 2022. So unfortunately, he was not able to be with us. But he has participated in and completed over 100 economic impact studies from groups from the PGA all the way to Darlington Raceway and now for this noteworthy event. So without further ado, I'll read us some of the economic impact statistics. The direct impact of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament first and second rounds in Columbia was $11.3 million. The overall paid attendance was 47,977 individuals for the three sessions, which was the highest of the eight first and second round sites in the country. The regional tournament was the highest attended regional in the entire country. There were fans from 33 different states in the District of Columbia in two countries, the US and Canada. In addition to the entire tournament, created an equivalent of 245 permanent job equivalents. And that was comprised of numerous different part time positions and jobs that were compiled together during the tournament duration in Columbia. Again, Scott is so sorry to miss this press conference, but he did send along some remarks to share. And I'm happy to relay those to you. He says, we're thrilled with what these numbers say about Columbia, South Carolina when it comes to hosting top tier events, like an NCAA regional tournament. The economic impact speaks to the commitment and collaboration of experienced Columbia SC, U of SC Athletics, the Colonial Life Arena, our hotel and restaurant partners, and neighborhood districts. It was a team effort to make this an impactful event. So give yourselves a hand. This was a community effort that would have not been possible without the work of so many. So congratulations. Colonial Life Arena was first opened in 2002 in a collective funding effort from state appropriated funds, Richardson County, Lexington County, the city of Columbia, and the University of South Carolina. The university and the athletics department is proud of its role in bringing in high quality events to Colonial Life Arena that have a positive impact on the Midlands, both from an entertainment standpoint and from a financial impact standpoint, including Gamecock Men's and Women's Basketball. The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament certainly qualifies as one of the highest profile, highest quality sporting events in the country. And we were able to host it at Colonial Life Arena. From all the reports that we have received, from visiting teams, fans, and the NCAA, it was a tremendous success. Thank you to Experience Columbia SC, the city of Columbia, the NCAA, and its men's basketball committee, the various public agencies in the Midlands, local businesses, local and visiting fans, our staff at Gamecock Athletics, and anyone else who I hate to leave out for making this event so successful. We were entrusted with one of the most revered sporting events, sporting franchises in the country, and we passed with flying colors. It is an honor to be here representing the city of Columbia, our Mayor Stephen K. Benjamin. Unfortunately, he's out of town, so he couldn't be here, and he asked me to come and just bring some remarks on behalf of the city. I just want to just pause and say, you know, we hear the numbers, but I'm gonna tell you from the city's perspective why this is so very important and exciting for us. You know, Columbia is the capital city. We are famously hot, but people always forget we're also surprisingly cool. And this weekend showed people how cool we are here at the city of Columbia in the Midlands region. When you think about the numbers that Kelly talked about and the economic impact, and I'm not going to repeat all of them, but $11.3 million of an economic impact. And I want to say this is direct economic impact. This study done by Dr. Regan, it actually looked at the new economic benefits that came to the city of Columbia. So this wasn't measuring numbers of people who were already coming to Columbia for something else. This didn't measure numbers for people who decided to go to the game instead of going to the zoo or the museum. This was new benefit to the city of Columbia. So we had $11.3 million of new dollars coming into our city, which meant our restaurants benefited, our hotels benefited, our local merchants benefited. And so the important part about this is this money that comes to Columbia stays in Columbia. Our local small minority, women-owned businesses all had an opportunity to participate in the economic benefits here. And this money turns over so many times in our community, which helps strengthen our community. The other thing when you think about the visitors, you know, a lot of folks come to Columbia. When they come here, then they think about Columbia to come back to for other meetings that they have or conferences to visit. And I'll just end with a small story before, or actually Saturday, my family and I, we came to the game on Sunday. Saturday, we did not come to the game, but we were on Main Street and we were having lunch. And a group of young ladies came, they came down from Charlotte and I asked them, they were asking for directions. I said, oh, okay, why are you here? You're here for the games. And they said, well, we actually heard about the game. So we decided to come and we've decided to just stay for the weekend. And so that is the kind of impact that has. People are coming, they're introduced to Columbia and they'll come back. So we wanna add our thanks to Bill and the whole team here at Expans Columbia, the sports council to the University of South Carolina for their leadership and being great hosts at Colonial Life Arena and all the citizens that made everybody who visited during that weekend feel welcome and they really saw why we are famously hot but also surprisingly cool. Scott Powell's was actually in Indianapolis, the headquarters for the NCAA about three weeks ago, meeting with him. He's in the process of putting together the bid packet that has to be submitted in February. This will be for the next four year run of a tournament games that begins 2023, 24, 25 and 26. Scott will have that bid submitted in February and we'll get the answer from the NCAA whether we get the tournament to return to Columbia sometime next fall. I'm sure there'll be different ideas shared between now and then if it happens, I would hope we would take this year's blueprint and work from that. I think the numbers and the attendance and the excitement from the NCAA proved that what we did was a good way to do it. I think we outshined some of the other host cities. And if you remember, Coach K. with Duke talked about what a beautiful, great city Columbia was and the NCAA president made a comment about we did it the right way. So I think we would just build on the success of what we experienced this past March. So one of the things that was shared and Bill and I've had this conversation a couple of times but just understanding, just looking forward and event, this event and events like it really echoes the need for us to grow as far as hotels in the city center and making sure that our transportation for people who are visiting, it allows people to get around the city seamlessly. And so those are some things that for us impact us thinking about, how do we continue to be a host for this event and others like it and some of the planning that we need to do. Other than that, I would say that for us, planning-wise it helps us know what our strengths are. A lot of times, for us as city leaders, we hear constructive criticism but people who live here don't always realize how special the place that we live is and we know it but it helps when you have folks from the outside who travel a lot and they come here and they say, this was great, this is different. So it allows us an opportunity to highlight some things that maybe sometimes we overlook and take for granted because we see it all the time. So those are some of the things that will be taken into account moving forward. Hey there, Mayor Steve Benjamin here. Thanks for watching this video. Make sure you give it a like right below the video and don't forget to subscribe. Also, while you're here, be sure to check out one of our other videos or follow on our social media platforms. Thanks again and remember, we are Columbia.