March Madness: Duke fans are invading the Prudential Center
March Madness: Duke fans are invading the Prudential Center
- The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament East Regional will be held at the Prudential Center in Newark with games Thursday and Saturday.
- Middletown’s Dylan Wanagiel, vice president of sports properties and special events for Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, is overseeing the event and hoping to make a good impression on the NCAA.
Dylan Wanagiel has been doing some reading, and not the breezy kind that the Middletown resident might take to the beach in the summer. He’s pored over the NCAA’s 300-page manual for hosting March Madness.
It’s been 14 years since New Jersey hosted the Big Dance, and when the NCAA Tournament’s East Regional tips off Thursday at Newark’s Prudential Center – semifinals of Alabama vs. BYU, followed by Duke vs. Arizona, with a trip to the Final Four on the line in Saturday’s final – everything but the bounce of the ball will be the result of meticulous planning.
From the uniform drinking cups to the NCAA-branded playing court, from the shot clock with a decimal point to the methodology for seating four fan contingents at once, it’s all in the manual.
“That is this business in a nutshell: The devil is in the details,” Wanagiel said.
The 53-year-old, who grew up in Monmouth County and played multiple sports at Mater Dei Prep, is vice president of sports properties and special events for Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, which manages the 18,700-seat Prudential Center.
Alternatively known as “The Rock” or sometimes “The Pru,” it opened in 2007 and hosted the East Regional to good reviews in 2011 (Kentucky beat North Carolina in the title game). But then it got banished from the NCAA’s events rotation when the Garden State legalized sports betting, a prohibition that later faded.
“The NCAA does a great job of cycling through different markets, (but) from 2011 to 2025, that is a long time,” Wanagiel said. “We’re hopeful to deliver an A-plus event for the NCAA and have them back here in Newark even sooner than that. But I think they just saw – it’s time, this market is ripe.”
Notable nuggets
The official NCAA court: The brand-new, uniform NCAA hardwood court has traveled to Newark via truck and got installed late Monday night, after the New Jersey Devils’ game. It might not actually leave.
“We are having discussions about, is it time for us to purchase a new court?” Wanagiel said. “So we’re discussing the option of purchasing the court that’s used here for this event. If we don’t buy it, someone else will purchase it for use and sand the logos down.”
Courts have about a 20-year life expectancy, Wanagiel said.
Seating arrangements: Each team gets a certain allotment for its most connected fans, and during the semifinal doubleheader, the top two remaining seeds (in this case, Duke and Alabama) will have those allotments seated behind their benches.
For BYU and Arizona, their allotments will be seated across the court from their respective benches.
Police escort: Seton Hall, which calls Prudential Center home, is the host school for this event. Part of that means arranging for a state police escort for the teams for the duration of their stay, starting with their arrivals at Newark Airport.
“It’s mapped out minute by minute,” Wanagiel said.
Fan Zone: Around the country, some March Madness venues feature a giant official tailgate outside the arena. The “Fan Zone,” as it’s called, is coming to Newark and will start two hours before the arena doors open (so at 3:30 p.m. Thursday) at the corner of Edison Place and Mulberry Street. There will be food trucks, a DJ and cornhole and other games. It will reappear on Saturday.
What’s next for Prudential Center
A Jersey “Big Eight”? The “Never Forget Tribute Classic” is a December college basketball showcase that has been held at the Prudential Center over the years. Wanagiel would like to see it become a four-game, eight-team event involving all eight New Jersey Division I men’s basketball programs.
“I’ve long been an admirer of the Big Five,” he said of Philadelphia’s annual six team showcase of the city’s D-1 teams. “Since I’ve got here I’ve been almost bombarded by people from every single walk of life with, ‘Hey, why doesn’t New Jersey have this?’”
They might not be asking much longer.
“I would say this is something we are very much over the next month here will be actively looking at, saying, ‘Can we pull this off, ideally with all eight New Jersey teams?’” Wanagiel said. “This has to happen. Why Philly and why not New Jersey? Why not us? That’s a goal of mine, personally and professionally.”
He’s got a few permutations in mind of how it would work. The most important thing is getting buy-in from the high-major coaches – Rutgers’ Steve Pikiell and Seton Hall’s Shaheen Holloway. The way to do that is with a substantial appearance fee, which matters much more now than it did pre-NIL.
“There will be proposals sent out in the very near future, and we’ll see,” Wanagiel said. “I’m not much of a fisherman in real life, but in the business world, that’s what we do. We’ll cast our net out there and see if we can reel in the big fish. At the very least, we have to try. It’s time.”
NCAA wrestling: Prior to his current station Wanagiel handled bookings at Madison Square Garden, and that included bringing the NCAA wrestling tournament to New York City in 2016.
“That one, in my 32-year career in the live-event business, was a highlight and hopefully this weekend will top it,” he said. “I have decided I cannot retire until I get that event to Newark. Jersey thankfully has a very passionate (wrestling) fan base. We love our hoops, we love our wrestling, too, so we’ll see what the future holds.”
Regional return: March Madness sites already are determined through 2028. Can Newark pop up more regularly in the rotation going forward? Madison Square Garden is now getting the East Regional every four years or so, and while that might be expecting too much, the goal is to close the gap.
“That’s truly the only measure of success,” Wanagiel said. “We’ll probably have some incredibly competitive games and hopefully a one-shining-moment type game, a buzzer-beater game. But really the measure of success will be: Can we get the East Regional back here in less than 14 years? It’s difficult to say, but we’ll put our best foot forward.”
Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.
