The Final Four of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament. A total solar eclipse. The Cleveland Guardians’ home opener.
“Your adventure begins now,” the man said, laying it on like a movie trailer. Then someone burped.
At the bottom of an escalator, right by baggage claim, a help desk was wrapped in a sort of Final Four-themed wallpaper. Next to it, there was a selfie station with a solar eclipse backdrop. All over town, all weekend, on lampposts and in bar windows, this duality existed side by side. There would be the Final Four — ending with South Carolina vs. Iowa playing for the title at 3 p.m. Sunday — and then there would be a chance to see a full solar eclipse Monday afternoon.
For a moment, Cleveland is the center of the sports and celestial world.
“The next time Cleveland will be in the path of totality is 2444,” said Emily Lauer, vice president of communications for tourism group Destination Cleveland. “So for a Clevelander, for anyone remotely close, this is truly a once-in-a-lifetime event coupled with the Final Four. I know I don’t plan to be here when a full eclipse happens again.”
When Destination Cleveland won the bidding for this Final Four in 2018, it knew Cleveland would be in the path of totality for a solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. What it didn’t know, though, was how the women’s game would surge in popularity, led by the full-on explosion of Iowa’s Caitlin Clark.
On Monday night, an average of 12.3 million people watched Iowa beat LSU in the Elite Eight, the most-watched women’s college basketball game on record — until Iowa and Connecticut averaged 14.2 million in the Final Four on Friday. Hours before that game tipped off at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, yellow and black were the most popular colors in the arena. Many of the shirts had Clark’s name and No. 22 on the back. In a 71-69 win over Connecticut, she finished with 21 points, nine rebounds and seven assists.
Across four days, Destination Cleveland estimates 20,000 to 30,000 people will visit for the Final Four. For the eclipse, it projects 200,000 overnight and day visitors, though that’s a very loose number. It is much easier to forecast crowds for ticketed events. Weather will be a big factor, too, especially in determining how many locals trek into downtown.
Still, hotels have been fully booked for six months, even ones well outside the city. Prices for rooms and flights have skyrocketed in recent weeks. Some Cleveland residents have cashed in by putting their homes on Airbnb. The Guardians’ Monday opener was pushed back an hour (to avoid a delay due to the sun disappearing behind the moon). School is also canceled in Cuyahoga County (to keep kids from staring at the eclipse without the proper glasses).
“It’s going to be nuts,” said a waiter at Cordelia, a restaurant near the basketball arena. “I’ve heard there are going to be a bunch of eclipse cults. Cults!”
“Nashville was in the path of totality in 2017, so we called up city officials and asked: ‘How did it go?’ ” said Scott Vollmer, vice president of education and exhibits at Cleveland’s Great Lakes Science Center. “They were like, ‘Oh, my God, our population doubled,’ as do most cities’ when you are in the path of totality. That was a good barometer for us to plan with: What happens when twice the amount of people you’re used to show up?”
While Vollmer was discussing the eclipse Friday, a phone rang in the science center’s lobby. Vollmer grabbed his pocket before realizing it wasn’t his. On a screen hanging from the ceiling, a timer counted down to when Cleveland would be in the path of totality (right around 3:10 p.m. Monday). It started a year ago, at the center’s kickoff event, and Friday it showed 72 hours remaining.
But Vollmer’s timer was set to Saturday, when the science center’s three-day festival would begin on the front lawn. When Cleveland officials started hatching eclipse plans, Vollmer and his colleagues raised their hands, saying they would handle the main event. They share their space with NASA Glenn Visitor Center, NASA’s only research center in this path of totality. And even if it’s a bit cloudy Monday, the sky view is typically clearer from North Coast Harbor on Lake Erie, where the science center is located.
Vollmer joined the science center a few months after the partial eclipse in 2017. What he heard — from Destination Cleveland, from his new office buddies — was that the city was completely unprepared. It underestimated the number of visitors. There weren’t enough eclipse glasses.
Now? Friday’s setup included dozens of people, erecting tables, tents and three different stages. The main stage, in the middle of the science center’s lawn, will be the prime location for NASA’s worldwide broadcast.
“We had to get our act together, especially when you added in the Final Four,” Vollmer said. “My understanding is that people are coming from very far. I mean, I heard Australia.”
For Iowa and South Carolina, the eclipse is not an additional reward for making it this far. Both teams will fly home before it happens. When asked who may be bummed about that, Kylie Feuerbach, a junior guard for Iowa, immediately pointed at Addison O’Grady a few lockers down. A junior forward, O’Grady is a chemical engineering major. Told that Feuerbach volunteered her, O’Grady quietly nodded, accepting that she’s a bit of a nerd.
As for why Feuerbach thought O’Grady might be locked into the eclipse, Feuerbach said: “You know, she’s smart. Smart people things.” Many players in the Final Four weren’t aware, at least until ESPN included the eclipse in some promotional coverage. O’Grady already has thought of a decent trade-off.
“If we’re celebrating a national title, I don’t think I’ll care about not being here,” she said. “I can maybe catch it back in Iowa.”
