The lobby of South Carolina’s Colonial Life Arena is running out of room.
That is not the worst problem to have for a women’s basketball program as successful as the Gamecocks’. The school plans to purchase the 2024 Final Four center court circle and additional panels from Connor Sports, the architects of the NCAA Tournament court since 2006. The plan is for the Final Four circle to be displayed in the arena lobby while the smaller panels are sold off as collectibles.
Maria Hickman, South Carolina’s senior women’s administrator, told Sportico that the contract for this year’s purchase has yet to be signed but when the university bought portions of the court in 2022, it rang up a tab in the $60,000 range after defeating UConn in the final.
On April 7, South Carolina defeated Caitlin Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes, 87-75, for its third national championship in the last seven years. A record 18.7 million people watched Kamilla Cardoso and Tessa Johnson dominate in the final game of Clark’s historic college career.
The Gamecocks also purchased the Final Four circle when they won their first title in 2017 over Mississippi State.
Buying any portion of the court is a unique privilege bestowed upon championship teams and allows a school to memorialize its win in a way other than just a banner in the rafters.
“It makes the fans feel a part of the team,” Hickman said over the phone. “Especially for the ones that were able to go to Cleveland, that they can have something physical that they can show and see and just remind themselves of that moment. It just makes them part of the team and part of the family.”
The collectibles are sold on Artsman, a memorabilia company that creates smaller products from game-used materials like the championship courts. When Artsman sells products with the court, South Carolina gets a portion of the revenue.
A New York Times article from 2021 details that it’s more common for schools to buy the center court circle than the entire full-length court itself. When Kris Jenkins hit a game-winning shot in the national championship for Villanova in 2016, the Times reported the court was included in a “redesign of Finneran Pavilion, the team’s on-campus arena.”
Hickman said, “I do think it’s something special that helps the university and team cement what they’ve done in history for women’s basketball.”
