ACC has options for 2026 women’s basketball tournament

For the 25th time in the past 26 years next week, the historic Greensboro Coliseum will host the women’s basketball tournament for the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The ACC has established itself as one of the best leagues in the sport, and the tournament in the heart of its footprint is often a showcase for that. Last season, more than 9,100 fans packed the Coliseum for the title game between Notre Dame and N.C. State, and 679,000 people watched on ESPN – making it the most-watched ACC women’s championship ever. A total of more than 67,000 fans came to the Coliseum over the tournament’s five days, marking its best attendance since 2009. Amongst conference tournaments in women’s college basketball, the ACC has the longest running one – this year marking its 48th edition.

One could easily make the case that the ACC is the best conference in women’s college basketball. Since 2014, the ACC has 130 NCAA Tournament wins, the most of any conference. In each of the last 22 NCAA Tournaments, the ACC has had at least one team advance to the Elite Eight, the longest streak of any conference. Since 2019 — and not including Stanford’s 2021 national championship win — four different ACC teams have gone to the Final Four.

And Greensboro, North Carolina, has long been its home and the start of March Madness for the conference.

“We are the standard of a postseason conference women’s basketball tournament, and it’s credit to Greensboro and the ACC office that committed to women’s basketball,” now-retired Miami women’s basketball coach Katie Meier said last year. “Greensboro is just so supportive of our product — and before women’s basketball was as hot as it is now. You know, they stepped up first … and it means a lot to me.”

Indeed, Greensboro – the city in which the ACC was founded in – has hosted the conference’s women’s basketball tournament more than anyplace else.

But the tournament is on the move. In 2027, it will be played in Charlotte, where the ACC’s new headquarters are.

And in 2026, the options seem endless, and the ACC still hasn’t decided where the games will be played.

“2026 is yet to be announced, yet to be finalized,” Jackie Carson, the senior associate commissioner for ACC women’s basketball said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to announce 2026 in the near future, but nothing is finalized right now.”

Speaking about the tournament and its future on the Women’s Basketball Podcast, Carson said that coaches have long asked the ACC to “explore some other options” for venues. While the men’s basketball tournament has moved around to Charlotte, Greensboro, Atlanta, Brooklyn, Tampa and Washington, D.C., over the past two decades, the women’s tournament has only left Greensboro once. That came in 2017, when the ACC and NCAA pulled all of their championships out of North Carolina in response to House Bill 2 – often referred to as the Bathroom Bill, which discriminated against transgender people – and sent the women’s tournament to Conway, South Carolina.

For 2026, Carson says Greensboro is still “an option,” but added “a lot of people want to see ACC women’s basketball move to their city.”

Mitchell Northam / SB Nation

Before Greensboro became the tournament’s regular home, it had bounced around a bit. The first ACC women’s basketball tournaments were held in on-campus venues, with Virginia, N.C. State, Maryland and Clemson hosting the first five. Then it was held in Fayetteville, North Carolina for nine years, then Rock Hill, South Carolina for the next five. After a three-year stint in Charlotte, it arrived in Greensboro.

But with women’s basketball now booming in attendance and viewership, tournaments like these are much more in-demand than they were 25 years ago.

“It’s nice to be wanted and to be able to expand it a little bit,” Carson said. “Greensboro has been an absolutely amazing host. If we were to leave, it would be tough, but (Greensboro) will always be home for us, and the Coliseum has been absolutely tremendous.”

If the ACC does leave the Greensboro Coliseum, there’s a few venues in its traditional footprint that might make sense to host the 2026 edition of the tournament.

One is in the Atlanta suburbs of Duluth in Gwinnett County, Georgia, at Gas South Arena. It seats 13,100 fans and is the longtime home of the Atlanta Gladiators minor league hockey team and state basketball and wrestling championships in Georgia. It hosted the SEC women’s basketball tournament in 2010 and Game 3 of the WNBA Finals in 2013.

If the ACC doesn’t mind giving Louisville the sort of homecourt advantage it has given to North Carolina teams for the past few decades, the KFC Yum! Center makes plenty of sense. The modern arena was built in 2010 and seats up to 22,090 for basketball. It has hosted NCAA men’s tournament games, and Jeff Walz’s Cardinals have led the ACC in attendance for the past seven seasons.

Other options could include Jacksonville, Florida – the 14,091-seat VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena, which has hosted three men’s NCAA Tournaments – and the new GreenCity Arena near Richmond, Virginia, if it’s completed by 2026. Some other possibilities, like Greenville, South Carolina’s Bon Secours Wellness Arena and Washington, D.C.’s intimate CareFirst Arena are booked up by other conferences in 2026.

“I love how women’s basketball across the country and at the college level has grown, but there’s something special about ACC women’s basketball,” said Carson, who has been in her job for two years after coaching for 13 seasons at Furman. “We have record numbers so far that recognize that. So, come join us.”