FIrst Four teams in town spending $

DAYTON (WDTN) - The first few teams to play in the First Four tournament have arrived in the Miami Valley.

Middle Tennessee State Sports Information Director, Leslie Wilhite, said her school's team left campus Monday morning. They took a flight into Dayton International Airport and were then bused to the hotel.

It's the school's first trip to a big dance in 24 years and Wilhite said Dayton is the perfect place to make a debut.

"It's only a five and a half hour drive for us to get from Murfreesboro to Dayton," she said. "As soon as Dayton came on the screen you saw the response from our fan base. They wanted to come, they wanted to be here, they wanted to be a part of this".

Middle Tennessee State is not the only team from the Midwest that will be playing this week at UD Arena. 11 out of the 16 teams are within an 8-hour drive of Dayton.

"We were predicting approximately $8 million for all of the games in economic impact," said Jacquelyn Powell, President and CEO of the Dayton and Montgomery County Convention and Visitor's Bureau. "We think that will probably go up a little more based on the teams that were announced".