Sioux Falls is of similar size to Spokane, which has hosted a regional in 3 of the previous 5 years.
Women's basketball is actually quite popular in South Dakota. The Summit League tournament final, between USD and SDSU, was just played at the regional site in Sioux Falls and drew over 8,600 spectators. That's just a huge number for any neutral-site conference tournament, but especially for a mid-major. By comparison:
- The SEC final in Jacksonville (South Carolina vs. Mississippi St.) drew 6,549.
- The Big Ten final in Indianapolis (Maryland vs. Michigan St.) drew 5,109.
- The ACC final in Greensboro (Notre Dame vs. Syracuse) drew 5,017.
- The Pac-12 final in Seattle (Oregon State vs. UCLA) drew 4,795.
- The Big 12 final in Oklahoma City (Baylor vs. Texas) drew 3,819.
- The AAC final in Uncasville (UConn vs. USF) drew 7,073.
The difference for Sioux Falls being distance from major transportation hub or other metro areas - Spokane is a hop and skip from Seattle in a large conglomeration of metro areas. Albany is a little more isolated but in more densely populated area and not that far from the NYC metropolitan area.
But this was also one of the choices that WCBB made - trying to be a big fish in smaller cities rather than compete head on with larger attractions, and trying to get those smaller cities to really promote regionals as major events.
The problem for the west coast and it has always been thus - they are isolated from the vast majority of the teams making the tournament every year. Put a regional location on the West coast and the average travel distance for teams attending goes up. Put it on the eastern side of the continental divide, and the distance goes down but none of the west coast teams have a short trip. And - if you are trying to make life easier for high seeds you have the problem of the West coast being a one power conference area - meaning even if you have a WC site, only one of those WC high seed teams will not have to cross the rockies by conference rule.
The specific problem with Sioux Falls is you have to get down to DePaul as a six seed to find a geographically 'close' team and they are pretty well equal distance to Lexington (and they are headed to Dallas.) it isn't until 9 and 10 seeds that you get teams that really are closer in KSU and GB.
I think this is a fairly typical year for top 16 teams.
2 from NE
2 from mid-atlantic
4 from TX/SW
3 from great lakes
2 from mid south
3 from WC
I would say what is missing in regional distribution is a mid-south to southern location. If I was drawing up ideal distribution regional site map based on top 32 teams it would probably be:
1. Somewhere from TX to AZ to CO to KS
2. Chicago to Lex to Missouri
3. Atlanta to Jacksonville
4. Philly
It screws the NW teams, but in this years bracket that is 2 seed OrSt, 4 seed Stanford, 7 seed Washington, 13 seed San Fran, and 16 seed Idaho, and semi screws 3 seed UCLA and 14 seed Hawaii. And of that lot you have to drop out 2 of the three Pac12 top 4 seeds because they would have to cross the rockies anyway. So 1 top 4 seed, and 3 other teams - vs the whole rest of the bracket that would potentially have to cross the rockies east to west to get to a NW site - 3 top 4 seeds plus 9 other teams. And if you go back over time the numbers are going to remain pretty constant - 3 of 4 top four seeds and 70% or more of the other seeds in a NW location are being 'screwed'. A southern Cal location is better getting closer to the southern rockies, SW and TX schools but AZ is better for a Pac12 locale.