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http://www.dailypress.com/sports/teel-blog/dp-teel-time-acc-barclays-announce,0,3034689.post
The ACC basketball tournament’s much-anticipated landing in New York will become official Wednesday when the league stages a news conference at the Barclays Center to announce a two-year contract with the arena for 2017 and ’18, sources say.
Home to the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, Barclays has hosted the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament each of the last two seasons. That arrangement was scheduled through 2017, and in exchange for the A-10 exiting a year early, the ACC has agreed to regular-season games between the leagues, also at Barclays.
Commissioner John Swofford, who championed the ACC’s signature championship in New York, will lead the conference’s delegation Wednesday. Neither Swofford nor Bernadette McGlade, commissioner of the Newport News-based A-10, could be reached this weekend.
The Daily Press and Sports Illustrated reported last week that the ACC-Barclays deal was imminent, and during an interview last Saturday prior to the ACC tournament semifinals in Greensboro, N.C., Swofford told me, “We don’t have anything confirmed and therefore ready to be announced. Frankly, our intention was to focus on Greensboro and this tournament these three days rather than be looking and talking about what’s three, four or five years down the road.
“As I’ve said numerous times, our league’s interested in New York as a potential site.”
That interest is rooted in the ACC’s expanded footprint, which now includes Syracuse, Boston College, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame and Louisville, all former Big East members accustomed to league tournaments at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
ACC coaches and many athletic directors prefer the Garden’s history and Manhattan address to Barclays. But the Big East remains contracted with MSG, and with the ACC eager to play in New York as soon as possible, Barclays in Brooklyn was the only option.
Dueling New York tournaments will create interesting competition (tension?) between the ACC and Big East. Come July 1, when Louisville officially replaces Maryland, seven of the ACC’s 15 schools will have come from the Big East.
Television ratings for last week’s ACC championship game between Virginia and Duke were up 38 percent from 2013, according to Sports Media Watch while the Big East’s plunged 76 percent, a function of its new membership and, mostly, its shift from ESPN to Fox Sports 1.
The Big Ten, which in July will welcome Rutgers, also is interested in taking its basketball tournament to New York.
The ACC tournament is set for Greensboro, its traditional home, next season and Washington, D.C., in 2016. New York will be its first venue north of D.C., and the 2016-18 stretch will mark the first time the event has been played outside North Carolina in consecutive years.
Opened in 2012, Barclays has made an aggressive play for college basketball, regular season and league tournaments. This season, the ACC’s Virginia Tech, Pitt, Boston College and Maryland played there. Duke will play at Barclays in November in the Coaches vs. Cancer tournament along with Stanford, Temple and Nevada-Las Vegas.
The ACC tournament at Barclays almost certainly will draw better than the A-10’s has. Attendance for last Sunday’s championship game between VCU and Saint Joseph’s was 8,886, less than half the building’s normal capacity.
The ACC basketball tournament’s much-anticipated landing in New York will become official Wednesday when the league stages a news conference at the Barclays Center to announce a two-year contract with the arena for 2017 and ’18, sources say.
Home to the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, Barclays has hosted the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament each of the last two seasons. That arrangement was scheduled through 2017, and in exchange for the A-10 exiting a year early, the ACC has agreed to regular-season games between the leagues, also at Barclays.
Commissioner John Swofford, who championed the ACC’s signature championship in New York, will lead the conference’s delegation Wednesday. Neither Swofford nor Bernadette McGlade, commissioner of the Newport News-based A-10, could be reached this weekend.
The Daily Press and Sports Illustrated reported last week that the ACC-Barclays deal was imminent, and during an interview last Saturday prior to the ACC tournament semifinals in Greensboro, N.C., Swofford told me, “We don’t have anything confirmed and therefore ready to be announced. Frankly, our intention was to focus on Greensboro and this tournament these three days rather than be looking and talking about what’s three, four or five years down the road.
“As I’ve said numerous times, our league’s interested in New York as a potential site.”
That interest is rooted in the ACC’s expanded footprint, which now includes Syracuse, Boston College, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame and Louisville, all former Big East members accustomed to league tournaments at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
ACC coaches and many athletic directors prefer the Garden’s history and Manhattan address to Barclays. But the Big East remains contracted with MSG, and with the ACC eager to play in New York as soon as possible, Barclays in Brooklyn was the only option.
Dueling New York tournaments will create interesting competition (tension?) between the ACC and Big East. Come July 1, when Louisville officially replaces Maryland, seven of the ACC’s 15 schools will have come from the Big East.
Television ratings for last week’s ACC championship game between Virginia and Duke were up 38 percent from 2013, according to Sports Media Watch while the Big East’s plunged 76 percent, a function of its new membership and, mostly, its shift from ESPN to Fox Sports 1.
The Big Ten, which in July will welcome Rutgers, also is interested in taking its basketball tournament to New York.
The ACC tournament is set for Greensboro, its traditional home, next season and Washington, D.C., in 2016. New York will be its first venue north of D.C., and the 2016-18 stretch will mark the first time the event has been played outside North Carolina in consecutive years.
Opened in 2012, Barclays has made an aggressive play for college basketball, regular season and league tournaments. This season, the ACC’s Virginia Tech, Pitt, Boston College and Maryland played there. Duke will play at Barclays in November in the Coaches vs. Cancer tournament along with Stanford, Temple and Nevada-Las Vegas.
The ACC tournament at Barclays almost certainly will draw better than the A-10’s has. Attendance for last Sunday’s championship game between VCU and Saint Joseph’s was 8,886, less than half the building’s normal capacity.
