The NBA on Friday announced that New Orleans will "be the host" for the league's '17 All-Star Weekend, with the 66th NBA All-Star Game scheduled at the Smoothie King Center on Feb. 19, according to William Guillory of the New Orleans TIMES-PICAYUNE. The game, which was initially "scheduled to be played in Charlotte," marks the "third time" New Orleans will be hosting the event since '08 (NOLA.com, 8/20). In New Orleans, Brett Dawson wrote the announcement "capped a stressful, successful pitch" by the city. Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation President & CEO Jay Cicero said, "We literally did cram an eight-month bid process into three or four weeks." City officials "got word late Thursday night from NBA Commissioner Adam Silver -- he texted from the Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro -- that New Orleans’ bid, completed hours before, officially had been accepted." In less than a month, city officials "cleared significant hotel space, moved major events and convinced the league that New Orleans was prepared for an influx of additional visitors on the already-crowded weekend that opens Mardi Gras." The city’s pitch "began in earnest with the NBA’s July 21 announcement that it would remove the game from Charlotte" over North Carolina's controversial HB2 (New Orleans ADVOCATE, 8/20).
POLICY PLUS: The AP's Brett Martel wrote Louisiana is "unlike several other Southern states" in that it "has not been swept up in legislative efforts to pass laws similar to that in North Carolina -- a fact Gov. John Bel Edwards has touted while lobbying the NBA" for the ASG. The fact that the game falls during the first weekend of Mardi Gras "presents some logistical challenges for New Orleans in terms of policing and traffic control, but considerably less so than the following weekend, when the largest parades roll in the days leading up to Fat Tuesday, which is Feb. 28" (AP, 8/19). In Charlotte, Katherine Peralta noted New Orleans "drew almost 55,000 visitors" for All-Star Weekend in '14 (CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, 8/20).
