Charlotte's Spectrum Center is expected to stay in the ACC's rotation of men's basketball tournament sitesACC
The ACC Tournament began yesterday at Spectrum Center, returning to Charlotte for the "first time in 11 years" after having "ventured outside North Carolina in recent years, from Florida to New York," according to a front-page piece by Katherine Peralta of the CHARLOTTE OBSERVER. ACC officials and backers in those new locations tout the tourney's expanded reach as "good for the conference." But some "longtime ACC fans in North Carolina say the tournament’s roots" are in their state and that it "should stay" there. As the ACC looks to "expand its brand," however, it is "unclear how often Charlotte and other N.C. cities will host the popular event in the future." The event "returns to Greensboro" in '20, then goes back to DC in '21 and Brooklyn in '22. ACC Commissioner John Swofford said that the tournament has been "'extremely successful' in cities outside North Carolina." Swofford: "The rotation of touching various parts of the conference’s footprint is important to the league and its future for a lot of reasons. My guess is you’ll see a similar path of rotation in the future." However, Swofford has said that the conference is a "ways off from naming host sites" for '23 and beyond. Hornets President & Vice Chair Fred Whitfield said that Charlotte will "bid for every opportunity it can to host" (CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, 3/10). Swofford said Charlotte and the ACC have had a "great history over the years" and the conference will "look forward to, in all probability, being back in the future" (CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, 3/12).
FIRST LOOK: In Charlotte, Erik Spanberg noted several ADs "wanted to see what the tournament is like in Charlotte this year before voting on future sites, likely in a year or two." It has been "so long since Spectrum Center hosted," and there are ADs and other school administrators who "haven’t been to an ACC men’s tournament in Charlotte" (BIZJOURNALS.com, 3/12). In Raleigh, Luke DeCock writes, "Even with the usual sparse Tuesday crowd there was a buzz not just inside but outside the arena that was missing the past two years" in Brooklyn. It is "important for the health of this tournament" to be in N.C. "more often than not" (Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER, 3/13). In Greensboro, Ed Hardin wrote the ACC Tournament is "finally back in North Carolina, though in the wrong building in the wrong city." The two-year experiment with Brooklyn is "still lingering, and we won’t know the full effects of moving the tournament from its roots to the NBA asphalt jungle for some time" (Greensboro NEWS & RECORD, 3/12).
