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Sources: MEAC chooses Winston
City has won bid to hold tournament for next 3 years
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Published: May 25, 2008
Winston-Salem has won the bid to play host to the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Basketball Tournament for the next three years, according to several sources.
At the MEAC spring meetings, which took place last week in Virginia Beach, Va., presidents and chancellors voted to award the tournament to Winston-Salem. The meetings ended Friday with one of the final votes determining where the tournament would be played for the next three seasons.
An announcement is expected to be made early this week.
Neither Dennis Thomas, the commissioner of the MEAC, nor Chico Caldwell, the athletics director at Winston-Salem State University, could be reached for comment yesterday.
But sources have said that the vote came down to Winston-Salem and Raleigh as the final two choices.
"I heard there were four cities that made bids, but Winston and Raleigh were the final two," a source said.
Winston-Salem officials made a strong proposal to bring the tournament to Joel Coliseum, pledging $100,000 to bring the tournament here.
The money that went into the proposal was divided up from four different sources, starting with $25,000 from new MEAC member Winston-Salem State, which won't be eligible to compete in the tournament next season. Other $25,000 commitments came from the city, the Forsyth County Tourism Development Authority and from the Millennium Fund.
The last of the $25,000 commitments was requested by the MEAC last week. According to an e-mail to Thomas, the Millennium Fund's $25,000 is for the 2008-09 tournament only. The fund, which is managed by the Winston-Salem Alliance, contributes money to projects that benefit the general public.
The MEAC Tournament, which has been held for 37 years, has been played in Winston-Salem before. From 1980 through '82, the tournament was played at Memorial Coliseum, which was demolished in the late 1980s to make way for Joel Coliseum.
The tournament took place the past three years at the RBC Center in Raleigh, and although there was an increase in attendance each year, the tournament has struggled to attract fans. Last season 38,228 attended the weeklong women's and men's tournaments. There were 8,120 for the championship games at the 18,500-seat RBC Center. That included a bonus game played between Winston-Salem State and N.C. Central between the men's and women's finals.
In 2007, 30,452 attended the tournament, and in 2006, during its first year in Raleigh, the attendance was 22,508 for the week.
By comparison, the numbers from Richmond, Va., to Raleigh showed an increase in support. In 2005, the last year in Richmond (which ended a five-year run), only 15,015 attended for the week.
One of the problems that the MEAC Tournament has had is constant comparisons to the CIAA Tournament, which has enjoyed a great run of success in Charlotte. The history of the Division II CIAA, which has one of the longest-running tournaments in the country, is what helps make that tournament such a success.
At stake in both the men's and women's Division I MEAC tournaments are bids to the NCAA tournaments, but that hasn't translated into bigger fan support.
Winston-Salem played host to the CIAA Tournament from 1994 through 1999. The tournament moved to Raleigh in 2000.
■ John Dell can be reached at 727-4081 or at jdell@wsjournal.com.
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