NEW YORK (AP) — Atlantic 10 Commissioner Bernadette McGlade believes that moving the men’s basketball tournament to Brooklyn will “really catapult this championship to the next level.”
The conference and the Barclays Center formally announced the five-year deal Wednesday. The tourney will move to the Nets’ new home starting in 2013.
The Atlantic 10 is in the middle of a six-year run at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, N.J., where attendance hasn’t always matched the national success of the conference’s members. This year’s final between Richmond and Dayton drew an announced crowd of 5,602 in a facility that holds 10,500.
The Barclays Center seats about 18,000. Rhode Island coach Jim Baron says “it’s going to attract so many fans, alums, from all over the country.”
