CHARLOTTE, North Carolina -- Charlotte tourism leaders have asked the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association for an exclusive 30-day negotiating period to keep the conference’s basketball tournament at Time Warner Cable Arena. The request was disclosed in a letter sent Friday to city and tourism leaders by a Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority executive.Tom Murray, the CEO of the visitors authority, asked the conference’s board to grant Charlotte the right to propose new contract terms as part of a visit to the CIAA board meeting on May 22. Mike Butts, executive director of Visit Charlotte, the recruiting arm of the visitors authority, described Murray’s pitch as one that would allow “the CRVA, Charlotte Bobcats and the hospitality community to address the concerns that the chancellors and staff have shared as needing attention in order to continue their relationship with Charlotte.”
Time Warner Cable Arena has hosted the CIAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments for the past eight years. The current agreement ends after the 2014 tournament. Visitors authority studies in past years estimated the tournament pumped $50 million into the local economy. Last month, Murray disclosed some preliminary results from analysis of the 2013 tournament, including a decline of 13.5 percent in ticket sales.
Butts, in the letter sent last week recapping the pitch by Murray, said ...
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