AAC bringing men’s basketball to Amway Center

The American Athletic Conference, the University of Central Florida’s current league, will hold its men’s basketball tournament in Orlando for the 2016 and 2017 seasons.  AAC Commissioner Mike Aresco made the announcement official in a press conference at the Amway Center.

“First of all, the bid was terrific.  Two, as a destination, you just can’t top Orlando.”

UCF will be the host school for the four-day tournament in early March. Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer says events like this are exactly why he wanted the new building.

“This is exactly the type of marquee event that we envisioned bringing to Orlando.”

The AAC is losing Louisville and Rutgers, but will add Tulsa, East Carolina and Tulane. Commissioner Aresco says that, after Hartford in 2015, the conference needs to take advantage of its new geography.
 
“We thought it would be nice to plant our flag in different parts of our constituency.”

The city does not anticipate as much economic impact as the NCAA tournament but does believe having four days of games instead of two will help. Aresco says about 6,000 tickets are already sold to the various teams in the league.
 
“We did, as I said, choose Orlando, because we think it is the right place for two years.  Now, beyond that, we might find it so good here we don’t want to move.  Our fans and visitors love coming here.”

The city will guarantee the AAC the first two million dollars in revenue from the event and then of there are profits beyond that, they will split them with the conference.