A major college basketball tournament is coming to Alabama. The 2024 and 2025 Conference USA Men's & Women's Basketball Championships will be hosted at Propst Arena in Huntsville in both 2024 and 2025. Each conference champ will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
The Rocket City hosting was made possible through a partnership with the Huntsville/Madison County Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB), Huntsville Sports Commission and Knight Eady. The multi-year agreement is for two seasons with an opportunity to extend.
Joel Lamp, the sports manager for Huntsville/Madison County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, said the tournament being held in The Rocket City is good exposure.
“This gives us an opportunity to introduce ourselves to a couple of different destinations and parts of the country that we may not be as familiar with in certain areas,” he explained. “You've got University of Texas, El Paso, New Mexico State, Sam Houston State. Those are all in Texas. So, we've got an opportunity to introduce Huntsville to their fans,” he continued.
The 2024 C-USA Basketball Championships will take place March 12-16. Lamp said Huntsville would see a major economic impact in March, closer to when the tournament begins. He said between teams and fans staying at the hotels and people eating at restaurants, the Rocket City is expected to get a boost in business.
Lamp said another factor that will put Huntsville on the map are the games being broadcast on major television networks.
“Every game is being broadcast either on the ESPN family of networks or CBS Sports Network. So, for Huntsville to have an opportunity to shine on that national stage… it's a unique opportunity for us,” he said. “We don't have a lot of events that say, ‘Hey, we're live from Huntsville, Alabama.’ This partnership with Conference USA enables us to do that for an entire week and really own that spotlight.”
Huntsville will be the ninth location to host the C-USA Men’s Basketball Championship and the 14th host city for the C-USA Women’s Basketball Championship.
The Conference USA Tournament has been held in Frisco, Texas, at The Star since the 2017-18 season. This is the third time the C-USA Tournament has been held in Alabama.
Both championships were held from 2015-17 in Birmingham at Legacy Arena (men’s and women’s) and Bartow Arena for the women’s championship in 1996.
“Providing an exciting and enjoyable championship atmosphere for the student-athletes is our top priority, and I believe all of the teams traveling to the Rocket City will love their experience here,” said Mark Russell, Executive Director of the Huntsville Sports Commission, in a press release from the city. “Huntsville is a great destination – not just to visit, but for sports.”
Tickets and other information are available at www.ConferenceUSA.com.
