ACC tournament not immune to recession

Long one of the toughest tickets in sports, the ACC men’s basketball tournament has become a hard sell this week.

In a jarring indication of the impact of the recession on the business of sports, almost 10,000 seats remain unsold to the tournament, which begins today at the Georgia Dome.

“It’s a comment on the times we are in,” said Karl Hicks, the ACC’s associate commissioner for basketball. “We’re not recession-proof.”

Despite the tourney having seats available, the majority of the downtown hotels are sold out, said Lauren Jarrell, a spokeswoman for the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau, the city’s main tourism organization. And the combination of hotel rooms and fans are expected to bring in $30 million in economic impact that will translate to $1.2 million that the city and state will make from the increased sales tax, according to Gary Stokan, president of the Atlanta Sports Council.

This year’s tournament is the first of five major college hoops events that Atlanta will host over the next four years.

The string includes the SEC men’s basketball tournament in 2011 and caps off with the NCAA Men’s Final Four in 2013.

The ACC tournament will return in 2012, the same year Atlanta hosts a regional final for the NCAA men’s basketball championship, and then moves back to its traditional Greensboro home for the next three years. Stokan said he wants Atlanta to get it back again after that.

“You’re talking about the biggest conference tournament around,” he said.

Since 2000, basketball events — the ACC and SEC men’s hoops conference tournaments, as well as the NCAA Final Four and regional tournament games — have yielded $13.1 million in city and state sales taxes, Stokan said, citing economic data from the sports council.

The 2007 Men’s Final Four contributed $3 million to Atlanta and Georgia’s sales tax base, Stokan said. The Final Four was also in Atlanta in 2002.

The ACC tournament has been held in the Georgia Dome once before, in 2001. That year, a record 40,000 ticket books for all the tournament games were sold. This year nine of the 12 ACC schools were unable to sell their full allotment, leaving the league to put seats on sale to the general public for the first time since 1966. And the $363 ticket books, which cover all 11 games of the four-day event, have been slow to move.

Hicks said “an eyelash north of 26,000” had been sold as of Tuesday, and he held out hope of hitting 27,000 or 28,000 by the end of today — well short of the 36,000 available. All unsold seats, available through Ticketmaster, are in the upper deck.

The ACC contends it would have sold out if not for the economy.

“The only difference between today and 2001 is this big, huge recession we’re going through,” said Hicks, the tournament manager.

Even so, the ACC points out that it has sold more tickets for this year’s tournament than are available in other arenas that host the event. Last year’s tournament sold out Charlotte’s Bobcats Arena, which seats 20,000. Next year’s will be played in the Greensboro Coliseum, which seats 23,000.

But this proved to be the wrong year to try to sell out a dome.

“Playing in the Georgia Dome provides a great stage for our conference teams, and Atlanta has been a terrific partner,” ACC commissioner John Swofford said in a statement. “The combination of playing this year’s tournament in a dome during the current economic times has been very unique, and yet we’ve surpassed the capacity of any other venue we play in and will have the largest turnout of any conference championship this year.”

Still, having unsold tickets is a culture shock for a tournament that over the decades has been a crown jewel of the ACC and a prime fund-raising tool for member schools. At most schools, most years, fans have had to make substantial donations to the athletics program in order to make the cut for the right to buy tournament tickets.

Although large numbers of alumni of most ACC schools live in metro Atlanta, more tournament-goers need hotel rooms when the event is here than when it is in Greensboro, which is within driving distance of North Carolina’s four ACC schools. Overnight stays add to the cost in this cost-sensitive year.

“At a time when people are eyeing every penny of discretionary spending, sometimes it comes down to whether you go to the ACC tournament or go on summer vacation or just save enough money to pay the rent,” Hicks said. “Even some people who, relatively speaking, are doing OK kind of want to hold on to cash. I think that’s what we’re seeing.”