UIL games stay at Alamodome
Competition with SXSW for rooms gives San Antonio the edge.
After a largely successful debut this year as the host of UIL state tournaments for boys and girls basketbal l, the Alamodome will be home to the events for at leas t two more years.
UIL offici al s announced Thursday that the annu al tournaments will return to San Antonio in 2016 and 2017.
Thanks to a wide select ion of affordable hotel rooms and a variety of family entertainment opti ons downtown, San Antonio became an attractive option for the UIL tournaments, which had been staged in Austin since the boys event began in 1921.
In announcing the move to San Antonio last July, UIL officials said the tournaments had become victims of the continued growth of South by Southwest, Austin’s annual film, music and intera ctive festival that overlapped
the boys tournament every year in early March. The lack of hotel space, coupled with increasingly high room rates during SXSW, forced state tournament teams and their fans to search for lodging outside the city limits.
In the final analysis, UIL executive director Charles Breithaupt said, the state tournaments had felt SXSW’s pinch for “three or four years,” and he noted that the crowds inside the Erwin Center had declined significantly; the boys tournament typically had at- tracted between 90,000 to 100,000 fans over its three days, but only 79,688 attended in 2014.
“The Alamodome was extremely hospitable and helpful during the planning phases and as the host of the UIL basketball tournaments this year,” Breithaupt said Thursday in a news release. “We look forward to improving upon the excellent tournaments and providing a convenient, firstclass event.”
Despite the mostly positive reviews from teams and their fans, total attendance for the 2015 tournaments at the Alamodome was a mixed bag. While the boys event drew 84,759 fans — an increase of 5,106 over 2014 — the girls tournament attracted only 34,642, a decrease of more than 8,500 compared to last year.
The UIL also announced tickets for the 2016 girls and boys state tournaments will go on sale May 26.