Basketball finals decision creates quandary for city

The Arkansas Activities Association decided Thursday to hold the high- school state basketball championships at Little Rock’s Barton Coliseum for 2013 only, which creates a quandary for Hot Springs.

Visit Hot Springs, which could not bid on the 2013 tournament because of a conflict with the dates for the Sun Belt Conference basketball tournament, had hoped the AAA would decide on a site for the high- school championships for 2014 and beyond.

Hot Springs had proposed a three- year deal for the state high- school basketball championships, starting in 2014. The proposal was made to the Arkansas Activities Association in Little Rock earlier this week by Craig Durmon, sales manager for Visit Hot Springs.

Two other sites submitted bids to the AAA.

Little Rock- North Little Rock presented a three- year bid, for 2013, 2014, and 2015, guaranteeing the AAA $ 140,000 annually if the finals were held at Barton Coliseum, which last hosted the

event in the early 1990s.

Jonesboro, the third bidder, submitted a proposal for the 2013 games only, to be played at Arkansas State University’s Convocation Center.

Steve Arrison, CEO of Visit Hot Springs, said AAA Executive Director Lance Taylor notified him Thursday that the AAA decided to award the bid to Little Rock- North Little Rock for one year only, then bid the event again in 2013, to put the contract back on a three- year cycle.

“Next June, they will consider bids for a three- year” contract, “so everybody would be bidding on the same time period,” Arrison said.

However, Arrison said the AAA’s decision puts Hot Springs in the position of deciding whether to hold the dates and “place a bet that we will be awarded the bid for the next three years when they go out next June.”

“We would like it back for 2014, 2015 and 2016. We have the dates available then. We like the event; it’s great for our community. It brings a lot of people in. The conflict was only for one year,” Arrison said.

“We’ll just have to make a decision. You hate to hold ev- erything, and then come up empty,” he said.

“Do we sit around for a year and not rent our space? Do we just hold all that space and then wait until next year, when they make a decision? We can’t wait a year out to book something, because we have such demand for our space.”

Arrison said the AAA requested proposals allowed venues to submit bids for 2013, or a combination of years from 2013 through 2019.

“I’m rather disappointed. Why did they bid it through 2019? It’s like they sort of changed in mid- stream,” he said.

“We just bid three years because we didn’t want to go that far out,” Arrison said. “You don’t want to commit yourself to prices and everything else for longer than that, not in our business, at least.

“Their classifications, the number of games, could change. A lot can change,” especially if the AAA dropped a classification, which would mean a loss of games, he said.

Visit Hot Springs proposed that the AAA keep 100 percent of the gate sales, while it would waive the rental of Summit Arena and staffing costs for the three- day event, an estimated cost of $ 45,000.

Arrison said the estimated cost was based on an event that came and rented the space at normal rates.

Hot Springs has hosted the state high- school basketball championships since 2007. After the first contract expired in 2009, the AAA rebid it and again awarded it to Hot Springs for another three years, through 2012.

Visit Hot Springs’ last contract with the AAA provided it with a $ 35,000 cash incentive to defray hotel room rental costs. The incentive was absent from the latest proposal.

“We removed the cash incentive from it,” Arrison said.

“You have to realize the reason we did that is that our costs had gone up substantially in the past three years, just like everybody else.

“Payroll costs have gone up, utilities. To lock in for three years we figured pretty much was an even bid, plus nobody bid on it the last time,” he said.

Visit Hot Springs first notified the AAA in June 2010 that, due to its contract with the Sun Belt Conference basketball tournament, it did not have the dates available in 2013, March 79, for the state basketball championships.

Hot Springs will host the Sun Belt through 2014. This was the final year of its contract to host the state high- school championships.