Holloway:
Hotel rooms around the Piedmont area were booked solid. Restaurants saw booming business. Souvenir stores were swamped. All for the nation's third largest basketball tournament, which brought over 20,000 fans dribbling into Winston-Salem last February and March of '97. We'll look at the eight million dollar weekend success story of the 52nd annual CIAA Basketball Tournament next on Black Issues Forum. [MUSIC]

Holloway:
Nearly everybody in North Carolina is aware of the ACC Basketball Tournament, but for more than 50 years, Blacks in North Carolina and throughout the southeast have followed the CIAA basketball tournament. Today, it's the third largest basketball tournament in the attendance only behind the ACC and the Big East. Officials say that the CIAA basketball tournament brings more visitors to Winston-Salem than any other event, pumping about eight million dollars into the local econo y. Since 1994, Winston-Salem has hosted the tournament, and the CIAA has renamed, or renewed, its three year contract with the city through 1999. But landing the tournament costs money. To entice CIAA officials to hold the tournament in Winston-Salem for another three years, the city had to put up another package with incentives that totaled about two million dollars a year. Black Issues Forum attended the CIAA Tournament, and talked to the major players associated with bringing the tournament to Winst on-Salem about their view of the tournament's economic impact on North Carolina.

Male Voice:
Well, it's a lot of money, we're talking about eight million dollars of impact, uh, that's a lot of money. I think in Winston there is no other event that comes any impact, maybe the furniture market, but I don't think even the furniture market, that puts eight million dollars in a week into a city, and you are talking about hotel room nights, you talk about food services, I think there was an estimate done a couple of years ago that said the average CIAA fan spends about $500 a day in the city.

Female Voice:
There's a clear, direct economic impact in terms of what people spend when they come to our community, when they rent hotel rooms, when they go out and eat in some of our restaurants, but most importantly, those retail merchants out there get a lot of customers they wouldn't see otherwise, and what has really begun to happen is that CIAA fans have learned some of our businesses, and they have their own favorites, and they return, year after year, and people really look forward to their coming. They've like, made friends, you know, and they have to go visit those businesses. And of course the mall, is just a hot place to be during CIAA week here in Winston-Salem, Hanes Mall, and so there is that direct economic benefit. And of course, with our state taxes, a local hotel tax that we have, which is minimal, we still see returns on that type of revenue for both the city and the county as well as for the state. So it's not just our city and our region that's benefiting from this tournament being here, it's the entire state of North Carolina that is benefiting.

Male Voice:
I think it's tremendous. I think that if you look back just a year ago when the CIAA tournament was up for bid again, just the amount of competition between the cities. I currently reside in Charlotte, North Carolina and I can't tell you the number of phone calls I got saying, "Are we going to get it? Are we going to get it? Are we going to get it?" so for Winston-Salem to be awarded the CIAA Tournament for another three years is just incredible. Economic impact, uh, the numbers will probably range anywhere from eight to ten million dollars and I think at the end of the week most of the retailers here as well as the Chamber, the county commissioners, and the mayor's office will be celebrating just because of the economic impact. Eight to ten million dollars over a several day period is just incredible. And it may be, uh, I don't have this verified, one of the largest events that comes through Winston-Salem at this time.

Male Voice:
NationsBank has been a strong supporter of the CT, and will continue to be. Part of our involvement, if you look at it in terms of dollars, for the past several years, we've been a $75,000 contributor towards scholarships, and not including $55000 that we contributed to the general operating fund for the CT. This year, we've increased that to $100,000. Year after year, I think NationsBank will continue to be a strong supporter of the CT. And I think it's just reflective of how we perceive and value the market. I would not even be sitting in the position I'm in right now at NationsBank if it weren't for a C.

Male Voice:
Most people, they don't understand, or didn't realize, that Norfolk bring a lot of people to the C. A lot of the people you see up in the stands come because of Norfolk State. And I've been coming to the CIAA almost thirty years. And I've seen the tremendous impact that Norfolk has on the CIAA. Next year, they will not be here, and there's going to be a tremendous drop in attendance. But I also understand that Norfolk State is leaving the CIAA for economic reasons. We hope that Norfolk State will be able to foster greater national attention on the university, and we can do that if we can move into Division I.

Male Voice:
The average hotel rate, and notice I said average, it varies dramatically, but the average hotel rate is approximately $75. And that gives $1.5 million, that's a big number, that will be spent just in the hotels and motels in this Triad area over the next four days. Now that support is a big number, the hotels will require additional employees, additional staffing, although it's part time, it's temporary maybe, for those four days, people, not just the hotel, but the employees and the staff of the hotel, everyone benefits from the additional hours at a period of the year that is typically slow in the community. Now taking that a step further, this $1.5 million in hotel rooms that will be spent just in the hotels in the area, the 6% sales tax on that in the three areas of the two counties that are involved here, that is over $90,000 that they will leave behind in sales tax. That is a direct benefit to the city, state, and county, that's here. In addition, there will be another $90,000 in occupancy taxes that are left behind. A total, just from the hotels, just from people using the hotel rooms, buying hotel rooms, there'll be $180,000 in taxes left behind, and that's the important part, in this two-county area, when these people go home on Sunday. That's $180,000 in taxes that did not have to come from the local economy. The person that owns a home here in Forsyth County, that's taxes that they're not going to have to pay, that go to support the services that the city, the county provides.

Male Voice:
Reebok, as far as the CIAA goes, we're not in it to make money. We're in it to show our brand off. And, what a better way to do it than to put our gear on CIAA athletes and have it broadcast now nationally, all over the country? We don't look at it as much as a financial investment as we do a legitimacy investment.

Male Voice:
The hoopla that surrounds the CIAA Tournament isn't all basketball related. The Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association's Tournament, which was televised live on three networks and 24 television stations, is also about a legacy of traditions. It's about alumni and students of the 13 Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the C, renewing old friendships, and making new ones. M I believe in CIAA schools. In fact, my daughter is third generation CIAA. And I have another one coming out, and she'll be CIAA too. The nurturing, the people you meet, last a lifetime, and you can't replace that.

Male Voice:
It's kind of exciting, 1912, it's called the Colored Intercollegiate Athletic Association, because we didn't have a conference, and we got together and formed a conference. And for the betterment of Historically Black schools. And we're still surviving. We're the oldest, 85 years old, of any Historically Black conference in the United States. The tournament is 52 years old, and it's very successful, and I think the history -- when you're looking back at the CIAA, people don't r ealize athletes like Joe Black, Leroy Kelley --you saw them all on TV years ago -- they were all part of CIAA--Willie Lanier, Al Addles, all CIAA fans. People who went to school after slavery came out of CIAA, and schools are 150, 125 years old, and you can't pass that history. And that's most important. I think if you've got a history, you've got a future. And that's the thing that keeps the CIAA going.

Female Voice:
We had to sell the value of the CIAA Tournament to our own community, because many in our community were not familiar with the CIAA and what the benefit of having it here would be for our community. But right away, there were several of our significant corporate partners: Wachovia Bank, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Sara Lee Companies, these folks really stepped up and said we are here, and we encourage the rest of the community to join us. USAir has been a very strong partner with us in this whole venture, and they began to come on, every year, we've gotten more and more sponsorships. And we had to put together a package that, as I said to our folks who were working on it, we wanted to stretch ourselves, but we wanted it to be a package that we could deliver on. We didn't want to promise more than we could absolutely deliver.

Male Voice:
I think the fans come, it's kind of like a family-style homecoming for a lot of people. You see a lot of friends and alumni from back when and it's just kind of a reflection, flashback on the way it was. One year, there was a game that just went down, a championship game that just went to the wire, last two seconds. I think it was last year, and the way the game ended, and the amount of pressure that was put on the young man to win at the free throw line I thought was a very sporting way to have a tournament, I mean it was fought tooth and nail. I think that's exactly the way it is with the conference. Everybody lays it on the line.

Male Voice:
Well I'll tell you that the biggest reason we do it is for business development. But then there's a secondary reason. We are always looking for wonderful talent. the CIAA and it's member institutions have been a wonderful, just resource for us, just in terms of finding those that are going to come into entry level positions within NationsBank, and then some of our middle management positions, and so it's been a great source of finding talent.

Male Voice:
400 billion is the purchasing power within the African-American community, if you segment that, of the top ten states in the country of affluence, that have wealth, five of the top ten are within a NationsBank franchise area. So it makes sense for us as a company, basically for us to cultivate businesses already in our backyard. So there's a business reason for being involved with this. And we can do well and do good at the same time.

Male Voice:
There's a lot of networking going on, and most of it generally is in the concourse area, but they're there for basketball, no doubt about it, it's reunion, but they're there for the basketball, and to cheer on their respective college or university, and I think the social aspect of it is as important as the basketball piece, but they are definitely there for the hoop action. I've been to, now I can say I've been to the top three in the country right now which are the ACC, the Big East, and the C, as far as the pure social aspect of it, I'd have to say the CIAA ranks above the other two. As far as the hard-core fan that's there to cheer their team on , do or die, I'd have to say it's the C; in terms of the spirit, and the, the just good feeling about the tournament, I'd have to say the CIAA. The other tournaments, nothing against them, but the CIAA is both social and athletic, whereas the other tournaments tend to take on a little more of the financial hard-core money aspect.

Male Voice:
Local officials say that the money brought in by the tournament compared to the money spent to land it makes the expense a good investment. The two major sponsors, Coca-Cola and NationsBank, say they are satisfied with their return on investment in the tournament. They say that they are making an investment in the students as potential customers, and employees, as business, but yet Reebok doesn't look so much at the investment versus the sheer visibility.

Male Voice:
Coca-Cola has been involved with the CIAA for thirty years, and it started out as being a business decision; it was a business decision thirty years ago, and it will be a business decision a hundred years from now. Not only do we sponsor C, but we sponsor all four Historically Black College conferences. CIAA is the most prestigious and oldest, and our thirty-year sponsorship is indicative of how that has worked our for us. While the tournament is the focal front of what we do, it is more important to us to support each of the individual universities. I think we benefit in a couple of ways. Obviously, you're right in the selling of our product, which will help us reinvest in the schools, but the schools also provide us with a great revenue resource for us and they provide a human resource for us that we can use for jobs and employment.

Male Voice:
It sends a really strong message in terms of the state of North Carolina actually values the African-American dollar. If just looking back on the history of the CIAA tournament, it's usually just been a competition between North Carolina and VA, and I'll tell you that Charlotte would have loved to have gotten it, but Richmond, Norfolk, and the Hampton Roads Area, they were all vying for that just as vigorously as we were, so it is, it's well sought-after. Every year I meet someone and I'm amazed at how long they've been coming. One of my colleagues, Mary DePillars, she actually delivered remarks on behalf of NationsBank at the Men's Tip-off Banquet. She announced, you wouldn't know it to look at her, but this is her thirtieth CT. I talked with two other couples, its 20 years, 25 years, and I don't know if not attending a Historically Black College or University, that I would have made that same effort, and it's a magnet, for people to come together year after year, and I think it goes beyond the sporting event. People are coming back, looking and finding what their fellow alumni are doing. I would even give you another example. I met someone last year, whose school has not been a member of CIAA for years, I'm talking about over 15 years, he comes from WV, and he's not missed a tournament in 18 years.

Male Voice:
We have a program that was just announced at the Women's Tip-off Banquet the other night. It's going to be through the Thurgood Marshall Foundation, and it's going to be a paid internship program for CIAA athletes and students. And what it will involve is an internship with all aspects of Reebok, with sales, marketing, and team sports, and that'll be for a summer, and the kids'll be paid, and expenses taken care of, so it's kind of a win-win situation for both Reebok and the participating young man or woman.

Male Voice:
Next to the furniture market, the CIAA Basketball Tournament brings more people than many other event to the Triad. It has outgrown it's previous venues in Hampton, Norfolk, and Richmond, and has also been a sellout every year in WS. Greensboro and Charlotte fought to be the hosts of the tournament during the last bidding process, and will probably fight for it again. But Winston-Salem officials are already preparing to make a bid to keep the tournament here through the year 2002. When the tournament left Richmond, it had 14 teams participating. Now there are 13. Next year, there will be 12, since Norfolk State University is leaving the conference for the MEAC, a Division I conference that could mean more revenue. However, CIAA commissioner Leon Cary has plans to hold on to those Norfolk State fans.

Male Voice:
I want to sell out the tournament. I want to carry Norfolk State fans. We carry some Hampton fans, too, but I want to really, really carry them and make them part of the CIAA in a big way. Trying to keep the CIAA together, is the main focus and do whatever is in the best interest of the schools that are in the CIAA. Of course we want to develop TV a little bit more, little bit more revenue as far as signs. I got a lot of things that are on the horizon. The name of the game is money. I plan to sign another sponsor. We have two major sponsors right now, NationsBank and Coca-Cola, about a half a million dollars. We just signed a deal with Nations a couple of months ago for half a million dollars over two years. I plan to sign the same deal with Coca-Cola for either half a million, maybe a million. I don't know. We're looking for McDonald's, or Hardee's, something like that, to put another $250,000 a year into the CIAA. What we do is we have $150,000, basically it comes to the conference, 50 to the conference, 100 to the school scholarships, and the other money comes in a TV package. So, I want to pick up on that a little bit. I want to sell some signage in the arena. My goal is to make TV a million too. I'll be quite happy if I can do that.

Male Voice:
Well, first of all, Mike, we were down at North Carolina College at the time, started with that first tournament, in 1946, in the ULINE Arena, in Washington, DC. We won it in triple overtime, and it's been a tremendous growth of the tournament since then. I think it's good for equity in the Conference to see two North Carolina teams, that haven't won a tournament since 1977, playing in the finals. I think it's good for the CIAA in this area and this is probably one of the best attended, and we've had any number of CIAA players to go to the NBA, and be greatly successful. So, it's a growth process, and we are very happy to see how well it's done. I think the quality of the ball is competitive with most of the conferences. They don't have the marquee teams that you see on television all the time, but the fact that you look at what has come out of this conference in terms of NBA players, you know that it's quality basketball, and I think that the growth of the tournament over the years, and the attendance of the tournament, which I think is only exceeded by maybe the ACC is proof that the CIAA is on the right track.

Male Voice:
I truly believe that the tournament is growing, and that through sports, and supports education, and when you see this many people coming together, you know that bettering education, that it's not so much the basketball game, the basketball game is becoming larger, but it draws more attention to the different Black universities.

Male Voice:
I would love to see the CIAA Conference come back together. I think that we had a history there, and a lot of our history tends to get lost. I mean, we spend generations trying to figure out, what did we actually contribute to society over these years, and the CIAA Conference is the largest African American conference in the country, but it was a much larger body. I think that those kinds of relationships, networking opportunities, I think that they're uniquely African American . I think it would be wonderful to have some kind of championship game, just a bid with the NCAAs is great, but to dilute that further would change the character, and I think it would also change the kind of feel, and also the loyalty. We've lost a few schools that have gone Division I, Norfolk State University most recently, and Hampton University, and it tears at your heartstrings.

Female Voice:
Nobody knew what it was, and now everybody knows what it was. Along about, well I remember vividly, last year when we were having all the ice and snow, in January, it was just awful, I think, all over the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, but certainly here in Winston-Salem. And people, along about the middle of January, were saying, When is the CIAA coming? If they'll just hurry up, things'll get better, you know. And this year, people were doing that again, and I think that one of the most wonderful things that happened to me, was when a local shopping mall called up my office, and said we want to do something for the CIAA Tournament, because we always benefit when they're here. That said to me, this community understands, this is a bonus for us and they want to be a part of it. So I think, the main difference I've noticed, is that now we know what the CIAA is, they are part of our family, and we're not going to let them go.

Male Voice:
Kind of want to be a part of the action, and make history. The best part of the best game of the best basketball in the country, at this Division II level. A lot of fan support, a lot of celebrities, will be a part of the action. For me, I think I've been coming to the CIAAs for 30 years, since 1967, so I never knew I'd work in the CIAA at one time, but it has been fun. It has been fun from day one until today. The memories will last a lifetime, so when you're sitting back in the rocking chair, you can laugh and say you had a good time.

Holloway:
The CIAA Basketball Tournament has not always enjoyed this level of financial and publicity success. Since the tournament was founded in 1945, it has survived the Jim Crow and Civil Rights eras, and has remained viable. Even with its long-term success, there was a time when the tournament could not be played at the big arenas, and the major media outlets would barely mention the CIAA. Yet in 1997, the CIAA Tournament was a banner year for North Carolina. St. Augustine's College won its first tournament championship, and the finals featured two North Carolina teams, Fayetteville State University and St. Aug.'s, plus of the tournament's 13 teams in northern and southern divisions, eight teams were from North Carolina. Join us next week, when we'll talk to one of the co-founders of the tournament, a man who studied under the founder of basketball, Dr. James Naismith, and a man who organized and coached the first known collegiate basketball game between blacks and whites. You won't want to miss next weeks interview with Coach Mac, Dr. John McLendon. Thank you for watching Black Issues Forum, please call us at 919-549-7167, or send e-mail to BIF@unctv.org. We'd love to hear your comments, and visit us on the World Wide Web. That's www.unctv.org/bif. I'm Jay Holloway, and have a blessed and peaceful evening.

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