Big East Conference Men's Basketball Tournament
Thursday, March 12, 2020
Val Ackerman
VAL ACKERMAN: I'm going to speak from the heart a little bit here. This has been the most extraordinary stretch of days I've ever had or ever seen in my 30-plus years of working in the sports business. The developments seem to be changing by the hour. As I mentioned yesterday, for those of you in the conference, none of the people -- there were -- few of the people running sports leagues or sports organizations are qualified medical professionals. So we're relying on the judgments of doctors and experts. The conferences are looking to each other in many ways to try to figure out what to do. We take guidance from the NCAA. I can tell you that as part of our scheduled meeting this morning with the presidents and the athletics directors, we had on the call video conferencing in from Indianapolis senior executives from the NCAA.
So as recently as 10:00 this morning, as I'm running this meeting, we had no idea that these developments were going to transpire with conference tournaments.
We all reacted yesterday, of course, to the NCAA's news, based on the opinion of its medical experts, that it was going to adopt a restricted attendance policy for the NCAA Tournament. They were not talking at that point about canceling the NCAA Tournament and none of the conferences -- I can tell you that last evening I was on the phone with the commissioners of other major basketball conferences, who I learned were going to adopt a restricted attendance policy as a cautionary measure, et cetera. So we went into our meeting today and that's really where everybody was.
Our meeting broke up a little bit before noon, and that was when we heard literally for the first time that other conferences were beginning to make this move. I was able to connect with one of the other conference commissioners, just because I wanted to understand their thinking, and he said that for his conference it was largely driven by directives that he was getting from the municipality in which their conference tournament is being played.
So I then reached out to a contact that I had established over the last week with the City of New York, in the Office of Emergency Management -- this is now afternoon -and learned that New York City is, in fact, very shortly going to be bringing forward directives related to large gatherings here in New York.
So this had not yet hit. I can't give you any more details than that, but I can tell you that an hour ago -- plus ago, I was learning for the first time that the city now -- and we've been dealing with them for days -- and they have been telling us they're not recommending cancellations or any adjustments to large gatherings. It now appears that the city is prepared to act in the same way that some of the other major urban markets are acting.
So once we heard this news, play had started here at the Big East, we know. We then had to mobilize to get our presidents and our athletics directors reassembled. And so we did that in a conference call that was held about half an hour ago because I need to act, like all commissioners have to act through the authorization of their boards, and so our board quickly agreed.
When we alerted them to what was happening with other conferences, including the major basketball conferences, the Atlantic 10, we learned, is also making a move with respect to their tournament in Brooklyn, and importantly because of guidance that we were -- just today, the first time -- getting from the City of New York, it would be prudent to cancel the remainder of our men's basketball tournament.
So now you know the news that we decided, out of an abundance of caution, even though everyone's already gathered here, that it would make sense to not have our [inaudible] court after halftime.
So we have, here in the 2020 Big East Tournament, we have two completed games. We have half a game. And that's all we're going to have in 2020. I've got to tell you, it breaks my heart. This is the greatest college basketball tournament ever. But we respect the decision of authorities. We're very mindful about what's happening nationally. We do not want to be imprudent as it relates to the safety of our participants and our fans.
And it's terrifying, frankly, what's evolving here as the science and the assessments of the science are progressing. And I don't think any of us know what's going to happen tomorrow.
And, again, just to reinforce this, we had NCAA staff, who we've been looking to for guidance on a video conference with our presidents a few hours ago, and they did not let on that even they knew that some of these moves were being made by these other conferences.
So that's kind of how the last 24 hours have gone. I want to just extend my thanks to all of you for supporting us here at the tournament. Sorry to put you through any trouble.
I want to thank, again, I know Joel Fisher from the Garden is here. And I can't tell you, we were up all night planning out the limited attendance policy that we had going into today. It's not easy to turn on a dime and tell all 20,000 people or 19,000 people they can't come to the Big East Tournament, but we had to do it.
And I want to thank Joel and his amazing staff for turning with us as we were trying to put all this together. And, I mean, you all can second-guess our decision to play that first half. That's your prerogative. But I can assure you we were doing the best we could with the information we had. And when we had to make the decision -- and as soon as we got the information, particularly from the city, we didn't hesitate to do what we had to do.
So with that, that's kind of -- that's where we are -- and I can't opine on where the NCAA will go. I think, I'll just add this because we were on the line with their folks this morning, they're just monitoring this by the hour themselves. So as it relates to the NCAA Tournament, spring championships, et cetera, I just predict that we haven't seen the end of this. It's going to be a fast-moving set of circumstances. And we'll be doing our best to keep up and to do what we have to do as a conference to adjust accordingly.
Thursday, March 12, 2020
Val Ackerman
VAL ACKERMAN: I'm going to speak from the heart a little bit here. This has been the most extraordinary stretch of days I've ever had or ever seen in my 30-plus years of working in the sports business. The developments seem to be changing by the hour. As I mentioned yesterday, for those of you in the conference, none of the people -- there were -- few of the people running sports leagues or sports organizations are qualified medical professionals. So we're relying on the judgments of doctors and experts. The conferences are looking to each other in many ways to try to figure out what to do. We take guidance from the NCAA. I can tell you that as part of our scheduled meeting this morning with the presidents and the athletics directors, we had on the call video conferencing in from Indianapolis senior executives from the NCAA.
So as recently as 10:00 this morning, as I'm running this meeting, we had no idea that these developments were going to transpire with conference tournaments.
We all reacted yesterday, of course, to the NCAA's news, based on the opinion of its medical experts, that it was going to adopt a restricted attendance policy for the NCAA Tournament. They were not talking at that point about canceling the NCAA Tournament and none of the conferences -- I can tell you that last evening I was on the phone with the commissioners of other major basketball conferences, who I learned were going to adopt a restricted attendance policy as a cautionary measure, et cetera. So we went into our meeting today and that's really where everybody was.
Our meeting broke up a little bit before noon, and that was when we heard literally for the first time that other conferences were beginning to make this move. I was able to connect with one of the other conference commissioners, just because I wanted to understand their thinking, and he said that for his conference it was largely driven by directives that he was getting from the municipality in which their conference tournament is being played.
So I then reached out to a contact that I had established over the last week with the City of New York, in the Office of Emergency Management -- this is now afternoon -and learned that New York City is, in fact, very shortly going to be bringing forward directives related to large gatherings here in New York.
So this had not yet hit. I can't give you any more details than that, but I can tell you that an hour ago -- plus ago, I was learning for the first time that the city now -- and we've been dealing with them for days -- and they have been telling us they're not recommending cancellations or any adjustments to large gatherings. It now appears that the city is prepared to act in the same way that some of the other major urban markets are acting.
So once we heard this news, play had started here at the Big East, we know. We then had to mobilize to get our presidents and our athletics directors reassembled. And so we did that in a conference call that was held about half an hour ago because I need to act, like all commissioners have to act through the authorization of their boards, and so our board quickly agreed.
When we alerted them to what was happening with other conferences, including the major basketball conferences, the Atlantic 10, we learned, is also making a move with respect to their tournament in Brooklyn, and importantly because of guidance that we were -- just today, the first time -- getting from the City of New York, it would be prudent to cancel the remainder of our men's basketball tournament.
So now you know the news that we decided, out of an abundance of caution, even though everyone's already gathered here, that it would make sense to not have our [inaudible] court after halftime.
So we have, here in the 2020 Big East Tournament, we have two completed games. We have half a game. And that's all we're going to have in 2020. I've got to tell you, it breaks my heart. This is the greatest college basketball tournament ever. But we respect the decision of authorities. We're very mindful about what's happening nationally. We do not want to be imprudent as it relates to the safety of our participants and our fans.
And it's terrifying, frankly, what's evolving here as the science and the assessments of the science are progressing. And I don't think any of us know what's going to happen tomorrow.
And, again, just to reinforce this, we had NCAA staff, who we've been looking to for guidance on a video conference with our presidents a few hours ago, and they did not let on that even they knew that some of these moves were being made by these other conferences.
So that's kind of how the last 24 hours have gone. I want to just extend my thanks to all of you for supporting us here at the tournament. Sorry to put you through any trouble.
I want to thank, again, I know Joel Fisher from the Garden is here. And I can't tell you, we were up all night planning out the limited attendance policy that we had going into today. It's not easy to turn on a dime and tell all 20,000 people or 19,000 people they can't come to the Big East Tournament, but we had to do it.
And I want to thank Joel and his amazing staff for turning with us as we were trying to put all this together. And, I mean, you all can second-guess our decision to play that first half. That's your prerogative. But I can assure you we were doing the best we could with the information we had. And when we had to make the decision -- and as soon as we got the information, particularly from the city, we didn't hesitate to do what we had to do.
So with that, that's kind of -- that's where we are -- and I can't opine on where the NCAA will go. I think, I'll just add this because we were on the line with their folks this morning, they're just monitoring this by the hour themselves. So as it relates to the NCAA Tournament, spring championships, et cetera, I just predict that we haven't seen the end of this. It's going to be a fast-moving set of circumstances. And we'll be doing our best to keep up and to do what we have to do as a conference to adjust accordingly.
