https://www.timesunion.com/business/article/High-school-basketball-tourney-attracts-big-bucks-12937792.php
High school basketball tourney attracts big bucks
Updated 7:15 pm, Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Albany
One of the Capital Region's biggest sports-related events is happening this Memorial Day weekend.
And bringing millions of dollars of economic development impact with it.
The event is the GymRat Challenge, the largest AAU basketball tournament in the northeast United States according to organizers, with games taking place in Troy, Schenectady, Saratoga Springs and at the newly-opened Albany Capital Center in downtown Albany. Games are taking place Saturday and Sunday.
"We've got 6,000 athletes every year that are here," says John Kmack, CEO of GymRat Basketball, the company that organizes the tournaments, which cover teams from high school down to middle school. "It's an enormous field and we're looking forward to watching so many outstanding young players from throughout the country."
Kmack knows his basketball. He is a coach's son who was the nation's top Division III three-point shooter in 1992 at SUNY Plattsburgh.
AAU stands for the Amateur Athletic Union, which organizes team sports programs in cities across the country. Albany is home to one of the top AAU basketball programs in the country, the Albany City Rocks, which has produced some of the top Division 1 recruits in the nation.
The GymRat Challenge has hosted many players who have gone onto big things, like two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry and former University of Connecticut and current WNBA star Breanna Stewart.
This weekend is the boys event, which includes 268 teams from 14 states and Canada. Between the boys games and the girls event that takes place June 16 and 17, the GymRat Challenge typically brings in more than 21,000 people to the region, generating $13 million in local spending over the two weekends, according to a study by Saratoga Springs-based Camoin Associates.
This year's event is expected to be the biggest ever in terms of team attendance. For instance, Kmack said 280 teams are signed up for the June girls event and even more teams want to sign up.
"We're booming," Kmack said. "This is the largest field that we've had in the 21-year history. I don't know when I am going to cap the (number of) girls teams. We're working to add some additional sites as things come up."
Scheduling dozens of games for each age division into just two days has become very difficult for Kmack, who has sought financial assistance from Empire State Development to try to keep the tournament in the area, which greatly benefits local hotels and restaurants. Kmack has negotiated rates with local hotels for participants.
So far, Kmack's attempts to get a capital grant from the state to buy portable basketball courts has been unsuccessful.
This year, however, Kmack says he got a lot of help from local officials with SMG, the sports management company that operates the Albany Capital Center and the Times Union Center. That would include Doug McClaine, the general manager of the Albany Capital Center and Bob Belber, the GM of the Times Union Center.
The two have helped Kmack come up with creative ways to host games at alternative sites.
Kmack says that McClaine and Belber have also offered to help secure additional use of the Capital Center and potential use of the Times Union Center, which would require NCAA approval.
That would help to alleviate the need for looking potentially outside the area for a single venue.
That's great news for an event that just this year became one of just a select number of tournaments that is now serving as a qualifying event for USA Basketball's U.S. Open Basketball Championships that will be held later in the summer.
Kmack says he has also gotten a good reception from Albany County officials and local state elected officials as well.
Because of that, Kmack has agreed to keep the tournament in the Capital Region again next year after getting overtures last year from a facility in Lancaster, Pa. to move the games there, and bring with it all that revenue.
"Bob Belber and Doug McClaine have come on board as outstanding allies," Kmack said. "Because of their support, we're committed to stay through 2019."
