Pac-12 Moves Women’s Basketball Tourney To Las Vegas, Extends Men’s Tourney To 2020
By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
The Pac-12 enjoys Las Vegas so much that the conference is moving the women’s basketball tournament to the Strip in different venues for 2019 and 2020, while extending the men’s hoops tourney at T-Mobile Arena to 2020.
The Pac-12 women’s teams will play at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in 2019, while the women will then play at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in 2020.
The Pac-12 women’s tournament will be a week before the men’s tourney in Las Vegas.
Meanwhile, the men’s tourney will be extended in Las Vegas to 2020. The current deal with Las Vegas Events, the events promotion arm of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, was scheduled to expires after the 2019 tournament. Here’s Commissioner Larry Scott:
The men’s teams had played at MGM Grand Garden Arena before the Pac-12 moved the tourney into T-Mobile Arena for 2016, when the conference set a tournament record attendance of 87,000 fans over four days.
The women are moving from Seattle, where there is a $600 million renovation of Key Arena in anticipation of trying to launch a new NHL team there.
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The women will play next year at MGM Grand Garden Arena, where the men used to play their Pac-12 tournament. Then in 2020, the women will shift their tourney to Mandalay Bay Events Center , which MGM Resorts International is renovating for its new WNBA team, the Las Vegas Aces. MGM Resorts is investing $8 million – $10 million into the events center with a new center scoreboard, all new seats and new locker rooms. The Aces start play in May.
MGM Resorts “have a commitment to women’s basketball with the WNBA,” Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said Thursday.
The Pac-12 men are in Las Vegas this year for its sixth conference tournament. UCLA plays Arizona Friday at 6 p.m. in one semifinal, while USC plays the Oregon-Utah winner in the second semi Friday at 8:30 p.m.
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