Sports Illustrated's Pete Thamel reported early Friday morning that the ACC is working out the details for a multi-year agreement to play its conference tournament at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. Thamel's sources indicated that a deal was expected to be done by the end of the month.
Since the ACC's expansion to add Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Notre Dame, the northward shift of the conference's footprint has led many to speculate that the ACC was eyeing New York as a possible landing spot. The presumptive favorite was Madison Square Garden, but the arena's contract to host the Big East tournament through 2026 will likely preclude that from happening.
The ACC tournament is slated to be held at the Greensboro Coliesum in Greensboro, N.C., in 2015 and the Verizon Center in Washington D.C., in 2016, so the earliest possible move to Brooklyn would be for the 2017 tournament. Thamel's report points out that the A-10 tournament will be in the last year of a five-year contract with the Barclays Center in 2017, which is something both sides would have to work out.
The move would allow for a rotation of the tournament between New York—the conference's largest market—and North Carolina, where the ACC is headquartered and four of its 15 teams reside.
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