2004 CIAA Tournament Scores BIG: Shatters Attendance Record!
N.C. Central's Championship Run, Shaw’s Womens Title,
New ‘Super Saturday’, Help Attract more than 104,500 to RBC Center

RALEIGH, N.C. — Fueled by great early and mid-week crowds and a new Super Saturday Showcase format, and despite winter weather conditions throughout the state, the 2004 Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association’s annual basketball tournament drew a record number of fans for the fifth consecutive year.

More than 104,500 fans enjoyed activities at the RBC Center from Feb. 23 – Feb. 28, including men’s and women’s games and the high-energy Super Saturday festivities. The new single-event attendance record for the conference came from advance ticket-book sales, single-session paid and complimentary tickets, as well as turnstile drop counts from the arena. Pass gate entries for youth groups, sponsors and conference guests were also calculated. Comparable attendance for the 2003 Tournament was 91,823 making it a 14 percent increase for this year’s event.

“Each of the past five years we have seen the CIAA tournament’s footprint expand,” CIAA Commissioner Leon G. Kerry said. “We are drawing more people to the host city, to the arena, and they are coming earlier and earlier in the week.

“We’ve also made a concerted effort to make sure the youth of the community get a chance to experience the CIAA, with the aim of perpetuating the CIAA tradition,” Kerry continued. “We donate a number of single-day tickets to youth groups and host them at our free ‘Super Saturday’ events. We always make a concerted effort to reach out to the community-at-large, and it starts with the kids.”

CIAA Super Saturday featured the first-ever CIAA Streetball Classic pitting a CIAA All-Star team against the Street Basketball Association’s best, with the CIAA squad defeating the SBA All-Stars, who had never lost on American soil. The inaugural CIAA Battle of the Bands featured Virginia State University and Johnson C. Smith University, while Mignon Turner of Winston-Salem State University won the first Miss CIAA Contest, and the popular cheerleading exhibition was a crowd pleaser as always. Attendance for this event alone was up from 5,571 in 2003 to 16,000 in 2004.

Local teams North Carolina Central University (men) and Shaw University (women) also made runs to their respective championship games, with Shaw winning the women’s title for the second consecutive year. With these two teams playing the entire week, many alumni and fans attended games every session.

“We are delighted that attendance figures have increased significantly for a fifth consecutive year,” said Dave Heinl, president of the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau. “Based on that report, we hope that economic impact and total room night figures, when they are calculated within the next seven to 10 days, will be up as well. It's a real credit to the CIAA's many alumni and fans, along with event organizers, that the Tournament's steady growth pattern continued this year, especially in light of the weather-related challenges that occurred on Thursday and Friday.”

In 2003, the CIAA tournament generated $859,236 in tax revenues, $713,845 of which was from state and local tax, $108,297 from hotel occupancy and $37,094 in food and beverage tax. Heinl said it would be seven to 10 days before the Raleigh CVB will be able to accurately report these figures for 2004. The 2003 economic impact to the City of Raleigh was $10.2 million.