BUTTE – The boys and girls high school Class AA basketball tournament beginning this week in Butte will bring plenty of hardwood excitement along with potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“When you bring in fans from all four corners of the state that creates some significant economic activity in the community,” said Rody Holman.
Holman heads Advantage Butte which is a group that works to bring sports tournaments to Butte because events like basketball tournament result in fans eating at local restaurants and staying at local hotels.
“Certainly the retail sector of the community gets a boost from it as well, because when those folks aren’t sitting in the Civic Center and sleeping in those motel rooms they’re out shopping in the community,” said Holman.
Butte Civic Center Manager Bill Melvin agreed, “It’s wonderful to showcase our community and hopefully they’ll come back for the Folk Festival or for another event.”
And while we know it takes a team effort to win basketball games, it also takes a team effort to host tournaments like this, and hopefully, it will be a win for the city.
“We have advantage Butte, the chamber and of course we couldn’t do anything without the support of our local high school, Butte High School, Chuck Merrifield, and his staff, so it takes all of pulling together to get this thing off,” said Melvin.
The tournament runs until Saturday evening and will feature 16 teams from around the state.
