INDIANAPOLIS, June 6 (UPI) -- Indianapolis has won the right to hold the Big Ten basketball tournaments for five years beginning in 2008.
The contract includes both men's and women's games.
The city outbid Chicago, the Chicago Tribune reported. Indianapolis agreed to pay the league $400,000 a year to compensate for the smaller capacity of its Conseco Fieldhouse, which has 19,000 seats, 4,000 fewer than Chicago's United Center.
"We love basketball here for sure ... and we thought not having the tournaments here was just unthinkable, so everyone rallied together," said Susan Williams, president of the Indiana Sports Corp.
Indianapolis offered other incentives, including $250,000 for two scholarships a year for a male and female athlete for their post-graduate work and a job fair for players.
