Glens Falls loses State Championships to Binghamton

Better enjoy this year's NYSPHSAA Boys Basketball Championships at the COOL Insuring Arena, because it won't be back in Glens Falls for at least three more years.

The New York High School Public Athletic Association voted 12 to 10 on Wednesday to move the state championships from Glens Falls to Binghamton, to the Visions Veterans Memorial Arena, effective 2025 through 2027.

Voting for Glens Falls to maintain the basketball championships was Sections 1, 2, 7, 8 and 10.  However, the westernmost sections of 3, 4, 5, 6 along with the Catskills Section 9 and Suffolk County's Section 11 voted for Binghamton.

The vote comes as Section 4's bid for the championships was read to be lower than Glens Falls's, and included use of the NYSPHSAA's gofan.co ticketing platform.   The COOL Insuring Arena is contracted with Seat Geek for ticket sales, therefore ticket sales would have to go through that rather than NYSPHSAA's gofan.co platform, incurring an extra cost.  Section 4's bid also included a $20,000 grant to the NYSPHSAA, allowing the agency to start in the black from the start, which won the approval of NYSPHSAA Executive Director Dr. Robert Zayas.  However, part of Glens Falls's bid was not understood properly, according to reports via The Post-Star. The State Basketball Committee, a separate group, recommended to the state that the tournament stay in Glens Falls by an 8-2 margin.

Glens Falls has been host to the NYSPHSAA Boys Basketball Championships since 1981, but lost the championships in 2016 to Binghamton.   The city regained the rights to host in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic deferred the first year of the agreement to 2022, with this year being the last of the three year process.  

The 2024 Championships at the COOL Insuring Arena will be Thursday, March 14th through Sunday, March 17th, with an extra day of the championships to accommodate New York being broken down to 6 classifications, rather than the 5 last year that creates two additional semifinals and championships to be played in Glens Falls. 

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