Six cities have eye on ball

FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said he’d love to see the SEC baseball tournament move to Memphis from Hoover, Ala.

“I think they have a great facility in Memphis, and it would be closer to us than where we have to travel now,” Van Horn said Tuesday. “So I’m pulling for Memphis.”

Memphis is among six cities bidding to host the SEC Tournament beginning in 2012. The SEC’s current contract to hold the tournament at Regions Parkin Hoover, a Birmingham suburb, expires after 2011.

Cities bidding to host the tournament in 2012 and beyond are Hoover;Memphis; Duluth, Ga.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Jackson, Miss.; and Montgomery, Ala., according to the Birmingham News.

It is the first open-bidding process for the SEC Tournament. While the SEC is accepting bids for a five year cycle from 2012-2016, the proposals can be for a shorter time period.

“If they want to bid for two years, that’s fine,” SEC assistant commissioner Craig Mattox told the News.

The SEC also sent a bid package to the Little Rock Sports Commission, but David Russell, director of marketing and sales, said the commission decided that it won’t bid because of the SEC’s preference for a facility with at least 10,000 permanent seats.

The Arkansas Travelers’ Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock has 5,288 seats, though there was an announced attendance of 9,426 for the Razorbacks’ 5-4 victory over Louisiana Tech on May 12.

Verizon Arena in North Little Rock has played host to the SEC women’s basketball tournament twice and to the SEC gymnastics championships once, and Russell said he had asked Mattox to put Little Rock on a list of cities interested in hosting the conference’s baseball tournament.

Russell said when it came time to submit a bid and he saw the stadium seating requirement, Mattox was up front about the fact Little Rock didn’t have a realistic chance of landing the event.

“He didn’t tell us not to make a bid, but he was honest about the situation, which I appreciate,” Russell said. “We swung for the fences in this case and struck out, but we’re going to keep swinging for other SEC events we do have a chance to bring here.”

Hoover’s Regions Ballpark, the SEC Tournament’s site since 1998, lists a capacity of 10,800 but drew 13,227for the 2010 championship game in which LSU beat Alabama. Per-game average for the 2010 SEC Tournament was 9,698.

Memphis’ AutoZone Park, home of the St. Louis Cardinals’ Class AAA affiliate, has a capacity of 14,320 and was ranked the nation’s top minor-league stadium last year by Baseball America.

Capacity for baseball stadiums for the other cities bidding for the SEC Tournament are 11,000 for Jacksonville, 10,000 for Duluth, 8,480 for Jackson and 7,000 for Montgomery.

SEC athletic directors will vote on where to host the SEC Tournament beginning in 2012, and Mattox said a final decision probably will come in December, the News reported.

Van Horn said Hoover “has done a great job” hosting the SEC Tournament.

“On the other hand, I think it would be good to move the tournament around, like the SEC does with a lot of its events,” Van Horn said. “It would be nice for our fans to be able to attend the tournament closer to home in Memphis than to have to travel all the way down to Hoover. And I think Memphis is good central location not only for us, but for a lot of other SEC schools like Ole Miss and Mississippi State.

“Maybe we could just move the tournament to Memphis for a couple of years and see how that goes. I think it would do well there.”

Van Horn said while he’d like to see Memphis get a shot at the SEC Tournament, he expects the event to stay in Hoover.

“I’d be surprised if the SEC moves it out of Hoover,” Van Horn said. “You just get the feeling that’s where the SEC wants to have it.”