Many high school basketball fans have been disappointed with the recent cancellation of the 2020 King Cotton Holiday Classic, but for Ryan Watley, the bigger picture took precedence over everything else.
The coronavirus pandemic has hit sports in a variety of ways. The situation has been fluid around Arkansas as of late, but Watley -- the chief executive officer of the Go Forward Pine Bluff nonprofit organization -- wasn't about to take a chance on having a potential outbreak by having thousands flock to the Pine Bluff Convention Center later this year.
"It wasn't necessarily a hard decision for us to make," he said. "We're looking out for the best interest of all and following what everyone else is doing. We're keeping track of the numbers and cases, and there's a lot of uncertainty about what the environment will be like in December.
"We just wanted to play it safe. Instead, we can use this time to reorganize and plan better so that hopefully by 2021, we can have the best tournament that we've had since it's been reinvigorated."
The showcase, which debuted in 1983, was once one of the more renowned basketball tournaments in the country because of its ability to attract nationally acclaimed programs and players. The event also hosted the first high school basketball game to get a prime-time slot on ESPN, which brought even more exposure.
[CORONAVIRUS: Click here for our complete coverage » arkansasonline.com/coronavirus]
The event ended in 1999 because of sagging attendance numbers. Under the direction of Go Forward Pine Bluff, it was revived in 2018.
Watley, along with tournament director Samuel Glover, attracted two teams from Arkansas as well as six teams from other states to come to Pine Bluff and take part in an eight-team field that saw Long Beach (Calif.) Poly beat Jacksonville in the 2018 title game.
Participants expanded to 12 last season, with Centennial (Calif.) -- which finished the season ranked No. 9 in the country, according to MaxPreps -- holding on to beat NSU University (Fla.) in the final. With three additional teams from the state playing in the tournament, the event saw an uptick in attendance.
Watley said more programs have showed interest in the event, but an encore in 2020 would be tough to pull off given the current state of affairs.
"It's just one of those things where something is beyond our control, and the health and safety of people is a larger priority," he said. "Of course, we were concerned about the momentum that'd certainly been generated by the previous two tournaments. So being cognizant of that, we have the opportunity to use this time to plan and market better to where people become more excited about it.
"That's the interesting dynamic about it. Sports and basketball fans, they are going to be eager to attend tournaments while adjusting to a new normal when things have a little more certainty to them. So we have a chance that with people being anxious, we can match that with something exciting such as the King Cotton in 2021."