GLVC Saying Goodbye to Roberts Stadium
By: Import User
Updated: December 4, 2007
After nine years at Evansvilles Roberts Stadium, the Great Lakes Valley Conference is ending its affiliation with the venue. Roberts has hosted the GLVC mens and womens basketball tournaments since 1998 Financial concerns, and not the facility, is the cause for the split, according to GLVC tourney officials.
University of Southern Indiana athletic director John Mark Hall sits on the GLVC board that opted out of holding the tourney at Roberts. "It is a big venue for Division II basketball," Hall said Monday. "Its a struggle to fill that many seats."
The tournament filled the stadium in years like 2000, when Owensboro based Kentucky Wesleyan College and USI played in the mens championship game. But the rise of other basketball powers in the conference has seen attendance slip. Coupled with a decline in corporate sponsorship, tournament organizers worried about the possibility of losing money.
Despite an ongoing dialog in the community about the future of Roberts, Hall says the facility was more than adequate to handle the needs of the GLVC.
