The ACC Tournament is moving its final into primetime.
The new tournament schedule, mutually agreed upon by ACC and ESPN, will feature Friday semifinal games at 7 and 9 p.m. ET, followed by the championship game on Saturday evening at 8:30 p.m. All 14 tournament games will continue to be televised nationally by ESPN and the ACC Network.
The Big East Tournament has long held its final in primetime on Saturday night, and now the two leagues will go head-to-head in New York once the ACC comes to Brooklyn for 2017 and ’18. The Big East Tournament is held at Madison Square Garden.
In 2015, the ACC Tournament will be held in Greensboro, N.C., while the 2016 event will be in Washington, D.C.
“This is kind of a ‘Back to the Future’ moment for our conference,” ACC Commissioner John Swofford said. “The Sunday championship game worked tremendously well for more than three decades, but I believe our schools, teams and our fans will be excited about crowning a champion on Saturday night. This will be a win-win for everyone involved – players, coaches, fans – and we greatly appreciate our television partners, ESPN and the ACC Network, working with us to make this happen.”
With the tournament now starting on Tuesday with the first-round games, the ACC regular season will conclude on Saturday of the previous weekend. Three first-round games on Tuesday, followed by four second-round games on Wednesday and four quarterfinal games on Thursday will precede the Friday semifinals and Saturday championship game.
While next season will mark the first time since 1981 that the ACC Tournament has featured a Saturday night final, there is much historical precedent. The first 28 ACC Tournaments featured Saturday championship games, 27 of which were played in evening “prime time” slots. The 1982 tournament marked the first in which the conference began holding its semifinal games on Saturday afternoon, followed by the Sunday afternoon championship game.
UPCOMING ACC TOURNAMENT SITES
2015: Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, N.C.
2016: Verizon Center, Washington, D.C.
2017: Barclays Center, Brooklyn, N.Y.
2018: Barclays Center, Brooklyn, N.Y.
2019: Time Warner Cable Arena, Charlotte, N.C.
2020: Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, N.C.
Photo: ESPN.com
