The Missouri Valley Conference announced on Tuesday afternoon that their men’s basketball tournament championship game will be aired on CBS beginning in 2006. The game will be on Sunday, March 5 at 1PM Central. To accommodate CBS, the conference had to change move the tournament back a day. In the past the MVC Tournament has been played Friday-Monday, but will now run Thursday-Sunday.
“We are delighted to welcome the Missouri Valley to our roster of championship games and to provide national exposure for the conference prior to the start of the NCAA Tournament,” said Mike Aresco, Senior Vice President of Programming at CBS Sports.
This will be the first non-NCAA Tournament broadcast of a Missouri Valley Conference game on CBS since it aired Wichita State’s 93-92 loss to BYU in January of 1989.
Missouri Valley Conference Commissioner Doug Elgin said, “This is a tremendous step for Missouri Valley Conference basketball and is testimony to our caliber of play.”
The tournament, which is played in St. Louis, averaged 10,668 fans per game in 2005, which was ranked seventh nationally. It was the second-best attendance figure in MVC Tournament history.