Tournament Official: We Must Take Action Now, or Else

Fiscal Cliff Looms Large

(Barbados) – Calling for “shared pain” by participants across the Board, Henderson NCAA Tournament President Matt Henderson warned that the Tournament’s spending sprees in recent years were simply not sustainable without fundamental structural changes that must include revenue enhancements. “We simply cannot rely on restrained spending,” Henderson said at his “State of the Tournament” address during the third day of the Tournament’s annual planning conference and silent auction held at plush Fairmont Royal Pavilion.

Henderson painted a grim picture of the Tournament’s finances, questioning whether it could keep its own commitments related to pensions, lifetime healthcare benefits, magazine subscriptions and unaudited expense accounts for Tournament officials.  “These are promises we made to ourselves. If we cannot be true to ourselves, who can we be true to?” he said.

“Where are our priorities? When do we ask the little people…to pay a little more?” Henderson said as he outlined a tiered tournament fee package that would raise the average entry fee to $400.

“Without action by you – the Board – this house of cards will not stand,” he said.

In other news, the Henderson NCAA Tournament Executive Committee took the following actions:

  • Signed an agreement with Bounty© as the official paper towel of the Henderson NCAA Tournament. “Well, it is the quicker picker upper,” said Senior Executive Vice President for Advertising and Marketing Anthony Lisi.
  • Adopted a resolution expressing, as a “Sense of the Board”, the Tournament’s profound sadness on the 2012 passing of Lifetime Achievement Award for Comedy winner Phyllis Diller. “No one did more to advance the cause of pickles,” said Harrisburg Regional Administrator Pat Henderson.
  • Rescinded resolution 2008-2, entitled “Expressing the Sense of the Board a profound sadness on the passing of Phyllis Diller”.
  • Named Dennis Rodman Ambassador Emeritus, charged with leading the Tournament’s overseas contestant development in the Korean peninsula.
  • Designated Justin Beiber as ‘Trainwreck of the Year’. “It’s really only a matter of time…and that’s a good thing,” said Long Island Regional Administrator Sim Basta.

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