The Southland Conference basketball championships will continue to call McNeese State home for the next six seasons, the American Press has learned.

The league has decided to extend the current deal with McNeese State for three years after the success of last spring’s event the Cowboys hosted. Last spring McNeese hosted the men’s and women’s tournaments for the first time in what was a four-year agreement.

McNeese will lose hosting the last three years of the baseball and softball tournaments, which will go up for bids.

Hosting the tournaments was part of a last-minute agreement McNeese made with Southland officials for electing to stay in the league when it was being courted by the Western Athletic Conference in November of 2021.

McNeese’s decision to stay in the SLC might have played a role in keeping the conference afloat, which was hemorrhaging schools at the time.

“Having the opportunity to host our men’s and women’s conference basketball tournaments for the next six years is an absolute game changer,” McNeese Athletic Director Heath Schroyer said.

Three games will be broadcast live on a national cable network each season.

“The ability to have McNeese showcased on linear ESPN three times during Championship Week and the ability to help the community financially over the next six years is something I couldn’t be happier about or more proud of,” Schroyer said.

SLC officials said last spring’s tournaments generated $3.6 million in revenue for the Lake Area, and that last year’s basketball championships revenue doubled that of the tournaments hosted by Katy, Texas, a neutral site.

“It was a big revenue-generated opportunity for our league,” SLC Commissioner Chris Grant aid. “It was our highest increase in sponsorships and we got a big boost from the state of Louisiana.”

McNeese put on a show that impressed Southland presidents enough for them to push through the extension.

“It was a great experience for our student-athletes and our coaches and administrators,” Grant said. “It was a real college experience to have it back on a campus.”

The league’s tournaments had been played in Katy, Texas, in recent years. As for playing it in Lake Charles, Grant said that makes a lot of travel sense.

“It is the most centrally located of our schools and is a first-class venue,” he added. “It is an all-inclusive arena and it plays into our plans to stay as a gas-tank league.”

This has the potential to be a big plus for a McNeese basketball program that has invested heavily into moving up the Southland standings by hiring former LSU head coach Will Wade in the offseason.

“It is a huge advantage to have the tournament on your home court,” Wade said. “It gives us a viable path to the NCAA Tournament.

“Everybody wants access to the NCAA Tournament. When you have to play maybe just two games on your home floor to get there, it is big. Nobody in the country has that. It is the best setup in the country.”

Yet other schools see this as an unfair benefit for the Cowboys.

“From a competitive standpoint there are some concerns,” Grant admitted. “That’s where it is up to the league to make sure we do the best we can to continue to try and neutralize those advantages.”