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Three national sports organizations have reached agreements with the Hawaii Tourism Authority and the Hawai’i Convention Center to hold futsal (indoor soccer), basketball and volleyball tournaments this year at the Honolulu facility.
The tournaments will be held in the center’s Kamehameha Exhibit Hall and are expected to attract teams of youth players in different age groups from outside the state, accompanied by families and supporters, to compete with teams from within the islands.
In 2017, the convention center unveiled new flooring that can convert its 204,000-square-foot exhibition hall into courts for amatuer and professional sports events. The fully portable sports courts can be configured to simultaneously stage up to 28 regulation volleyball or badminton matches, 18 high school basketball games or 11 futsal matches. The center also has a regulation NBA- and NCAA-approved basketball court with a solid wood floor.
“The Hawai’i Convention Center’s sports courts are proving to be a valuable contributor to our sports marketing strategy for the state, both in motivating groups to come here who might not otherwise do so, and also giving our local teams the opportunity to compete against teams from outside Hawaii without having to travel abroad,” HTA President and CEO George Szigeti said in a statement.
The four-year agreement with U.S. Futsal to host the Pacific Futsal Cup, from 2018 to 2021, is the organization’s first international tournament. The three-year agreement with Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Basketball, from 2018 to 2020, will bring the Jam on It Pacific Rim Championships to Hawaii. AAU Volleyball, the first organization to host a tournament on the new sports courts in February 2017 featuring hundreds of girls competing in age-group team matches, is returning for a tournament this year.
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