The CIAA is making its home and basketball tournament long-term Charlotte residents.

The league, Charlotte Hornets and Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority officials signed off on the deal at a Wednesday press conference at Time Warner Cable Arena, where the championship will be contested through 2020. Included in the pact is $100,000 to relocate the CIAA’s offices from Hampton, Va., in 2016, reduced rates for downtown hotel rooms and tournament tickets. On the basketball side, early-round games will be shifted to Bojangles Coliseum starting in 2017, which increases scheduling flexibility for the NBA Hornets.

“Because the CIAA tournament has been here so long, it seems like this is where it should be in perpetuity,” Mecklenburg County commissioners Chair Trevor Fuller said. “We’ll settle for six years.”

Commissioner Jacqie McWilliams conceded the reduction of hotel rates were key to the deal. Fans consistently groused Center City hotel prices were too expensive, and the league sought concessions, which should top out around $250 per night during tournament week. The agreement gives the league control of 3,000 hotel rooms for the week.

“You have to understand the importance of those agreements to how we got where we are today,” she said. “If those agreements didn’t work, we wouldn’t be sitting here today. They committed and they committed hard.”

Tickets and hotel rooms will be made available on Sept. 8 at the league’s website, www.theciaa.com.

“We looked at it as we’re in it together,” CRVA CEO Tom Murray said. “”We’ve got to figure out a way to make this last a long time, so we worked hard this year to make a contract that could solve some of the issues we were having.”

The CIAA, the largest single event hosted annually by Charlotte, brought $30 million in direct spending, according to CRVA data. That economic clout made a long-term deal important to both sides.

“We hope that partnership will continue to their benefit as well as ours,” Charlotte Mayor Dan Clodfelter said. “You have a firm commitment,” he told McWilliams, “from the city of Charlotte and everyone involved here to continue to support you in your next six years of venture and your permanent residence here.”

In addition, the league announced the return of its post-championship party and unveiled the 2015 tournament logo, which integrates the Charlotte skyline as the backdrop. The tournament, Fuller contends, is a major athletic and social event for Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.

“It is these kinds of events that define who we are as a community,” he said. “That we can come together – not only folks who live here but folks from different parts of our country to descend on Charlotte to spend time together, and play a little basketball, too.”

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