College Basketball’s Great Alaska Shootout Renews Deal with Title Sponsor

College basketball tournament Great Alaska Shootout, based in Anchorage, Alaska, have kept on their title sponsor Carrs/Safeway for three more years.

UAA athletic director Steve Cobb announced at a Tip-Off Luncheon that the grocery store chain has extended its title sponsorship through 2014.

This year was the final year of the current contract for Carrs/Safeway, which became the tournament’s title sponsor in 1994. Cobb said the new contract is worth a little less than $200,000 a year, down a little from the current contract.

Missing from this year’s luncheon was the once-annual announcement of next year’s tournament field. That announcement will instead come in the spring.

But Cobb said seven men’s teams are signed for the 2012 and 2013 fields — more good news for the 34th tournament, which in 2009 had so much difficulty attracting teams it shrank to six teams.

Next year’s field “is not a super field — it’s like this one or better,” Cobb said. “2013 is when we’re set up to have a super year.”