Citing the loss of title sponsorship, ever-increasing facility costs
and the general overall economic condition of the country, tournament
officials announced today that they will no longer be able produce the
annual Reebok Summer Championships, the nation’s most prestigious elite boy’s
prep tournament held each July in Las Vegas for the last 3 years.

According to a statement from league organizers, the tournament had featured 300 teams from 44 states and three countries at its peak and
136 teams from 28 States last summer. The Rebook Summer Championships
were produced in Las Vegas for the last three years by the same
management team that produced the massive Big Time tournament locally
from 1995 through 2006.

Building a series of summer events held annually during the special
viewing period for college basketball coaches, the Summer Championships
provided the template by which the National Collegiate Athletic
Association developed and implemented the NCAA rules and regulations
for sanctioning summer prep basketball tournaments.

“It’s hard to let go of something that we all worked so hard to
develop, but we have exhausted all efforts to secure the sponsorship
needed to offset the loss of our sponsors and without it, we cannot
operate at the level that we developed that has become the standard for
these summer prep basketball tournaments,” said Jim Allen, veteran
Southern Nevada prep basketball coach who was a co-founder of these
summer tournaments and director the last several years.

“We have a group of dedicated core workers of over 100 who contributed
greatly to the success of these tournaments over the years and helped
us to reach the stature we have, but without adequate sponsorship we
cannot provide the quality experience for nearly 5,000 young athletes
each year that we have and we will not produce an event if it is not up
to the standards we have achieved. Because we so strongly believe in
the value of this summer event and our commitment is so great, we will
continue to seek sponsorship in an attempt to bring the event back in
the summer of 2011.”

Using as many as 24 courts at 12 high schools in Southern Nevada and
headquartered the last several years at Foothill HS in Henderson, Nev.,
the events have helped hundreds of high school athletes earn college
scholarships.

Other tournaments held in July in Las Vegas sponsored by Nike and Adidas are expected to continue.