Another win for Norfolk's Scope

Score three points from way downtown for Norfolk.

Scope Arena will host basketball tournaments for men's and women's teams in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference for at least the next three years, officials are expected to announce today. The city's $12 million efforts to refurbish the 40-year-old facility have paid off in the form of tournaments that bring teams and fans to the city, where they spend money at hotels and restaurants.

Those improvements included revamped seating and locker rooms, lighting and sound suitable for television, and new scoreboards and concession stands.

Sports have helped keep Scope afloat even as concerts and other events have gone to newer venues.

Scope serves as the home for the Norfolk Admirals hockey team and the Norfolk SharX indoor soccer team. Two years ago, city officials offered free use of Scope to the Eastern Region high school basketball tournament in exchange for collecting receipts for admissions taxes, concessions and parking fees.

The shift to Scope and its 10,000 seats from Portsmouth's Churchland High School brought relief for fans and players who had jammed into 3,800 seats for the tourney. It also brought a long-weekend boost to businesses in downtown Norfolk.

Basketball has long been the lifeblood of the arena. Scope hosted the first NCAA women's Final Four, and its court served as home for Virginia's first and only major sports team, the American Basketball Association's Virginia Squires. Over the years, Scope's hardwoods were pounded by players from ODU, the Harlem Globetrotters and the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association college tournament.

Scope remains empty too often nowadays.

In 2010, it hosted 90 "event days." That means it stood vacant for most of the year. The addition of the MEAC tournament to Scope's roster lights up the scoreboard for everyone, from the city hoping for an infusion of folks to downtown, to the league's 13 teams that get to compete in a major venue.