Division A state tournament moving from Jamestown to Bismarck in 2027

With Bismarck State College's Bavendick Center expected completion this year, the NDHSAA Board of Directors had another venue to host the Division A Girls Basketball State Tournament, Fetsch said. He said the largest attendance for any session for the Division A state tournament would fit in the Bavendick Center.

The Division B Girls Basketball State Tournament is still scheduled to be held in Jamestown in 2028 and 2029.

"Right now just with our data, the Division B girls tournament still has drawn more than A has all three years and is still too large to be one to experiment with in that venue," Fetsch said, referring to the Bavendick Center.

He said the NDHSAA Board of Directors didn't have any discussion on anything beyond next year's tournament.

"I don't anticipate they will until after next year's tournament just to assess it and make decisions based on the latest information they have," he said.

Fosse said she sets reservations for hotel rooms a year in advance. Coaches of participating state tournament teams call the hotels to claim their rooms on the Monday prior to the tournament.

"That coach calls and puts the rooms on his credit card," Fosse said.

When coaches called the Baymont by Wyndham Jamestown Conference Center and Water Park, Hampton Inn & Suites and Comfort Inn, she said they were informed that the rooms were canceled.

"The rooms were confirmed and secured with a credit card a year prior," she said.

Fosse said on Friday, Feb. 27, six days prior to the state tournament, she and Roaldson visited with hotels about the issue. She said one hotel guaranteed them that the rooms were available.

"The coach went to check in the following morning, and they were told the rooms had been canceled," she said. "So we were getting two different stories."

Fosse said some teams cannot claim rooms until they know they are participating in the state tournament. Four teams don't know that they are playing in the state tournament until the Saturday prior to the state tournament.

"It's impossible to set a room block months prior," she said. "This is the third year we've done this, so they know the teams are coming. There is not an issue of not filling the rooms because the friends and family will be here, and we all know that it's difficult to find a room for anybody."

David Phillips, manager of the Baymont in Jamestown, said standard hotel room blocks have a 30-day cutoff period, meaning rooms are released back to the hotel inventory 30 days prior to the date. He said the cutoff date had ended.

Phillips said Roaldson came to the Baymont to check on the rooms. He said he told Roaldson that he had rooms available but he needed confirmation that they will need to be paid.

"He specifically told me, in front of a witness, that we are not guaranteeing those rooms that the schools will book those," he said. "Then I said, you have three days. I gave them three days."

Phillips said a credit card was on file for the reservation in May. But he said the credit card was no longer on file.

Phillips said a block of rooms cannot be guaranteed with a credit card.

"If I'm charging your credit card 25 times, it's going to start declining," he said, adding that it looks like fraud. "It's impossible."

Phillips said he waited six and a half hours past the deadline he set, but nobody called him to get the rooms.

"So of course, I had to release the rooms," he said.

He said the rooms have to be released because people searching for hotel rooms in Jamestown will see that the hotel is sold out.

"So they're going outside to Valley City, to Aberdeen and picking up hotel rooms as close as they can get," Phillips said. "They're not going to even think about looking in town four days before an event. So if those schools didn't pick them up, I would not have a job the next day because half my hotel would be empty."

Phillips said room rates at the Baymont never went over $200 per night when the state tournament was held in Jamestown.

Fosse, Roaldson and City Administrator Sarah Hellekson met with hotel managers after the tournament. Fosse said a suggestion was made by Baymont officials for hotels to work together to establish a cap on room rates for teams, family and friends, establish a clear cancellation policy and have better communication with the local state tournament committee about room blocks.

Baymont officials also wanted a guarantee for the room blocks where the Jamestown Civic Center would be billed directly and held liable for unclaimed rooms that were held. The claimed rooms would be billed to the schools, and the Civic Center would be required to pay the difference.

"We're going to develop a preferred partners list," Fosse said.

Fosse said the preferred partners list includes hotels that have agreed to cap their room rates or charge reasonable amounts for teams and stand by the values that their brand represents.

"In doing that, when we reach out for our tournaments or conferences or anybody, those hotels will be recommended," she said.

Phillips said the Baymont, Comfort Inn and Holiday Inn all agreed to not charge more than $200 per night for rooms.

"We even wrote up a contract for next year or for any future reference," he said. "We wrote up a contract with the Civic Center and specifically told them wire transfer or check, no credit card on big room blocks."

Fosse said some people reserved rooms by third-party sites, which might have shown higher prices than just calling the hotels directly.

"Our hotels have no control of that or any affiliation," she said. "So for somebody to book on Hotwire or Expedia and then to contact High School Activities because they paid too much, that's basically on them. They need to call the front desk directly."

Phillips said using third-party sites can tie the hands of the hotel.

"They can't help you as much," he said. "You can get better prices sometimes, and sometimes you can't. So I always check both places, is what I do. tThe hotels always prefer you to go directly to them because we can do a lot more for the guest and stuff like that when it goes directly through us."

Fosse said Heinrich, Hellekson, Roaldson, Jamestown City Councilman David Schloegel and Emily Bivens, executive director of the Jamestown Area Chamber of Commerce, met with some hotel officials on Thursday, April 16, to present a tournament housing and hotel partnership policy. She said the policy will serve as a foundation for beginning discussions on a partnership between the local state tournament committee, participating hotels, teams, schools and spectators for tournament-related lodging.

"The goal is to strengthen our ability to retain events and potentially host ND State Tournaments in 2028," she said in an email to The Jamestown Sun.

Fosse said other events scheduled in Jamestown were also moved in the past because of similar issues with reserving room blocks.

"I have had conferences that have had their rooms canceled," she said.