Continental Tire Challenge to be played on Black Friday at T-Mobile Arena
LAS VEGAS (July 1, 2021) – Continental Tire, headquartered in Fort Mill, South Carolina, will serve as the title sponsor of the highly anticipated match-up between Duke and Gonzaga in November as announced today by the event’s promoter bdG Sports. The “Continental Tire Challenge” – which is the first college basketball event to sell out for the 2021-22 season – will feature the Blue Devils battling the Zags on Friday, Nov. 26, 2021 at T-Mobile Arena in front of a capacity crowd.
As a corporate supporter of college basketball athletics across the country, which includes a partnership with Duke Athletics, Continental Tire is a natural fit to title one of the biggest games in college basketball next season.
“There is an incredible amount of excitement surrounding this match-up as we have seen already, with the event selling out months in advance,” said Travis Roffler, Director of Marketing, Continental Tire. “We are thrilled to expand Continental Tire’s support of college basketball even further with this highly anticipated event.”
Duke returns to Las Vegas for the first time since 2016 when the Blue Devils played UNLV before a record capacity crowd of 19,107 in the first college basketball game at T-Mobile Arena. The crowd for the Continental Tire Challenge may be even larger as the last of public tickets were sold this week, nearly six months in advance of the showdown. A limited number of standing-room only tickets are now available for $50 each at www.axs.com or www.t-mobilearena.com.
“Continental Tire prides itself on ultra high-performance tires, and when you look at the match-up we have in Las Vegas – arguably the two best teams in all of college basketball next season – this title sponsorship is truly a perfect performance match, so we are excited to welcome Continental Tire to the very best of college basketball,” said Brooks Downing, President of bdG Sports. “And given the lofty expectations of both teams, the destinational location of Las Vegas and the recently announced pending retirement of Duke coach Mike Kryzewski, it’s no surprise that we have a sellout this early in the cycle.”
Gonzaga will enter next season as the top-ranked team in the country led by Drew Timme, a second-team All-American and the Karl Malone Award recipient as the nation’s top power forward last season. The Bulldogs will reload with the program’s best-ever recruiting class highlighted by the nation’s top-ranked recruit in the 2021 class, Chet Holmgren, a 7-footer from Minneapolis, and fellow McDonald’s All-American Hunter Sallis. In addition to playing in this past season’s national championship game, Gonzaga became the first team in NCAA Division I history to win 30+ games in five straight seasons, a feat made even more impressive given the shortened seasons the past two years due to COVID-19.
For Duke, every game next season now takes on greater importance after Coach Krzyzewski announced that 2021-22 will be his final season on the bench. The Hall of Fame coach enters the season looking to add a sixth national championship to his resume with a team that will include three five-star freshmen in Paolo Banchero (ranked No. 3 by ESPN), Trevor Keels (No. 21) and AJ Griffin (No. 27).
For complete information, visit www.continentaltirechallenge.com or follow on social media at @VegasMainEvent.