Slow News Day...

This is a little off topic, but I was surprised to see an article in today's Commercial Appeal about my mom's office. So, for anyone who has ever looked at me funny when I have said that my mom works at the American Contract Bridge League, here's a little taste of what that's all about. And, by the way, my sister works there too. She's assigned to the Bridge Museum project.

Bridge aces set for ACBL championship in Memphis in 2012
Retention of league offices in area may not be in cards

By Jim Masilak

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

The American Contract Bridge League will host a North American Bridge Championship event in Memphis for the first time in March 2012.

Whether the ACBL's headquarters will still be located in Memphis four years from now when 3,500 to 5,000 players descend on Memphis Cook Convention Center remains to be seen.

The largest bridge organization in North America -- its 160,000-plus members include the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett -- the ACBL is looking for a new home after it sold its 56,752-square-foot office building at 2990 Airways to Tempe, Ariz.-based Aerotropolis LLC for $1 million last September.

The ACBL, which is leasing the building from Aerotropolis through at least March while it shops for a new office, is seeking to downsize after it shed its sales division 2-1/2 years ago.

Although ACBL chief executive officer Jay Baum said his organization would prefer to remain in the greater Memphis area, "We are taking a pretty hard look at Atlanta and Dallas and we have also looked at Orlando. ...

"We sold the building and we're weighing our options," Baum said. "We're looking at staying in the area, but if we don't find what we want or get courted heavily by someone ..."

A nonprofit group founded in New York in 1937, the ACBL moved to Memphis in the early 1970s and operates out of the former FedEx Corp. headquarters.

A member of the World Bridge Federation, the ACBL has about 72 full-time employees in Memphis, plus another 115 scattered around North America.

It supports 3,200 bridge clubs and 1,100 tournaments annually, determines internationally recognized rules of bridge and records players' all-important masterpoint totals. The ACBL's magazine, Bridge Bulletin, is printed in Memphis and has a circulation of about 145,000.

The ACBL once sold bridge-related products from its 3.21-acre site just south of Directors Row, but Baum said "We're now concentrating on our core business, which is sanctioning tournaments and member services. ... We had twice as much space as we needed."

Baum said the ACBL is looking for a 2-and-a-half- to 3-and-a-half-acre site in the 18,000- to 25,000-square-foot range. A significant portion of that, he said, would be turned into a museum to house what he described as "the largest collection of bridge memorabilia in the world."

In the spring, summer and fall of each year, the ACBL holds North American championship events that attract up to 8,000 players apiece.

Pierre Landaiche, general manager of Cook Convention Center, said that landing the 2012 spring event, which will double as a celebration of the ACBL's 75th anniversary, "is a coup for us."

"It benefits Memphis as a convention destination to have those kinds of groups in our backyard," Landaiche said. "They understand the city. They understand the attributes of the city and probably can articulate as well as we can to the attendees what there is to do in Memphis and what makes Memphis unique.

"Because of the number of attendees (ACBL) brings, it will have a huge economic impact on the city. ... This is the kind of group the (convention center) expansion was built for. Without the expansion, we couldn't host a group like this."

Baum said city and tourism officials "were very aggressive in getting a commitment from us to have it here."

"It's a big convention for the city," said Kevin Kane, president of the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau, which expects the event to generate $9 million. "Even though they're headquartered here, we've never hosted one of their events. Their national events are huge draws."

American Contract Bridge League

Top executive: Jay Baum, chief executive officer

Headquarters: 2990 Airways

Employees: 72

Phone: 332-5586

Online: acbl.org

Jim Masilak: 529-2311.