Event organizer trying to stage Marquette hoops' game aboard USS Yorktown

• USS Yorktown

The USS Yorktown in its current anchor in South Carolina.

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MILWAUKEE - An event organizer says he’s very close to signing a contract to have the Marquette University and Ohio State men’s basketball teams play each other on a decommissioned military ship.

Mike Whalen of the Morale Entertainment Foundation said the game is tentatively set for Nov. 9 on the USS Yorktown. It’s a former World War II aircraft carrier which is now a floating museum on Patriot’s Point in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. The Yorktown is a national historic landmark – and Whalen says he believes there would be room for about four-thousand fans. He said a network must still be secured for a national broadcast, and his group is negotiating with a possible title sponsor for the game.

Whalen’s group is the same one that arranged last year’s basketball game between Michigan State and Notre Dame on the USS Carl Vinson. It was called the Quicken Loans Carrier Classic, and about eight-thousand people attended – including President Obama, who was interviewed on ESPN’s broadcast of that event.

Tags: wisconsin sports, proam, basketball, marquette, military