The annual summertime Gus Macker 3-on-3 basketball tournament is on hold for at least two years in the city. P-J file photo

The Gus Macker 3-on-3 basketball tournament is, once again, on hold.

A resolution was passed by the City Council at their Monday voting session, looking to amend the contract between the city and the tournament’s sponsor Collaborative Children’s Solutions. The resolution allows Mayor Kim Ecklund or another authorized representative to negotiate an amendment to the agreement with Collaborative Children’s Solutions as it has been decided that the event will not take place in 2026.

The Gus Macker tournament began nationwide in 1974 in Michigan, according to Spectrum News, and according to WRFA Radio the tournament was first held in Jamestown in 1997. The event was sponsored by The Resource Center from 1974 to 2011, and has been taken on by Collaborative Children’s Solutions following an agreement between the city and non-profit in 2024.

Ecklund said that the tournament has gotten to the point where it is not economical for it to continue at this point.

“It’s just become not economical … competing with ourselves at the same time as Lucy Fest and all those other events,” Ecklund said to WRFA after the council’s meeting. “It becomes harder and harder to, one, get the participation of volunteers and, two, get the teams to participate. So, he (Pat Smeraldo) has decided to take this year off and contractually revisit participating in a Gus Macker going forward.”

Collaborative Children’s Solutions is unable to do a one year hiatus for the tournament due to Gus Macker requiring multiple year commitments, so the tournament will be on hiatus for at least two years. The 2026 contract amount with CCS will be reduced from $65,000 to $55,000.

The Gus Macker tournament was previously held in and around the downtown Jamestown area by The Resource Center for nearly two decades, starting in 1997. After a few years in which The Resource Center had dropped its Gus Macker affiliation and hosted an in-house basketball tournament known as “Street Jam,” the tournament itself was put on hiatus. The Post-Journal, Warren Times Observer and Dunkirk OBSERVER brought the tournament back in 2017 and 2018 before Collaborative Children’s Solutions decided to sponsor the tournament in 2023. It hosted tournaments in 2023, 2024 and 2025.