PISCATAWAY — With a calendar of events that includes 19 men’s basketball games, 15 women’s basketball contests, five wrestling matches, two gymnastics meets and countless practices, Rutgers officials don’t have many opportunities to schedule outside entertainment for the Rutgers Athletic Center during the winter months. 

It’s why Geoff Brown had to get creative in his attempt to lure the Harlem Globetrotters to Rutgers. The Rutgers athletics chief marketing officer said he has been communicating with officials from the world-famous basketball entertainment group for nearly a year.

When a three-day window opened up with the men’s and women’s basketball team both traveling for post-New Year’s Day road games, Brown was all too eager to schedule the Globetrotters for a Sunday afternoon show at the RAC.

“We’d love to have more events both here and at High Point,” Brown said. “We have some challenges obviously with the amount of usage that this building gets. Because when you have practices, all the basketball games and now a handful of wrestling and gymnastics meets, there’s only so many things you can do. Fortunately this thing worked out pretty well.”

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The Harlem Globetrotters will bring their 90th anniversary world tour to the RAC on Sunday for a 2 p.m. show. It will mark the first time that the Globetrotters have played in the RAC since the arena opened in 1977.

“Because they’re going to schedule (Madison Square) Garden, the Prudential Center and the Barclays (Center), we were fortunate that they became available to us and we could fit them in with the events we had booked,” Brown said. “It should be a great family event.”

The Globetrotters, of course, have been entertaining for nearly a century with their ball-handling wizardry, basketball trick shots and rim-rattling dunks. After the exhibition, the Globetrotters’ star-studded roster will sign autographs and take photos with fans.

Brown said he anticipates a crowd to exceed 4,000 fans for the event.

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“It’s going to be a good-looking crowd,” he said. “We already know that we’re exposing a lot more people to the RAC. Sixty percent of our ticket buyers when we pulled the numbers were not in our ticket system. So people are going to be at the venue for the first time. Obviously the Globetrotters spent a good amount of money promoting this event for the last couple of weeks, so the RAC is listed with the Garden and the Prudential Center. That’s obviously more helpful as well.”

Click HERE for more information on the event.

Keith Sargeant may be reached at ksargeant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @KSargeantNJ. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.