PEORIA Ill. (WMBD) — More than 10,000 fans filled the Peoria Civic Center Sunday for the Bradley vs Drake Missouri Valley Conference regular season title.

The Bradley Braves are conference champs for the first time in 27 years. With those thousands of fans packing the Peoria Carver Arena, local businesses also benefited from the packed arena.

“It’s the hotels the restaurants all of our partners seeing activity, there were Bradley sweater vests everywhere. We had a home show at the same time and the home show had a nice bump because folks would go spend some time in there before the Bradley game, so it was great it was just a wonderful day for the community,” said Civic Center General Manager Rik Edgar.

Bradley will play in the MVC quarter Finals in St. Louis, Friday at noon.