Sports Tourism

NATIONAL SPORTS

Sports Tourism: What Does It Mean for You and Your Community

By Chandler Nobles, MS, CPRP | Posted on March 13, 2023

Tags: Urban Parks and Recreation, Trends and News, Operations, Funding

Sports tourism is a common term now, but it was largely unheard of until around 12 years ago. Sports tourism is a massive industry, and one of the fastest growing sectors in tourism according to the United World Tourism Agency. According to the Sports Events and Tourism Association (SETA), sports tourism generated over $90 billion dollars in economic impact across the U.S. in 2021.  Sports tourism refers to travel for sporting events to either participate in or observe. Across the nation, sports tourism provides communities big and small millions of dollars in economic impact each year.

What are some of the first thoughts that come to mind when you think of sports tourism? On a large scale, an example of sports tourism would be the Super Bowl. Each year, the Super Bowl host city rakes in millions of dollars in extra spending from people from out of town. A large portion of the spending is from hotels, restaurants, ticket sales, and shopping due to the influx of tourists leading up to the week of the “Big Game”. Taxes from hotels, car rentals and hospitality all play a big part in the economic impact. With millions of dollars in spending coming from outside of the community, this is a big boost to local business owners.         

On a much smaller scale, sports tourism is that weekend baseball tournament that brings in 50 teams to your town. No matter how big or small, those impacts make a difference.

Many times, especially when it comes to weekend tournaments, families bring along siblings and grandparents to watch their children compete all weekend long. For those small communities, this means big-time spending. This big spending has caught the attention of city officials and recreation professionals across the country, and now is the time to cash in.

By attracting visitors to your community, additional tax revenues are generated from hotel occupancy, food and beverage sales and hospitality services. In return, communities can keep taxes low for their residents and provide additional streams of income for city infrastructure improvements. Being that parks and recreation is subsidized by local taxes, the community often wants to see the benefit of their dollars at work. Oftentimes, sports infrastructure lies dormant on the weekends and gets very little use. Parks and city officials are now taking advantage of their community assets to generate additional streams of revenue.

Attracting high-profile tournaments can bring an influx of visitor spending into your community. See how Valdosta, Georgia, a community of around 56,000, has leveraged sports tourism to make an impact in their community. Hosting big events also brings publicity by raising the profile of the city and the potential for continued tourism. By working with local stakeholders, park and recreation departments are able to use these additional funds to help make facility improvements and provide a positive impact in their community.

In conclusion, sports tourism has a significant impact on the economic growth of cities across the globe. It creates job opportunities, increased tax revenue, boosts local businesses and attracts new businesses to the area.

Chandler Nobles, MS, CPRP (he/him) is an athletics supervisor at Valdosta-Lowndes County Parks and Recreation Authority.

Economic Data

Hotel Reporting

The Loss of One Youth or Amateur Sports Tournament Costs a City an Average of $360,000 in Hotel Revenue

EventConnect | November 18, 2020

LONDON, Ontario–November 18, 2020–Today, EventConnect, the leading provider of event and sports tourism management software, announced findings showing the significant economic impact felt by cities from the loss of youth and amateur sports tournaments a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings from EventConnect’s internal database of over 4,000 events, 400 associations, 15,000 hotels, and 800 cities revealed that the cancellation of just one tournament costs a city an average of $360,000. However, the cancellation of a big tournament can result in a city losing as much as $5,074,185 in a single weekend. The US cities that have so far been hit the hardest in 2020 due to the pandemic’s cancellations are Mauston, Wisconsin; Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin; Georgetown, Delaware; Boston, Massachusetts; Fort Wayne, Indiana; and Buffalo, New York.

However, as restrictions on tournaments vary between the states, those states expecting to see the largest number of tournaments return between November 2020 and the end of March 2021 are:

• Texas (54 tournaments)
• Wisconsin (22 tournaments)
• Florida (21 tournaments)
• West Virginia (13 tournaments)
• Maryland (9 tournaments)
• Indiana (7 tournaments)
• Mississippi (7 tournaments)

Some tournaments are choosing to relocate to other states to enable travel teams to compete still. For example, in Boston, Massachusetts, some events are being moved to Connecticut and New Hampshire, causing potential Boston hotel revenue losses of over $574,848. The data also shows that most of the teams are currently traveling to tournaments from New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA; Chicago, IL; Miami, FL; Las Vegas, NV; and San Diego, CA.

Due to tighter restrictions on indoor tournaments, when it comes to travel tournament cancellations, some sports like hockey have been hit harder than others that are commonly played outdoors, such as soccer and baseball. EventConnect’s data shows that while there were 140 hockey tournaments initially scheduled for 2020, only 10 of them could be played.

“This year has been filled with uncertainty in the youth and amateur sports industry, but it is encouraging to see that sporting events are starting to kick off again, especially around the South and East Coast. I hope they will soon pick up again on the West Coast as well in a manner that ensures everyone’s health and safety,” said John D’Orsay, CEO at EventConnect. “In areas where youth and amateur sports have not yet come back, there is an opportunity for tournament rights holders to use this time to review their workflow and the technology that they use to manage events. Our highly customizable solution gives tournament organizers more time to market and produces events with a lower headcount, ultimately resulting in increased revenue.”

About the data

The report’s findings were compiled from an internal database of over 4,000 events, 400 associations, 15,000 hotels, and 800 cities. The loss of city revenue was calculated using EventConnect’s data on the average cost of a hotel room for a team at a travel tournament and the assumption that a family spends $115 per day traveling on food, drinks, transportation and entertainment.

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