Come play in our town

The St. Louis Rams football franchise is a major sports draw for the city.

Courtesy St. Louis Sports Commission

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By Dan Dickson

In St. Louis, the convention and visitors commission likes to tag its marketing messages with the slogan “St. Lou Is … All Within Reach.” It touts the convenience of the city, located in the middle of the country.

“There are four interstates that converge downtown under the arch,” said Gary Schurk, director of sports sales for the commission.

The same selling points pitched to St. Louis tourists are pitched to sports event planners. St. Louis may be big, but unlike major East Coast or West Coast cities, the commission tells sports planners, the city has affordable hotels, restaurants and attractions. “We understand what the needs are of out-of-town event planners,” Schurk said.

Convention and visitors bureaus are really into sports. You’ll find that enthusiasm in big cities working to bring National Football League and NCAA-caliber events to their mammoth stadiums and arenas, and in small cities that happily lure softball, bowling or fishing tournaments.

Decatur, Ala., hosts a number of youth and collegiate soccer events, including the Southeast College Showcase. Courtesy Decatur Parks and Recreation

Even in the current down economy, millions of dollars are to be made in communities with the right combination of location, venues, hotels, restaurants, transportation networks and things to do. It’s the great migration of disposable sports dollars from one community to another.

CVBs strive to present sports planners with services they need while pushing their communities to invest in the new facilities and infrastructure needed to make sports destination experiences shine.
 
To stay abreast of the sports travel industry, Schurk and his CVC cohorts haunt trade shows staged by organizations like Travel, Events and Management in Sports; the Amateur Athletic Union; the Amateur Softball Association; the United States Sports Specialty Association; and many more. Each gathering provides ample opportunity for networking and idea swapping.

One recent success tallied by the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission was collaboration with neighboring St. Charles, Mo., to attract the Black American Softball Association for its 2010 and 2012 World Series.

“It was a significant effort that took two adjacent communities because of the bid fees and venues involved,” said Schurk. “It helped to have some bid fees available, because many of these organizations look for assistance with that.”


A private commission
Like many large cities, St. Louis found that sports are too big for its CVC alone, so an independent, privately funded commission was formed to pursue big-time sports events.

“Our strategy is to go out and find major, high-profile sporting events that are going to excite our region, bring visitors to the region, create an economic impact and put St. Louis in the spotlight nationally,” said Marc Schreiber, vice president of marketing and development for the St. Louis Sports Commission. “We are looking for events that matter to our community.”

Since it’s funded by the private sector, the sports commission relies on the corporate community for support. “We need events that excite those key constituents,” said Schreiber.

Kentucky town rolls out red carpet for visiting athletes Bowling Green played host to Kentucky's Girls Sweet Sixteen basketball tournament. It’s nearly midnight as the softball team’s bus rolls up to the hotel where members will bed down for the night. Coaches and players don’t know a soul in town; it’s a lonely way to travel and play amateur sports in America. But if that team had arrived in Bowling Green, Ky., a contingent of sports lovers sponsored by the local convention and visitors bureau might have been waiting to welcome them to their city. “My town has sports-crazy fans. They love their community and love to share it,” said Amy Cardwell, sports sales director for the Bowling Green Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. Home to Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, population 51,000, is sending the country a message: that it really gets sports and wants to host more events, said Cardwell. The CVB uses hosts to help players, coaches, athletic directors or school principals maneuver easily in their town. In 2009, Bowling Green hosted the Kentucky Girls High School Sweet 16 Basketball Tournament, the state championship. Hosts greeted each of the 16 regional teams with gift bags, lined up practice facilities at local schools, provided a meal and helped in other ways. They even donned the team’s colors and cheered them on at the arena. “We hosted the Pike Central team from Pikeville, Ky.,” said Dan Rudloff, a local attorney. “We got to know some of the players. We are very fond of those girls, just a hard-working, blue-collar kind of team.”

The commission brags that St. Louis is one of America’s best sports cities, with savvy fans. In 2008, ESPN The Magazine named the city the Ultimate Sports City.

St. Louis has major league baseball, football and hockey, and is also passionate about NCAA and NAIA college sports. Between 2009 and 2011, the city will see national college championship or regional action in men’s or women’s basketball, volleyball, hockey, track and field, and wrestling.

 St. Louis also hosted the 2009 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Many major motor sports events are regularly scheduled in the area. The community can thank the sports commission for its successes.

“Grassroots events are still valuable to our community, but the sports commission focuses on the really big events,” said Schreiber.


Taj Mahal of soccer
You wouldn’t think a midsize city in Alabama would have something in common with Disney, but it’s true. Although many Alabama sports organizers saw the potential of soccer in their communities as far back as the 1970s, one city did not; but it finally figured it out and went for it in a big way.

“Our city invested millions of dollars in what has been called the Taj Mahal of soccer fields, located in Decatur, Ala., population 59,000,” said Tami Reist, president of the Decatur-Morgan County Convention and Visitors Bureau. “And to be ranked with Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Fla., makes this small town feel very good.”

Decatur’s Jack Allen Recreation Complex boasts 11 laser-grade certified sports turf fields on 27 acres. The city hosts soccer events like the President’s Cup Region III Division II Championships, the NAIA Women’s National Championships, the Southeast College Showcase, the Alabama Youth Soccer State Cup and the Alabama Youth Soccer Olympic Development Program. There have been visits from women’s teams from Mexico and Argentina.

Among the running events Decatur promotes is the Jesse Owens Cross Country Classic, named for the 1936 Berlin Olympic hero born in nearby Oakville, Ala. Entrants register for the meet in a museum dedicated to the legendary African American Olympian who challenged Hitler’s claim of Aryan supremacy.

“If you’ve got a great diamond in the rough like we have in the museum, you can bring in people from all over. They get an education about the legendary Jesse Owens,” Reist said.

The Decatur CVB takes the guesswork out of travel to and participation in sports events in the area, making life easier for event planners, coaches, athletes and parents, who arrive from everywhere.

“We figure out their hotels, recommend restaurants and even industrial laundromats for washing uniforms. We have all that information here. We’ve also set up our own housing bureau,” Reist said.

The Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville is a sports event that draws thousands of visitors and millions of dollars of revenue to the city every year. By Dan Dry

Decatur also boasts fishing. “We have a good lakes region, including Wheeler Lake, part of the Tennessee River,” Reist said. In 2006, the city bought land and built a new harbor out of an old shipyard. ESPN went to Decatur to cover one leg of the 2009 Bassmaster Elite Series.

Speaking of casting for prize money, many CVBs present fishing experiences for passionate anglers. One of these experiences can be found in Michigan’s Saginaw Bay area with the cities of Saginaw, Bay City and Midland. The Saginaw News stages and the Saginaw Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau promotes an annual two-week wintertime walleye fishing contest cleverly called Shiver on the River.

The heaviest fish determines the winner. As many as 3,000 people participate by fishing through ice, from boats or onshore.

The Saginaw Valley CVB also heavily recruits soccer events at one of Michigan’s largest soccer complexes, along with bowling and golf tournaments. It also promotes arena football and hockey.
Seeing how sports attracts visitors, the CVB “compiled an extensive inventory of any type of facility or park that can hold a sports event — football, baseball, basketball and soccer, even tae kwon do, judo, dance and gymnastics,” said Lori Amo, the CVB’s director of tourism.

Information was downloaded into the Destination 3000 software system, which provides comprehensive sales, customer management and business analysis tools for destination organizations. The database helps the CVB effectively manage relationships with tour planners, industry partners, visitors and the media. The Saginaw CVB created a separate module just for sports.    

Summing up what many sports-oriented CVBs are thinking in these uncertain economic times, Amo said bookings are plentiful for the smart and persistent.

“It just makes us work harder to try to get the event here so it helps our economy. We know the events are out there. People love to go to sporting events,” she said.

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